Recent DJ Posts

I'm clicking through the pages on a shopping site, which lists 'sellers' - of what, I don't know. I see a picture of each seller's head and shoulders. The only one I remember, on the last page, is a Japanese woman in a high-necked shirt with a ruffled collar, with dark brown hair in a chignon on top of her head but also twisting over her right shoulder. She seems to be middle-aged with a warm smile.

On the second-last page, under the list of sellers, is a large image of a clock and a sign saying 'Radio Tokyo' on a bustling street in the evening. A caption below says 'Write to Radio Tokyo'. I click onto the last page. Three sellers pop up (including the one described above) but after a moment they disappear. This is a problem with the site that I was already aware of, so I refresh, but am not much impressed by the sellers. I scroll past. Below, under a picture of a red light flashing in the night sky, the caption says: 'Message Joe at the Observatory'.

Then I'm sitting at a sort of bar. This place is hard to describe. It's a narrow, polished wooden table, piled on one end with books and papers, facing into an empty ordering window in the wall of a bar. There are people in there and a man is sitting next to me in a rumpled brown suit. I realise I am on the street in the 'Radio Tokyo' picture. It's late at night and all the street lamps and shop lights are on, glowing golden. There is a radio on the table in front of me with several wires and jacks coming out of it, and a pair of headphones. The man sitting next to me has one earbud in and is listening. I realise that this radio is for free listening and pick up the other earbud, holding it to my ear. I think I hear something, although I don't remember what. On the radio's narrow screen is the date: 'Today is Friday, 28th January'.

Then I am at home, at the dinner table. We have some guests here. I join in the conversation with everyone and it feels like we have had this conversation before. I get up and walk around the table to pick up a large pillow and a small thin bag from under two of the chairs, and I remember it all happening in reverse. Some other time I put all of those things there.

Our discussion makes me think of that website I was looking at. I say that now there is a cost-of-living crisis, people can't afford to be choosy even when sellers are unreliable - they have to pick the cheapest option, even knowing they won't do a good job.

It's too short for a new post, so I will also include Day 29: Night of Sunday 21.01.2024

Fragment: Half-asleep, I see my mother standing over me, asking if I feel sick. She tells me not to take a sick day from school but to think of our family's pride. She says she knows I just want to skip school because I'm too lazy to work, and I'll have a bad reputation if I always blow such trivial matters out of proportion and expect sympathy. Talk about harsh!


Notes:
- First time I've used the internet in a dream? As well as other technology - laptop, headphones, radio.
- Entered the location of a photo!
- An incorrect date, if only I'd been more aware...
- Finally, I almost completely remembered a face.
- Don't take my dream advice if you are poor and looking to hire workers.
- I haven't been practicing any techniques since I got sick, so this is all I've got since the competition. I'm better now so will get back to work and hopefully recall will go up!

I always loved going back to old memories through dreams. To recreate my childhood home and the white-painted window sill with the little chips of wood in it. How it opened horizontally. To remember the shape of the bathroom rug, and that heater lamp in the corner by the floor. To use one of those old bulky televisions from the 1990s, hooked up to Broadband satellite with Nickelodeon on channel 300.

It's incredible the things we consciously forgot. We have a treasure trove of seemingly forgotten memories inside of us. As a dreamer, I take full advantage of my access to them. One of my favorite pastimes is to eat food I used to enjoy in the past that can no longer be bought. The spring rolls from my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in 2014, the sweetened condensed coffee and chicken saute from another, saag and rice from the first Indian takeout I ever went to. It was amazing. I've never had anything like it since, and may never again—except literally any night I please.

Ah, but last night wasn't pleasant. I dreamed I found an old family album. It's one I've never seen before, and it occured to me that this dream album contained all my missing photos (any that I want it to contain). That's why it looked new. It was just for this.
There's a lot of family memories I'll never be able to relive—old photos that are gone, copies of my mom's songs...
So I thought now's the opportunity. I can get back some of those memories.
I'll never lose them. I may never again hear the recordings of her voice or see her smiling face during waking, but I'll always have this album in my dream home to look at any time I want to remember her again.

I couldn't...
Just sat there sobbing in my miserable dream.
My SO woke me up, says I was acting distressed in my sleep.

Well, this entry took a turn for the sad. Whoops.

5th November 2021

Dream:

Later bit, disjointed. JC discovered he's suffering from macaquism (made-up dream thing?) after he was "enlightened", in his words, about my condition. Then, we get to start on drawing class, it's like at college/high school but different room and layout.

Earlier. In a city, L? Cobbled and semi-narrow pavements. I'm going to the bank. There's been some disaster and the building across the way from the bank looks like it's partly exploded and I want to take photos. It's night time and I fiddle on with my camera and the poor lighting. People are gathered nearby and I sort of make my way through and past them, having apparently forgotten my goal. I go far enough to find firefighters and such who are now off duty.

The sky/light is getting brighter? Not as dark now, early day. There's some kind of secondary blast and it makes me jump a little. At the end of the way there are some school kids fighting amongst themselves, blaming each other for something. I turn back after I get a small hit of flying vomit from the kids, although I did not have line of sight to what was actually going on. I go past the bank again now, noticing that it has been damaged too. At this point I remember about wanting to go to the bank but realise I can't so I carry on. I have thoughts about my family, maybe if they're wondering about what's taking me so long.

At one point, there's some villain. I get into a situation where I'm now inside the bank building and I get herded around with other people, wrong place wrong time. I mostly find all of this to be annoying more than anything else. We're made to get off the building by something like a fire escape stair but it doesn't go down far enough. A young woman just jumps down and injures herself, knocked out. I understand that would be foolish to repeat and so instead I climb down more carefully by holding the railings and effectively dropping a much shorter distance, and safely.

Then something about a hero being needed (some narration?), and sure enough a single one answers the call. It's a middle-aged man, not confident in his role as a hero. He doesn't trust that his devices will be enough. (Intrusion, partly related to my thoughts over the years about Batman) Equally, I am not very confident in this hero's ability myself. He seems willing to try, regardless.

(Recall gap?)

Some bit later on, sort of at the old home. Something in the balcony of my old room. There are weird bugs, leaf bugs, I think I tell dad. And other weird black skittering centipede things, but kind of fat. They are having a war of some kind between some spiders, big and small. I think to myself that the only answer to this will be mass destruction. I think of what chemical would both be at hand and also appropriate in terms of effectiveness.

Notes:

- I remember carrying my replica gladius around in the dream, for a large portion of it.

- The last bit with the bugs fighting the arachnids at first glance seems to relate to thoughts that more developed species or cultures may have at any point about less developed ones, say if some highly advanced species visited us or vice versa. Like many other things though, I am noticing that this is a pattern (of thought in this case) that is abstract and can be applied in a multitude of different but similar contexts; in a sense relating to concepts of macrocosmos vs. microcosmos and how they mirror each other.

- Although I didn't make note of it in my initial notes, I get the impression I was lucid for some of this dream, but I don't recall thinking of this as a lucid on waking. There were certain pre-lucid elements and it may have just been a case of higher awareness closer to the required threshold for lucidity.

- I don't know what the supposed illness JC had might have been in terms of symptoms, as I didn't notice anything specifically. Thematically, it all seemed to be a bit about the ability for someone else to understand the difficulties of some illnesses based on having their own experiences with an illness.

- Despite my low level of confidence in him and his own low level, the middle-aged hero persisted in his role. Heroism is not necessarily about bravery but sometimes maybe about the lack of freedom of choice? Plus, the role of a hero is not necessarily easy or by choice anyway? Many "heroes" the world have seen have been posthumously awarded the honour and in life were often not recognised. This dream as a whole had more themes about death (and life) than I realised or noticed at first: My friend's illness, implied to be lifelong; the exploded building with a subsequent explosion; the woman who jumped off trying to get away, knocking herself out; the hero who may face his doom, seemingly left with no choice; the bugs fighting their own wars, ignorant to a higher intelligence intent on destroying them all.
-- I feel that in the last few months I've had a lot of dreams relating to death and the state of post-death, sometimes very much in a "what if" way, all of it seemingly relating to my questions to myself about legacy (framed as: "should I die today, then...?").

I am in Dream-Prague with Saimi, showing her some parts of the city I like. She and I have both just recently arrived there, although it seems as if we’re here for entirely different reasons, and the visits just happened to coincide. We seem to be in the northwest region of the city.

The place I’m showing her now is one that not many people know about, a neighborhood of winding streets on a hill, neat rows of houses on either side of the streets – a quiet, peaceful place. The houses are covered with what look like enormous cobwebs, large enough to completely cover most of the roofs. I tell Saimi that in the early morning, when it’s misty, they shine like silver.

We then head down to the tram stop together. This, unlike the webbed streets, is a location that’s familiar to me from a previous iteration of Dream-Prague, although it doesn’t correspond to any waking-life location. On that occasion, the whole area had a much rougher vibe and was also undergoing construction. Perhaps with this in mind, I pull out my cell phone to show Saimi a couple pictures of how it used to look.

I input the password first, which isn’t my waking-life password. This one is also six digits long, and the numbers signify a personally important date – there’s a charged quality to the memories the date pulls along with it. The date is December 22, I think (although I can’t remember the year now, or precisely what the date’s significance was). When I find the pictures, I notice strings of triangular orange flags in some of them, which tells me that I must have taken them during the protests.

The wait at the tram stop is rather long (justified in-dream, I think, by it being a weekend). There’s a whole little scene here with a man who’s decided to teach his dog another song (it already knows two). It’s a large dog, but friendly: it puts its paws on me, almost knocking me over. The song he’s chosen is one of those old, popular ones most people know: it has kind of a jazz standard feel to it, lots of seventh chords and a melancholy tone. The lyrics are in German. I don’t remember what all of them are, though, and nobody there seems to know them all offhand, so I get my phone back out to look them up. While I do, a man in a red shirt sings a version of them in English – although I have the impression he only remembers about half of them and is making the rest up as he goes, and he also starts at the chorus for some reason.

Once the tram arrives, I get my ticket punched – I just have a one-use one since I haven’t been here long. The tram heads straight east, neither turning or changing height so that, as the ground level falls, we’re positioned high enough to see most of the city from above. I look out over it. I’m glad to be back here, and I’m already looking forward to walking around all these places again.

Eventually, the landscape changes. We now seem to be going through a park, which is also familiar to me. I’m puzzled at first – I don’t remember the tram going here. But I do remember seeing the tracks back when I worked in this place, and so it does make sense that it would go here.

The plot seems to have changed now, with the dream partly drawing on memories of the old wildlife hospital, a different time and place. I still used to work here, although in the dream, it seems to be mostly a long-time crew instead of short-term volunteers. It seems as if this iteration also suffers from financial issues and is staffed at about half the level it should be to run it properly. This is currently relevant since the people on the tram are now coming to work here as well, which brings it about to where it should be – in fact, it seems as if I’m taking them here for that purpose.

As we walk through the park, I lead the way. I find everybody together out back behind a building, where they're seated in rows on the ground. As I walk between the rows, I happen to glance down at my own legs and notice I’m wearing brown leather sandals and khaki pants that are cut off at the knee. Not far off is the man who’s in charge of this place, who’s grateful to have so many people coming. There’s a sense that there was once some kind of past tension between us that was wrapped up in why I left, and he’d since come to recognize was his fault. But that all seems to be over now.

There’s conversation now, and something about a ceremony that’s going to take place soon, where Rae, NC and KD’s daughter, will break a staff in two and then remake it.

3.7.21

Monday, 9/14/20, Core 2

I resembled my waking life self, although I was in a strange place. I seemed to be underground. The dirt floor was damp with pools of water and there were various discarded items strewn about. I removed a bird from a wicker cage. I think it was a white cockatoo. I was thinking of it as my pet, despite never having had or even held a bird. I wandered around and the bird sometimes rode on my shoulder, sometimes on my hand, sometimes flew short distances away. At one point the bird landed on my hand and I tried to pet it on the chest with one finger. It decided it didn't want me to and started gently biting my finger with its beak. At first I thought it was cute and was playing, but then it began to bite my finger harder. I realized I knew nothing about handling birds. I stopped attempting to pet or play with it but now it latched on hard to my finger and it was pretty painful. I regretted not bringing the cage.

After some more traveling, we ended up at a pool party, perhaps in someone's backyard. Other people had brought their pets as well, and I had my camera to take pictures. DV member MoonageDaydream made a cameo! She was recording video of a small white terrier dog, then she switched to taking video of all the animals. She shrugged semi apologetically, and told me something like, "I have plenty of footage and I want to get the other pets too. I only was focusing on the one dog because my mom was worried there wouldn't be enough footage of him."

Spoiler for Additional Notes:

Upon reading back this dream, I finally put two and two together and realized that the wicker cage, the bird, and the underground place with water and debris meant I'd been in the old text adventure game, Colassal Cave!!! So it turns out "get bird" is not so simple in practice, okay? Definitely use the cage. Maybe I'll XYZZY on back there sometime

Date of Dream: FRI 11 AUG - 2017



Dream No. 175 - Separated Sections

Dream 175 A - Graduation No Fun
The class of 2017 graduation was taking place at some unknown external venue, somewhere near the city. I was trying to congratulate each year 12 that walked past me but Ms L would constantly be talking over the top of me. I felt like I wasn't a valued part of the school community anymore. I then noticed that WB hadn't arrived yet, and I was waiting especially to greet her.

I saw that family photos were taking place across the road, right on the nature-strip. One group had just left and the next group that were coming appeared to be WB's family. The mum and dad did not look familiar at all, WB had dusty ginger hair and there was a little boy with them. As they walked across the road, I got into position to meet them. I frantically waved at them but they power-walked past me, without smiling.

As the dream progressed, I actually got lost and drifted away from the venue. Eventually, I was doing something with Jasmine and her sister, with some dog near by. I was then walking around on my own, trying to find my way back to the graduation event but would still feel lost. The dream scene then shifted to my bedroom, as if I would wake up in the morning, sitting up in bed, the room was light like sun was coming through the curtains. This part of the dream actually did feel like I was waking up in real life.

But then I sit up, look towards the window, closed curtains, and use the exact same sequence for requesting Dreamy WB's help like in Dream 167 A. The first two times, I use a standard speaking voice to say “Dreamy WB” and the third time, it's her alternate name, “Miss T”. After that is a very slight whisper of “Dreamy WB...”.

The dream scene then changes back to searching for the venue. It appears that there is now this strong, invisible energy guiding me towards the place. I know I am near because I see two teachers standing beside a set of escalators but they didn't really talk to me, rather I listened in on their conversation. I then continues towards where I thought the venue was. I can't remember what else happened in this dream.

Dream 175 B - Volcanic Panic
I don't remember completely what happened in this dream, only a small amount. There was this volcano right in the middle of suburbia that I approached. There was this poodle-like dog there and the volcano was about erupt.

Dream 175 C - Class Already Started
The dream started off with me in my bedroom but very quickly shifted to the scene of a classroom. It showed that I was already in the company accounting class. Throughout the whole dream, I am saying to myself, “How am I expected to be in class if I am still sleeping?”. I don't remember what else happened in this dream.

Dream 175 D - Spying Into The House
I was walking around the streets when I caught sight of Jure's house. I was curious to know what was going in there and so snuck to the side of the house and stuck my head into the window. There I saw Jure, sitting on a couch facing towards the kitchen and he was reading a newpaper. I then catch sight of his wife who looks shocked when she sees me. She points a finger to me and speaks to me, still with the window shut, calling me a pervert. That's all I can remember for this dream.



Dream Trophies Achieved:
- None



I only had enough time in the morning to write the majority of Dream A down, hence why there is only little detail on B, C and D.

Date of Dream: FRI 28 JUL - 2017



Dream No. 162 - Stir Fry Fruit Salad

I don't remember everything that happened in this dream. What I do remember is that I was at some formal event with the class of 2017 Killester girls, happening at some unknown place. Girls that had a particular colour schemed dress were supposed to go together for a photo shoot. I was in this group that were wearing dark blue dresses. The photographer wanted me to stand next to WB but she was complaining and making a fuss. She did eventually stop complaining though and things went on as originally planned. After the photo shoot, the dream turned me into the only one wearing a hot pink dress. I was doing some weird and crazy dance routine and everyone in the blue dresses were looking at me.

I then found myself in this random grocery store where I was finding fruit to make a fruit salad. I remember finding a lot of different fruits, even ones that don't exist in real life but I forgot what they looked like or what they were called. At the end of the dream, there was all this shredded cabbage in a small plate along with diced carrots and sour cream. It turns out that it was vegetable salad mixture. I can't seem to remember anything else about this dream.



Dream Trophies Achieved:
- None

Date of Dream: TUE 27 JUN - 2017



Dream No. 142 - Separated Sections

Dream 142 A - Find The Photos
I forgot what happened at the start of the dream. My family were staying up late at night to prepare for these three relatives that were supposedly coming down from America. My mum did say that she might even be up until four 'o' clock in the morning. I was then asked to use this photo sorting program on laptop to look for photos we could share with these people. Some times, my computer screen would glitch up when it came to graphics and so I had to call my brother over to fix it. He came and he showed me what to do... I had to select number 4 out of the five options... The glitch would put the option at 1. Although once, I tried graphics option 5 and I was in love with the cloudy look of my screen-saver. My brother did say that it was always best to choose 4 though.

I then continued through photo sorting and each time the glitch would pop up, I would always put the screen back on option 4. I noticed that this photo sorting program was attached to my instagram account. There was this notification that had popped up, a 15 year old girl from Sri Lanka started following her. I decided to see who this girl was and so I clocked on her profile. It was weird, she was identified as Sri Lankan but then she had a Japanese appearance. The dream said that Sri Lankans nowadays have more of a Japanese appearance.

After more photo sorting, my mum and come into my room, impatient. My mum tells me to hurry up and that she wants me off there soon. My dad adds that it's 2:15 in the morning. I try rushing now but at the same time I think to myself, “why rush me when you're staying up until 4:00?”. Soon I was done and headed over to the front room where everyone else was. I was standing next to the fireplace and the cat appears next to me. She then suddenly goes for my hand and is holding it in her mouth, pressing her teeth down! I use all my thought power to make it not hurt but at the same time, I am yelling for mum to come and help me. She's on the ottoman, looking down at her tablet computer. She can't hear me and so I yell at the top of my lungs, “Mum!” and she eventually makes the cat drop my hand. I don't remember what happened after that.

Dream 142 B - You'd Better Believe It
The dream started off with my driving down the hill on Jells Road on the way from the Burwood area. There were the traffic islands/speed humps that I really hated going over and it would jolt the car a lot. I eventually went to this unknown parkland that was only claiming to be called Jells Park but didn't look it it. When I got out of the car and shut the door, these girls in Killester uniform came up and started attacking me. I straight away started to call for Dreamy WB but there was no response. I kept calling and running around in circles for quite a long time.

I then ran out of the area altogether and came across this truck which I think was the school in the dream. Once I stepped into the truck, I felt like I had lost them. EL and NBr were in there and so I spoke to them for a bit. I soon saw WB stepping into the truck and so I told EL and NBr I had to go. With WB was this other girl that looked very much like her but was in casual clothes. This time I wanted Dreamy WB, so I called both the girls over and rubbed my fingers through their hair to see if there was any difference with them. I then go, “Aha!” to the casual girl, “So you're Dreamy WB”. WB then pipes in that it wasn't and that girl was actually WB's friend.

The girl then walks away and WB screws her face up at me, asking me “who's Dreamy WB”... She looks at me like I'm a mental case. I then said to her “she's just like you but then she comes in my darkest times and protects me”. That's when WB's jaw dropped, she couldn't believe what she was hearing. I then further explained to her, “she has a higher conscience than you. Her conscience is that of a dream level”. WB doesn't sound sceptical anymore and rather, she is very interested. She asks me “wouldn't she have a higher awareness than that?”. I answered “You have an Earthling Awareness, she has a Dream Awareness”. Then a group of girls came in, being led by BT and they were about to start attacking me. I told WB I had to go and she told me good luck for finding Dreamy WB.

I knew the girls were still after me but for some reason I didn't think about getting back in the car. I jogged up the other end of Jells Road and ended up in front of Wheelers Hill Shopping Centre. When I was there, the girls started to corner me. Once again, I tried calling for Dreamy WB but in a way like I had never done before... I found I was at some points, calling so loud that my voice was breaking and squealing like a little girl. It worked this time, I felt myself lifting off the ground without explanation. I turned my head and saw that I was in her arms now. Although Dreamy WB had a female energy, her appearance that was more of a male... She was wearing a skinny, red t-shirt and she had this dirty blonde, short curly hair... Her face was still like the real one though and she did not have hair anywhere else besides on the top of her head.

So she was holding me, with my head now resting on her shoulder and perching, looking outwards. As she was carrying me, she was walking back towards the area where I had come from. We were cornered and I thought BT was about to swing a punch at me but then Dreamy WB quickly turns around and tells me to “watch out”... Apparently the other girl was due to swing a punch first. But before that could happen, Dreamy WB slammed her palm into the girl's face, pushing her over and that's when I woke up.



Dream Trophies Achieved
- Rack Off Mate! (Have Dreamy WB repel 1 nightmare)
>> When she face-palmed the girl on the footpath.
- Something's Not Right (Have WB and Dreamy WB appear in the same dream)
>> When I told WB about her dreamy clone, later on finding that clone myself.



I think it was so amazing, WB's reaction when she found out about her "dreamy clone". I'm curious to find out what would happen if they actually met each other. So the dream made it so I could really tell them apart. WB's appearance wasn't messed up at all, she was even in school uniform and rather kept an authenticity of her true state as well as her true personality. Whereas for Dreamy WB, her features were messed around with a lot which really tells you who belongs where.

Setting loosely based on China some centuries ago, vaguely Ming dynasty. Two men have been speaking to a human woman about a book, but they're interrupted by a human man who is a friend of hers, of sorts - he offers to join their expedition. He has some manner of expertise to do with this book they're looking for, and if he comes along, the woman's presence would be unnecessary. The leader of the two at first is ready to agree, this would be much preferable.

But the human man then says, why should his cut be only 10%? Make it 100% - he'll keep the book himself, but translate it for them. To his mind, this would be a better deal for all of them, he expects this to be accepted. But the leader of the two is offended by his presumption and kills him, abandoning his human appearance in the process - his eyes are covered by a cloudy grey film, his teeth are fangs on both upper and lower jaws. I'm remembering a year earlier, when that human man had been doing something in a place where many books were stored, directly above where this man had been sleeping in the ground for a long time. The human woman, watching him kill her friend, blames herself - she was involved in something that happened in a market a year ago, when this man woke up.

Belle is in the kitchen of someone else's house, someplace that has servant quarters, and she's found a jar of a certain weed that's been spilled - it's not something that should be used for cooking, it's dangerous, causes disfigurement. The implication in finding it spilled across the counter is that a servant was carelessly exposed to it. It's said that it only affects those who say rude/cruel/insulting things while holding it - a physical disfigurement to reflect a disfigurement of the soul. She calls Rumplestiltskin to dispose of it safely, and to look into what it was doing there.

As he removes it, he looks around the building and sees old photos and negatives of him and Belle among various trophies that the owner of the house has collected - there's a sense that these photos are things that were stolen from him. He looks at one in particular, a moment when he'd stopped Belle from saying that she loved him. He regrets this, and says he would listen now. She says, "I would have meant it then." And wouldn't now, is the implication. But she stops him from moving away from her by grabbing him roughly by the hair.

She tells him her plan is to find her ideal world this time, with the money that Regina left her, and with him, as they're stuck together due to a previous deal. He reminds her that he's no longer capable of appearing human, which will cause difficulties in many other worlds. "I'll work with it," she says. A previous deal requires him to leave at least a piece of himself in this current world, and I see an image of his hand chained to the sand, in the surf.

I'm talking to a little boy, elementary school age, while possessing the body of his older sister. He's upset with me/her because (prior to me possessing her) there was a baby photo of him that she'd shown to others. But she'd been using an edited version of the photo, cropped so that he was the only thing in the picture. The original photo was from the crime scene where they'd been found, and he'd been lying between the bodies of their parents. He's upset that she would take this image, remove the ugly parts, and present it to others as just a normal baby picture.

This takes my host completely off guard. She hadn't thought of it from that angle, even while she'd edited the photo to make it acceptable to show to others. She's emotionally attached to the photo as a whole, it's something to remind her of her family from "before." She used to look at it and dial what used to be her mother's number, listen to the answering machine - there's no answering machine at that number anymore, but she'll still dial and hang up just out of habit, the familiarity of that number displayed on her phone.

Sitting and talking to a girl. She has a picture that she shows me. It has me, her, my sister and another girl when we were younger.

Next to me, Randy (an old classmate) wants to see, but the girl won’t show him for a while.

Then we’re telling stories of how we were child stars. I was a voice actress for some anime.

Something about climbing some ladders to prove something.

Asking her if she remembered a show with something in it. (Kamen Rider-like)

Sailor Moon’s VA sounding really high-pitched as she VAs this char.

I go find a stack of old things to show off, but there’s not much and I think the other girl did more work than me.

I'm in a garden, speaking in Russian with a very old human man in a wheelchair. We have an arrangement. I'm to kill him, but as he puts it, without ugliness. That he wants his death to be smooth, I have no problem with, but this ugliness he's referring to isn't about his own death, it's about preserving his image of me, or rather what I represent to him. He says I'm a man who should understand this, unlike that brother of mine - he uses a word that my dream doesn't bother to translate aside from noting that it's uncomplimentary. The old man wants to believe in the existence of a creature that's above all the things he dislikes in humanity, an embodiment of death without ugliness. I'm disgusted and feel illogically betrayed by hearing this from him, a man more intimately acquainted with violence than any human I've ever known - he of all people shouldn't have any illusions about this. It's hypocrisy.

As he talks we move indoors, to a dimly-lit room that's kept very cold. He has a selection of alcohol lined up before a mirror, and I go to pour him a glass; as I do so I see a small portrait of a blonde woman, which I pick up. A woman who works for him, who's been pushing his wheelchair, urgently asks me to be careful with that. I recognize the image as his granddaughter - she's how I met him in the first place, years back. He laughs and corrects me, and he says this in English: "Vivian. Her mother." This startles me, and I examine the portrait again - I would never have guessed they weren't the same person. Her mother had died before I met her.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

While using a spell to pull out some relevant books and scrolls from a collection, one of the books that comes to me is titled "The Unbeauty of Life," by a Japanese author.

I'm running up several flights of stairs, spiraling upward through a ruined building, piles of rubble around; I should have fled the building with the others when I reached the first floor but instead I kept going upward, thinking of the woman I'd originally come here to track down. As I reach the upper levels I find her laboratory, with her books scattered on the floor, sarcophagi in rows. The next level above that is devoted to "the theatrical vampire," complete with red stage curtains hanging on the wall, full of what I think of as romanticized images from stage and screen, and as I look at it I remember the sound of her laughing. There's one more floor above this.

Dream - Lucid


Something about two guys.

When I woke up, in the middle of the night, I told myself I'd remember this dream. I think it's time to start keeping a notebook beside me again to take brief notes between awakenings...

~

I was swimming in an in-ground pool with my friend Courtney S. It was sunny and beautiful outside.

I then remember thinking about my wedding photos, and whether or not they were edited yet. I was in line to speak with my photographer, who had just gotten back from vacation. When I saw her at the front of the line, we were inside and she was sitting behind this counter/podium. I said hello to her, and something about the photos. She smiled and was excited when she responded, but I don't remember exactly what her response was, though I feel as if I misunderstood her, thinking that she had finished editing the photos. I saw her handling photos, many of me when I was a child. I "remembered" them being in an album at my wedding for the guests to look at, but I did not see any photos from the wedding itself.

I remember doing more things involving my wedding, though I can't remember much of the specifics. My old work friend Nicole may have been there at some point.

Then, I was hanging out with someone I knew when I was in elementary school, Alex H. We were having fun, I don't remember what we were doing, we may have been swimming. I had a feeling he was ready to leave. I asked him if he wanted to stay longer, but he said he had to go. I understood. We had a good time, and I was not disappointed that he wanted to leave.

I then was waiting in line to ride some really fast indoor roller coaster with some friends, though the only one I remember knowing was Courtney S. It was a ride that usually had a very long wait time. I remember the colors being shades of purple and blue with dim lighting. The ride had something to do with the photographer/photography, though I couldn't tell you what the connection was, other than the photographer was the ride operator. Though this photographer was not my original one, but she was someone that my wedding photographer had hired. It was a woman around my age (25) or maybe a bit younger, and she looked very bland; her face had a blank, dull look to it. I remember hearing an old woman asking her a question, and her responding with a quick "No". The woman asked her another question, and received the same response. I walked away before I could hear any more of the conversation.

Anyway, the negative photographer (ha, see what I did there? ) was standing behind a podium, though this time it was a roller coaster operating panel. We did not wait as long as I had remembered waiting for the ride before. At the end of the ride, you would win a lot of coins, mostly silver coins like quarters and such, because it was apparently also some sort of race. One of my friends in the dream, a short, chubby girl about my age with a dirty blonde ponytail and round glasses who resembles Kristin, a girl I met at at my old job IWL, said that if you were on the last cart on the roller coaster, and you finished last, somehow cheating the system, you would win double the amount of coins as the winner.

We were then boarding the coaster. I got on the last car on the train. The shoulder straps came down, and the train started to move up. The chubby girl then jumped from somewhere on my right into my car with me. She was trying to cheat the system to get more coins.
"Get off!" I said to her, more than once. I was concerned about her safety.
She finally jumped off as the train was moving towards the main track. She jumped onto the last bit of floor left beside the car. When she jumped, the train was moving a little faster, so she had to run a little after she landed, and came very close to falling off the edge.

The ride was very fast, but very short. I had remembered it being a longer ride, and then I figured out why: The photographer who had run it the last time was the main photographer, the one who shot my wedding. This other girl was just trying to get us in and out of there as quickly as possible.

I then was at a machine that was dispensing the coins to those who won. I cupped my hands under the dispenser, and it started to pour coins out. I had quite a few, just enough to overflow my hands a bit.

I remember the chubby girl had gotten on a car behind me so she could cheat the system.

Remembered much more from last night than the past few. Just goes to show how journaling your dreams really aids in the recall of them. Hoping to step back into lucidity more often again, especially with the new mindsets that I've adopted. I'll keep you guys posted.

Friday: A mountain "full of fog, 'wolves' and 'sheep'", where a woman who'll wind up becoming a historical figure is setting out to show the other side that some of their 'wolves' have deserted and are now helping her guard the 'sheep.'

Today: A guy in space, traveling toward Earth along with many, many other ships in some kind of race, the ship he's in seems made up of many different old parts, pieces are falling off along the way but he seems to have expected that. He's full of rage. There was something to do with lots being drawn, and his younger sister had been one of the winners, which would have meant she was safe and wouldn't have to take her chances in the race with the rest of them, but her parents (from whom he's estranged) had convinced her to give up her slot, that she must live or die and "become ashes" with them, so that they wouldn't be separated in the next life and lose her forever. She told him about this as he was looking over her ship for her, and he found something wrong with it, something that had been sabotaged, that would prevent him from communicating with her after the journey even if they both survived. He fixes it, and is furious.

Still the same storyline - there's a woman somewhere "left behind", the place all the people in the race and the lottery were abandoning. She wakes up with a gun next to her - not hers - and sees someone who says something to her. She, outraged by what he said, says "I don't look like a nice person to you?", and shoots him. Her logic being that if he couldn't recognize a good person when he saw one, he must be a bad person. As she shoots him, her face changes in some subtle way, something to do with her teeth, and I'm aware that in this place, now, people physically change to reflect their actions, and this is part of what the others were escaping from.

A conversation between a man and a woman in a bedroom as she's tying sheets together into a ladder, preparing to escape:
He: "I thought you might have missed it."
She: "Missed what?"
He: "The window."
She: "I can't miss the window. You're my destiny - war."

After an incident with a robot - it appeared human and was programmed to act as a caregiver to a group of four kids, something had gone wrong with it and put the kids in danger. Now someone's complaining to someone else about it - one's in law enforcement, the other's in politics, not sure which one is which. The one listening to the complaint responds, "I believe I oversaw the (something). And (something) to call in some backup." But when she says 'backup', she's not talking about something official. I see an image of two guys, not in any kind of uniform, one's scrawny and one's a little overweight, they have some connection to photography, possibly the press - they're the 'backup' she was referring to.

ASOIAF-based. Jaime's face is covered in burn scars on one side, recently healed; Cersei's pale and has something wrong with her skin, grey spiderweb patterns in small patches on the sides of her face, wearing widow's black with a high collar. Jaime's sitting down next to his uncle - whose face is also scarred, on the opposite side from Jaime, from a cut from a weapon that left a permanent hole through his cheek - and he's saying "Look at us. Three grotesques." He's not including his uncle in that; he means the three siblings, specifically in their role as Tywin's heirs.

He folds his hands on his chest, and something strikes me as odd about this; I focus on his fingers and feel like there's too many of them. (For reasons that were obvious once I woke up.) He says, "We remember (name of some famous military tactician)" - and then says some quote relevant to their current situation; as a disembodied observer, I'm less interested in the quote and more interested in why Jaime's saying it. I'm thinking that this time period, immediately after all three Lannister siblings had become disfigured, ended up being when they really started to come into their own; that Jaime specifically became serious about various responsibilities that he'd had little interest in up until now, became more philosophical, and wound up distinguishing himself as a tactician.

Jaime's still talking - he's just mentioned a prophecy which includes a mention of monogamy, and he sneers at the reference, and says something along the lines of 'if only I could get me a good prybar' - he's stuck in an engagement he desperately wishes he could get out of, but which he's resigned to.

I'm leaning against a wooden fence, wearing a heavy fur coat and digging a bullet out of my side with my fingers, blood all over my hands. It can't kill me, but it's unpleasant. I'm saying to someone, "Wish you hadn't come." Didn't want them to see this.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

Fragments: A photo of a small island containing 6 towers arranged in a hexagon, with a wall around them so that they can't be seen from the water; the photo's accompanied by a note mentioning Florida and Puerto Rico. A girl with a shapeshifter for a brother. The word supranatural. Song lyrics: "Feed on the sickness." Dialogue: "You're familiar. I'm just glad to see familiar-"

Five teenagers heading to an abandoned playground; three of them are aliens in human form, and they need to go somewhere isolated to temporarily drop the disguise. The other two are humans, their girlfriends, in on the secret. One of them has seen this before, but for the other, Laurie, this is new; although she knew her guy was alien, actually seeing it is a shock. She sits down on a bench attached to a picnic table, and she's thinking about when she slept with him. The other girl, the one who's seen this before, is watching her and feeling sympathetic. The boyfriend comes back over to her and asks what's the matter, except English isn't really compatible with his mouth in this form - he's something vaguely like a very large spider - so "What's the matter, Laurie?" sounds more like "Wassama'ar? Lau-rie?" The other girl comes over and puts her hands on Laurie's shoulders.

Rumpelstiltskin/Gold has a daughter. She's building a snowman in a park with her mother, along with a large group of other parents and children doing the same thing; Gold's not there, but he's using magic to talk with her from a distance, now and then. She's named her snowman Lefty. It has 3 left arms, one of them with a hook. But while she's not paying attention, one of the other mothers breaks Lefty and uses it as materials for her own kid's snowman. This doesn't come as a surprise. Gold's daughter isn't treated well in this town, she's always ostracized. Gold, hearing about this, starts to encourage her to (do something I no longer remember.)

While he's encouraging her, Rumpelstiltskin has a flashback: in his castle, with Regina in full Evil Queen mode. He's ranting about some Council which he blames for manipulating him into becoming the 'evil creature' he is today, and which he's now turning against. The rant has a reap-what-you-sow kind of theme. Regina had been on that Council up until very recently and is encouraging him in this; she's the one who informed him how he's been played.