All DJ Entries

This is a memorable dream from a couple of months back I thought I had listed up but apparently didn't. Worth listing anyhow. (Note: I have a gazillion ones I could list but my dreams are so nonsensical that I rarely do)

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So I was on this field with a few of my close family and friends. A couple of trees and a grassy ground. There was this slight hilltop. I approached it. On the top there was this ancient looking well, built from big stone blocks that had vegetation growing on them. I hear faint whispers from the well. I summon a couple of my family members to listen too. They too hear it all. Soon, my vision blurs, and we are sucked into the well.

We find ourselves on the floor of a big cave. There's a couple of hallways leading somewhere. And the well is still visible upwards. We pick one of the hallways, which is not cave anymore, but rather a mayan looking underground structure. We continue walking through it and hear the same whispers throughout. At some point, the voices got louder. The voice was a loud low pitched male sound with a sadistic tone to it. It informed us that we were there and stuck, and that he was going to play games with us.

So we spend hours wondering around while the voice with his powers traps us in individual rooms, tortures us, and releases us and so on. The thing says he'll give us one chance to get out. We are going to have to play ball with him, literally. There was this game of what was kinda like football, but all moves allowed, where the voice summoned living statues, again in the mayan artistic style, to act as players on the field in the game. A friend of mine scores and the entity lets him go. We continue playing, and ultimately loose, resulting in us being tortured to death by the stone giants beating us down.

[I have been writing DJ entries throughout June, both by hand in a paper journal and in a document on my hard drive. I feel like working on bringing my online DJ up to date tonight, so I'm going to.]

Night of June 5-6

I'm in a bedroom that resembles the one I had at House #2, but isn't exactly like it. I'm getting dressed, and my mom is in the room. I explain to her that I don't own any khakis or chinos, only jeans and black pants. [This is almost, but not quite, true in real life. I do have some khaki capris, but only one pair.] In a drawer, I find a couple of pairs of khaki capris, one pair of which is a light brown with a pretty, darker brown pattern of flowers and leaves on it. I think they might be too small for me, but I put them on anyway.

Night of June 6-7

A woman is being held in a dark, underground room. She's being tortured by having her hands bound together above her head in such a way that her elbows are being forced to bend the wrong way. She laughs and is good-humored about it, but this is just a facade to hide the horrible pain she's in. Other torture goes on, with torture implements, and other scary things happen [but I no longer remember the details]. All of the events of the dream unfold visually, but are accompanied by ongoing, simultaneous background narration provided by [a novelist whose audiobooks I often listen to]. The events are are all part of one of his novels, which I'm listening to. [I've been listening to his stories all these years, and they're just now giving me nightmares? Actually, I think I know why this might be: Now, I actually have a visual image in my memory to go with the concept of 'torture implements.' I got this visual image from seeing “Limitless;” that scene freaked me out, and I had to look away. That fact, plus the fact that I was really anxious about real-life stuff as I was going to sleep on this night, most likely caused the nightmare.]

Night of June 8-9

I instinctively realize that I'm pregnant, with twins, while I'm out and about, doing something. Later, I go to a hospital because I think it's my time to give birth, but it doesn't happen.

[Different scene.] I'm with a bunch of my friends, cleaning up the mess left behind after some big event in a large, indoor area. Cleaning up includes gathering together, sorting, and storing all the leftover pens and markers that were being given away at the event.

[Yet another scene.] I'm going to the hospital for a checkup.

At some point [I don't remember in which scene it was], I put my hand on my lower abdomen to feel the small bump that's starting there, and think about how I should stop drinking soda and eating unhealthy foods. [This dream felt very real while I was in it, so much so that when I woke up and recalled it, I went, “Wow, all that was just a dream? Whew, that's a relief!”]

DELETED

Chocoholic
I am at Subway, it seems I have found a job working there. I am cleaning up some things in the back room, and I notice the ovens where the cookies are being baked. The timer goes off on one of the batches, so I open it up and look inside. The cookies smell wonderful, making me instantly hungry. I look around and confirm I am alone in the back room before taking one of the hot cookies and eating it very quickly, eating it before anyone can come in and catch me. It is delicious! I take another cookie and eat that one, as well… and a third. I decide I'd better stop before I eat the whole batch. I continue cleaning and then I find a fresh batch of fudge. I get myself a drink, the drink looks like one of the slushies sold at Eegee's, and then I drink a bit and help myself to some fudge. I am eating my third piece of fudge when I hear someone come in. I stick the fudge in my drink to hide it. The man who entered is the boss, so I am glad I hid the fudge. He is suspicious, though. He says he will taste my drink to be sure I'm honest. He tries it and then gets annoyed. He asks if no one had told me that he checks the drinks to be sure there isn't any stolen fudge in them. I say no, no one said that. I'm in trouble. He says then he will tell me how things work. I had better make sure to have my drink acceptable when he comes to test it, and that means more fudge! Put two more pieces in there, at least. I add fudge. He drinks some more, then gives the rest back to me. I finish my shift and leave. I decide to jog home, to work off those extra calories. I hate to jog…

A World Without Hope
I am in a dark place, I look around and it seems like everything is just animated, everything is just painted onto a fake background. There are people around me, but they are all just robots. They move like robots, talk like NPCs from video games, saying the same things over and over and over again. They never change their behavior based on what I do or don't do, it seems like nothing I do makes any difference at all. As I explore this place, all of the fake painted backdrops start falling down and breaking apart, leaving me in the middle of a vast empty void. Nothing exists in that void, nothing there is real. I am not real, at any moment I may completely cease to exist…

Bottomless Abyss
I am in a cold and dark place, there is only darkness in all directions. I am floating in the center of an infinite dark abyss, there is no sky, no ground, nothing at all to get my bearings from. I can't tell which way is up or down or to the sides. I move a bit and find it is like I am underwater. I figure I can find the surface pretty easily. I blow a bubble to see where it goes. It doesn't go anywhere. It floats in the endless darkness and pops, which seems weird. I start swimming in what feels like the upward direction. It feels like I am getting absolutely nowhere. I try to swim faster, but the idea of getting anywhere is seeming completely hopeless. I try to keep swimming but it seems as if I don't even have a physical body. As if I am completely dissolving into the surrounding black water, into the black abyss. I am nothing, I am the abyss.

End of Days
I am at the dinner table having dinner with several people I know have passed on. My brother and my grandmother are both there with us, we are eating what looks like a Thanksgiving dinner. We are all eating and talking in a happy way, things are like they always used to be when all of us were together. I don't notice that this is odd, but I am happy with the situation, enjoying their company. After dinner we go our own separate ways, I leave in the car to go visit Tigress. My brother is taking my grandmother somewhere, and my mother is staying home. On my way to see Tigress the entire place starts shaking, it is a massive earthquake… in Tucson?! The ground is cracking open, buildings are collapsing… everything is in chaos. I turn to head back home to check on my mother, but I am almost to Tigress' house by now and I stop by there. Her house and family are ok, though their neighbor's house has disappeared into a huge crevasse. Tigress comes with me when I head back home. Cars everywhere are in wrecks, I have to take the long way to get home. I get pulled over by cops. I am told that my brother and grandmother have been in a wreck and are dead. My house has fallen into a crevasse and been submerged in lava… my mom is dead. My kitties and puppies are dead. Everything is gone, what is the point in going on? I look up and see the moon is out during the day, it looks huge. The cop says that's what is causing the quakes and disasters everywhere, the moon is going to collide with the Earth. Is anywhere going to be safe? He says probably not.

Meteor
I am in my house, my mom and I are quickly gathering everything we can into the cars to head for a shelter. There is a giant meteor heading for Earth, and the shelter is the only chance we have to survive. We get the animals all loaded into my mom's car somehow, and mine is full of a bunch of our possessions. I am driving after my mother towards the shelter. I happen to think I need to check on my friends in the area to be sure they are getting to safety. I head towards Tigress' house, since it is closer to where I am right now. I find she has gone up to Mt. Lemmon for a hike. I head up the mountain, wondering what she is doing up the mountain when there is a meteor coming. That's the worst place to be at a time like this! I am driving up the mountain to try to find her. I see the meteor in the sky, it is getting closer. I wonder if there will be time to get to the shelter. I have to find Tigress first and also check on Alicia, do I have time to do that? I have to have time, I will make time.

Deadly Beauty
The Earth is host to visiting aliens from outer space, or maybe from another dimension. No one is entirely sure. These aliens are truly beautiful to look at, they are ethereal and floating in the air, formed up of a substance that looks simultaneously liquid and crystalline. They move with a fluidity and a grace that is practically hypnotic. They communicate mostly telepathically, but they sing in an auditory manner. Their voices are beautiful, as ethereal as their forms, as hypnotic as their forms. There is one man who is trying to communicate with them more than anyone else, he is a sort of liaison between humans and their race. Everyone looks to him to find out what the aliens are up to, what they are trying to communicate. He also seems to be totally mesmerized by the aliens. He is responding to the aliens as if he was their servant. He starts cutting the tips off of his fingers, crying out in pain as he does that. He asks the aliens verbally why they want him to cut off his fingers… they sing as a response, he keeps cutting himself. I try to make him stop doing that, he stabs himself in the gut and proceeds to disembowel himself. He lies on the ground coughing up his own blood, dying. The aliens are singing to me, telling me to cut my toes off. I figure I can block their music with my own. I use Metallica at high volume. It is effective. It also seems to disorient the aliens. I head back and tell others what I have seen, they don't seem hesitant to believe. Everyone will now use loud music as a defense, the deaf are naturally protected, and we will be able to fight back against these intruders.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

A group of young men sat in a basement room like in some kind of church or school. The walls may have been red bricks. There were windows high up on the walls, letting in plenty of natural light.

The young men sat in a group of folding chairs arranged in a triangle near the left wall of the room. A group of older men entered the room. They sat inn a triangle of folding chairs opposite the men. I saw all this as if my eye level were at about seat-level with the chairs and as if I were between the two triangles of chairs.

The young men had apparently served during some war in the role of torturers. These young men had actually tortured the old men. But now the two groups were supposed to make peace and be friends.

One of the young men asked the old men a kind of silly question about art or movies. One old man didn't want to hear it. The old man was kind of short, with tough, tan skin, and thinning, grey-white hair. He wore a grey blazer and slacks and a maroon sweater. He began shouting at the young man, didn't he think anything he'd done was wrong?

I now got a good view of the young men for the first time. They all projected a feeling of being very beautiful, though they were all actually kind of plain looking. Yet this feeling of beauty also created a scary feeling of calm, methodical cruelty. The men all had books in their laps, different books, as if they had each been independently reading before the old men came in.

One of the young men, a tall, pale man with thick-rimmed glasses, frizzy, black hair, and stubble, and wearing a kind of loose, pudding-yellow sweater, asked the old man a question. The young man had a pencil, as if her were going to write notes in his book.

Somehow the old man and young man got into an argument that implied that now the old men had been the torturers while the young men had been tortured.

The young man asked, "Why did you gather all of us up? Why did you carry us away?"

The old man said, "Because you looked guilty."

The young man asked, "How could we look guilty?"

The old man said, "You know, your looks. You look like a certain type."

I may have figured in my dream or just waking up from my dream that the old man meant "the Jewish type."

Note: This is another night of attempting to have a successful MILD, I believe this is the 10th night. This night I actually met with success! My goal focus was to complete a lucid Harry Potter dream with MoSh, and I did, indeed, have that dream! Here is that dream, along with other dreams that came along with my epic recall last night.

Demonic Payback
I am in a city, walking down the street with a friend of mine, my friend is a younger girl, and I feel very protective of her. I also feel she is a best friend of mine, much like a sister… We are walking down a street with shops on both sides, she is talking animatedly and seems like she is in a very positive mood. She is looking in the shops at everything from clothes to nic-nacs to books and talking about which ones she would like to have, though she is clearly under no delusion that she can have all of what she would like. As we are walking I am halfway listening to her and halfway surveying the area and everyone around us for possible threats. Soon the threat I am expecting happens, a hole opens in the ground in front of us, I see the glow of fire and lava through the floor.

Everyone around us screams and runs away, a strange arm reaches out and pulls my friend into the hole. Just before it can close I jump into the fire after her. I land on a solid ground down at the bottom of the hole where I find three demons toying with the girl. Poking at her, pushing her between them, as they are doing that they are also wrapping strange sticky ropes around her, ropes like giant spider webs. They see me and turn their attention to me, leaving the girl on her own. She is already hopelessly entangled in the sticky ropes, the ropes are also sticking to the ground, making it impossible for her to get up. I tell the demons they made a huge mistake by kidnapping my friend, and now they will pay the price. They are laughing at me about that, but I wipe the smiles off their faces really fast when I form Witchblade into a sword and cut them down where they stand. I am then able to carefully cut the sticky ropes off of the girl and open a portal to get us safely back to the surface, although she no longer seems interested in shopping, she is crying on my shoulder from the traumatizing experience.

Senseless Destruction
I am in my own house, though it isn't the home I live in right now, rather it is the house I lived in before moving here. I am in my mother's room, looking out onto the patio beside a door that leads from her room to the back yard. For some reason I am in a destructive mood. I grab a flat screen television and smash it down on the concrete, and of course it proves to be very smashable. The screen breaks open and the wreck sits there on the ground. I decide I like breaking things… I grab everything breakable I can find. Some china dishes, some of my mother's and my nic-nacs, a chair made of wood proves to be a bit harder to break but I am able to smash it against the ground a few times to break it. I smash my mother's computer on the ground. I smash a few more pieces of china dishes out there, then I smash my own laptop on the ground.

My mom apparently gets home now, she comes into the room and sees the pile of broken crap on the ground. She asks what am I doing? I say I feel like breaking things. I am smashing a book case with a chair, this is proving to be a bit harder than breaking some of the things, but it is breaking. She asks if I have gone insane. I tell her not to worry about it, this is just a dream and everything will be just fine when I wake up. She looks at me as if she is now certain that I am crazy.

Secrets Within
I am in my own house with Tigress, and we are looking for something in my closet. While we are looking at that, we notice that there is more area between my bedroom and the game room beside it than is being taken up by the closets of the two rooms. There is an unused area in there? That seems weird. We look closer at that area, we are wondering if there is a space in there that got closed off during the construction. Tigress finally finds there is a way to open one of the walls, there is a door deliberately hidden there, it's no accident. We open the door and look into the small hidden space.

There is a stairway heading down deep into the ground, which seems surprising considering I live in a manufactured home that sits a couple feet off the ground with a crawlspace beneath it. I think about that for a minute, then I figure since I have never looked under the house very well before, there is most likely a pillar in the middle of the house to accommodate this stairway. Tigress and I head down to explore the place beneath the house, and we find a small maze of passages crossing each other. There are some small rooms branching off of the passages that are set up as bedrooms and a small living area. I remember telling Nomad that if there is an emergency I don't have a suitable shelter to hole up in… now I see how wrong about that I was!

Dreams of Dreaming
I am in my living room with my mother and Tigress, and we are watching television, we are watching an episode of the series Medium about a woman who sees visions through her dreams. She is having a dream about a man who kidnaps young girls, about 12 years old, takes them home with him and rapes them repeatedly, then he hangs them upside down from a tree and beats them to death with a baseball bat. He leaves the bodies there for whatever unfortunate individual receives the shock of finding them. What a sick bastard.

Allison Dubois is having problems with the vision because even though she can see the man's face in the dream, she is never able to focus on it well enough to identify him. I am talking to Tigress and my mom about lucid dreams, I say she should learn to do a reality check and realize she is dreaming. I say that even though she wouldn't want to do anything to alter the vision in the dream, she could make an effort to remember specific details that she might tend to forget if she hadn't realized it was a dream. Tigress agrees with this idea, though she adds that Allison might unintentionally interfere with the messages the dreams have. My mother says she remembers my late brother John talking about his dreams a lot. This seems strange to me since I don't remember hearing him talk about dreams much at all.

Daytime Friends, Nighttime Lovers
I am at a hotel in a swimming pool, it is a nice day and I am enjoying the water. I am surveying the people around me, there are quite a few colorful characters about today. There is a really fat woman in a bathing suit that is much too small for her, and her even fatter husband is wearing swim trunks that are so tight on him that they look like tighty whiteys. Ok… that's something I don't need to be seeing… but it makes me feel quite skinny by comparison. I look at more people around, and I notice two couples that look like newlyweds. Or at least they are going at each other like newlyweds, and I am thinking that's what they are. Both couples look like perfect couples, pretty women, hot men, very much in love. Finally everyone leaves and I am alone in the pool. Before long, the two women from the couples come back, now they are in costume. They are dressed as very hot and sexy sorceresses from some fantasy realm, though I can still easily see they are the same women.
They get in the pool and start making out with each other. Um… I wonder if their husbands know they are doing that. Well, it turns out all of them are on even ground. Both of the men come back dressed in costumes that make them look like muscle bound freaks, the costumes are clearly meant to be comedic. I can also easily recognize them, though. The two men get into the water and start making out with each other. I figure they must all be friends and having a bisexual relationship. That turns out to not be true, however. When they all see each other, the entire group of them start fighting and cursing at each other. I am getting quite a show during my swim here…

Animal Rescue
I am in a house looking around, I find there are lots of cages with small animals in them. The main problem is that these animals don't belong in cages, they are all wild rodents from the area. Squirrels, mice, rats, and other rodents I see regularly on the ground gathering food. So why are they in cages? They should be free. I open the cages and start setting the animals free. Before I let each animal go, I take a photo of the animal on my iPod so I have a record of what animals I have set free from where.

I coax the last little animal, a ground squirrel, out of a cage and pick it up. The animal wants to be free. I take the photo of the animal, then I hold it for a few minutes, thinking how nice it is to pet. I finally set the squirrel down and watch it run up a tree. I go out behind the house and I find there is a large display made of dog biscuits. Someone has used the dog treats to build dog houses, fire hydrants, and many other interesting structures. There is a white powder all over the treats. I realize that is poison… someone wants to kill dogs! There are several dogs heading for the display, drawn in by the smell of the treats. I have to stop the dogs. I stop the dogs from getting to the treats, then I use the empty cages from inside to build a makeshift fence around it. The owners try to deny knowledge of it, but their denials are pretty pathetic. To my surprise, the rodent I was holding last seems to be impressed by my efforts to help the dogs and the other animals. The squirrel comes back over to me and wants me to pet it some more.

Death Hospital
This dream relates to the girl I was protecting a few dreams back. I know she is now in a safe place, but the enemy is still looking for her. They are willing to do anything and everything to find her. The enemies have captured some people and are holding them in a hospital, interrogating them for information on where the girl is. We have to get those people out of there. I am with a man, and we sneak into the hospital with false identities. I am searching for the prisoners, I found a place I wish I hadn't. One of the prisoners, a woman, is strapped to an operating table. They had cut off the top of her skull and they are messing with her brain, clearly they are deliberately stimulating the pain areas of her brain to induce excruciating pain.

They are also asking questions about where the girl was, I know she knows where the girl is, but she is refusing to talk. The assholes keep torturing her, but all they get out of her are pleas for death and some cursing. I break a window from the observation room and get into the operating room where they are torturing the woman. I already know there is no way to save her life, they have done too much damage to her brain… so reluctantly I grant her wishes for a quick death using one of the scalpels the assholes had been using to torture her. Just as she is dying she gives a smile of relief, reassuring me that I did the right thing. I somehow manage to get out of the room by cutting a couple of the doctors with the scalpel and making a break for it as I reach the door. I meet up with the man, he just got back from a holding area where he was able to rescue a man and a woman. We evade enemies and reach the roof where there is a helicopter. The man manages to get the helicopter off the ground, but he isn't very skilled as a pilot, so when we are being chased, he hands the controls to me. The woman doesn't think I can fly, but I prove her wrong. I stay low to the ground and fly very dangerously through a canyon, managing to lose our pursuers. We reach an airport and get on a plane, heading into the sky before the enemy is able to catch up.

Harry Potter: Sunken Treasure
I am at Hogwarts with several other people, and I am lucid. I fell asleep focused on getting to this dream, and it seems to finally be happening. A group of us are standing on the banks of the lake near Hogwarts. It is a warm day, though it isn't especially hot, and the water in the lake is still quite cold. The people in the area I recognize include MoSh, Hermione, Harry, and Draco. Hermione says she has a spell to allow Harry and her to breathe underwater. She says she knows I am MoSh's friend, but she can't share the spell since I am also on the opposing team. MoSh says not to worry about it, I surely don't need any spell to breathe underwater. It is time to start the competition. Hermione uses her spell on Harry and herself, MoSh says he doesn't need it. He says they should take hold of his fin and hold on tight. They look a bit puzzled, but then MoSh transforms into a water serpent… with fins… so the three of them go into the water, Harry and Hermione being pulled along at high speeds by MoSh.

Draco is staring at that in shock, as is everyone else. I get Draco's attention and I tell him we need to get moving. He says he can't breathe water… he whispers he doesn't even swim very well. I tell him I have that covered. I hand him a leaf of an herb, the herb tastes like mint. I tell him it will allow him to breathe underwater. He asks what it is. I tell him I've been brewing a special potion, and soaked the leaf in it, and it allows breathing underwater. I eat one of the leaves… which is just a peppermint leaf… it tastes minty. He is unsure. He finally takes the leaf and eats it. Now it is hard to get him to take his first breath of water. I practically have to drown him to make him breathe water… So we get a late start. We dive down to the bottom of the lake where the maze entrance is. The maze is a bit confusing, but we get through it without too many problems. At the center of the maze we find Vegeta is down there. Of course being underwater is no issue for him. He is talking to us telepathically. He says the next challenge is a martial arts tournament, where only the most skilled stand a chance of winning. He says he is willing to teach if we are willing to learn, but anyone who will learn from him will have to take their training seriously. There is treasure there, too. Draco and I both get red gems. We go back to the surface of the lake and find out that MoSh and his team finished first.

Note: I am starting a two month experiment based in Mortal Mist with a couple of other users, KayTea and mentalenforcer, to make a MILD attempt at least once per night for two months straight. It seemed like this would help keep KayTea motivated, and I also think I need to get more consistent lucids and recall. I used to have a lucid most every night, sometimes more, and good recall. My numbers have crashed lately, so I hope this will get me back on the right track again. This is night one. I had one lucid, though the lucid is not the one I was aiming for in my MILD. I had the dream I was aiming for in my MILD, but it wasn't lucid… well, I guess that's sort of success…

Party Crashing
I am at what looks like an office party, I am not very pleased because I have been forced to give up on looking for a game design job for the time being and I am working at a hospital data center again. This party isn't for the data center staff, it seems the hospital never really shows their appreciation for us, rather it's for the nurses. I won't argue that the nurses are important and to be appreciated, but why do us data center computer operators always get ignored? I feel entitled to some of the celebration. They have lots of cake, it looks delicious. They won't notice if a little of it is missing… so I take a piece. The icing is the best I have ever tasted short of my mother's homemade frosting!

I eat the cake, taking time to enjoy every bite. I want more… I take more… and then some more. They are bound to notice the change now. Sure enough, they notice me there eating cake and they know I'm not supposed to be there. One of the nurses asks if I'm not from the data center, I don't want to lie, so I say yes. She says it's nice to meet me, help myself to cake if I want it. I think she might be being sarcastic, but her smile is genuine. No one minds that I'm here, so I help myself to another piece of cake. If I have to work here, I'll do it on a sugar high!

Moving Day
I am with my mother and we are looking through our new house, which is nothing short of a mansion. This house is already ours, the only thing we are doing now is looking through the place and figuring out where we are going to put our stuff. We'll need more stuff to fill a house this big! Right now the seller's stuff is still in there, but it is in the process of being moved out. Movers are coming in and going out with loads of stuff. I leave on my own and explore areas that the movers haven't come to yet. There are so many rooms, I am planning on where I'm going to put all of my crap. I must have more crap than I do in waking life. My mother is telling me not to take up too much space with my stuff. I wonder why since there is so much room. There is much more room than we need… why are we moving into a place so big? We wouldn't be moving into a house like this! This triggers a RC and I find I am dreaming.

Yay! I start by flying, I head up a wide flight of stairs to the upper level of the mansion. It is the third floor, and I see there are many windows up there to take advantage of natural lighting. I want to go outside and fly. I take a chair and try to smash a window… strong window… I hit it harder and it breaks, I clear the shards out and then leave through the window. It's time to complete a task. What do I want to do? I remember working on a video game a friend and I are making, so I decide to dream about that. I look to find a place I can use to start development of the area without starting from nothing. I am still looking for that when I wake. Damn.

Eternal Dream
I am in what looks like either a small town or maybe an area on the outskirts of a larger city. It is a pleasant area, quiet with a lot of nice shops along the streets. There is a larger shopping center at the main intersection with a store that reminds me of Walgreens, and a grocery store, an arts and crafts store like Michael's, and a bank, but everything else is a bunch of smaller shops.

As I explore the place I make note of the shops. The antique shop on the corner across the street from the shopping center is exactly how I'd pictured it. Other shops along the streets include a jewelry store, a boutique that seems to sell some unusual clothing and souvenir type items, a book store that has both new and used books for sale, a martial arts dojo / exercise gym,

a community college type place, a gun shop, and a place that announces it sells everything Renissance. There seems to be most anything anyone could want, and some things I wouldn't have thought of. Cool. I am making an effort to remember this for when I get home, I can model this stuff. I wish I had a camera or something with me to remember the place better. I continue exploring, heading towards what looks like the main city. But I can't go any farther… there is a massive sinkhole? The crevice is so deep and there is boiling lava in the bottom of it… um… wtf? I head in the other direction. I find a residential area and then another sinkhole / crevice, more lava. I wander back into the area I started in. Something is odd about the gym. The exercise machines which have always looked a bit like torture devices in their design are actually torture devices.

The people working out aren't working out, they're being tortured… burned… crushed… flayed… having their bodies forced into unnatural positions… the people I had thought were personal trainers are the torturers and they are taking pleasure in every cry of pain and plea for mercy… this isn't right… I go to look for a way out of town again, and I find a small bridge over one of the crevices. It is narrow and perilous. I try it anyway. As I cross over I am attacked by fire demons or elementals or something like that, and I wake up in bed. I get up, I have my own place, but that doesn't seem odd to me. I go into the kitchen and get a drink. It's time to get up. I want to go look at the book store and see what I can find out about creepy dreams like the one I just had.

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID FALSE AWAKENING PRECOG SHARED


3:00 GMT

Gore nightmares
I had a long night of really gore nightmares. I didn’t made a huge effort to recall them, because they were so bloody uncomfortable, but some images were just carved in my memory.
First I recall being forced to watch some guy being tortured to death. A group of men crushed and shredded his limbs and while he was being hanged from somewhere, they were plucking bits of flesh and bone slowly from him, to prolong the excruciating pain. I recall making an effort to wake up from this awful dream but not being able to do so right away.
Later I recall being chased by some guys – possibly the same ones, from whom I had escaped – and they are trying to kill me with an axe. I’m inside some barn, jumping fences and what have you. They hit some innocent guy (caught in the middle) in the chest with the axe, which explodes in a shower of blood. I then fight one of the guys and get his axe from him. Then I’m forced to defend myself by using it against them. I feel really bad for using so much violence, but I see no other solution. I cut some arms and legs and kill or mortally wound them all. Then I don’t recall anything else.

8:00 GMT

Back to University
I’m at a university, which is different from the one I attended, but I still feel It's my university. I’m visiting the corridor where I used to have some classes in the amphitheatres when a group of students passes by me, freaking out, because they were in charge of booking a room for their class and they messed up and the room is now occupied with another class. Before their professor arrives, I help them finding an empty room. They thank me and go inside. I continue down the corridor, feeling very nostalgic about college life.
I am then invited to join a special class for ex-students visiting from all over the world on this special day. I’m sitting on the left row of tables a large room which looks more like a warehouse or a barn. It’s clearly an improvised classroom to welcome such a big group. I do a trick with a pencil, like making it stand up on the table, to impress a colleague next table and this triggers my lucidity. I decide to leave this place and go outside. I think about flying through the roof or crossing the wall, but end up just walking through the door, because I don’t want to disturb the other DC’s or dreamers’ dream. The professor calls for my name and either is asking me to go back to my place or for input on something. But I smile and say “No, no, I’m out of here. Have a good day!”

The hidden treasure of the Town of Denn
Outside I think I can use this opportunity to achieve the RPG goal. So I see some woods and think this could be the forest outside the Town of Denn, but there’s no town around so I must look for the real one, not settle for this weak version. But here there are no holes on the ground, no walls, no doors, nothing I can use as portal and I’m not so good at just opening portals yet. So I decide to simply spin over myself while wishing to teleport to Denn. It has the double function of making lucidity stronger.
When I stop I am on top of a hill over the Town of Denn. There’s an earth road spiralling through some stone walled terraced gardens to the centre of the town. I see farmers working, I see people taking water from a well, I see merchants, etc. People are dressed in very colourful medieval clothes, mostly in brown, green and wine tones. There’s a lot of activity going on and I would have loved to just observe it, but I must not let it distract me or I will not finalize my task. I fly down over the city centre but I only stop at the outside walls to look around into the woods. Where to look for the treasure? It could be anywhere. I decide to go to an area where the fortress walls are breached. It’s as good as anywhere else and it is the place where the forest outside is more dense. But once I’m there I have no clue where to dig. I just try to follow my instinct. I see a stone at the very end of the wall, which looks completely different from the rest. It is whitish and smooth. I clear the dirt from it and find some inscriptions as if it is from a tomb. It clearly doesn’t belong there. I lift it up, hopeful to find something under it. I find nothing, just more dirt, but I decide to dig right there. But then when I turned the stone over to put it on the floor, I noticed some concavity on it and inside it I found a small box. I get it out and it seems made of plaster, because it is white and light. But it ain’t soft and malleable like plaster. It has some high relief patterns carved and some rest of paint in pinkish and bluish tones. The drawing looks like a Mayan design On the bottom right of this strange box there is a round button. I press it and it opens in two pieces. The two pieces have more carved drawings, on the left plaque more patterns, like stylized roses and crosses inside circles and on the right plaque carvings of animals, like a whale, a moose and you name it, floating between clouds in the sky and coming down to earth. The plaques then split up into 5 and then 10 parallelepiped pieces. But it wasn’t broken, it was some automated mechanism. I then started moving these little parallelepiped pieces in my hand and found out they were magnetic and could be put together again in different combinations. They kind of naturally started to rearrange themselves into a different sequence and formed completely new designs. On the left plaque there was now some kind of reddish monstrous creature and on the right plaque a different kind of yellowish monstrous creature with what seemed to be a monstrous robotic dog under his command. I was like “What is this about?” Then I realised there were probably many more combinations of the plates which would explain who these creatures were and what was the meaning of all this and what this thing was for. But I started to slip out of the dream and I woke up.

10:00 GMT

Note: I am far behind on my journaling, I am really going to try to make this a summary of these dreams without skipping anything important. I know… I have tried to do this before and epically failed, I am trying again.

So preparing for battle, the three of us enter into the portal… and are instantly swept into a divergent dream of epic proportions, the following dreams all took place simultaneously on different planes, in different parallel worlds…

I exit the portal and I am immediately greeted with a large explosion that blasts me about 50 feet backwards, I would have passed through the portal again if it hadn't closed behind me. I land on the ground and realize I have been protected by a quick reacting Witchblade. I look around to try and get an idea of what is going on. I am completely surrounded by chaos, it is hard to keep track of anything that is happening. What I am able to identify is there is a massive battle around me between Templars and someone else, a lot of them look like Assassins, though many of them look unfamiliar to me. I sense where I need to go almost instinctively, so I start making my way through the battle field without paying any more attention to the chaos than I have to in order to keep from getting blasted.

It seems that the Templars have a problem with my trying to pass through the battle field undetected, however, as a bunch of them get in my way and are clearly going to give me trouble. I have a sense of urgency, so I don't want to spend time playing with Templars right now… so I form Witchblade into full armor and a sharp sword and charge right into the group of Templars, cutting through the couple in front and then jumping up into the air, using a blast of energy to propel myself up higher, and I end up flying right over the main group of them towards a mountain that I immediately identify as my destination. There are Templars firing everything they can manage to fire at me, arrows, burning arrows, energy blasts, guns… Withcblade is blocking much of it, and much of it is missing, I am thinking they really don't have a clue what they're supposed to be doing here. I come to a landing, not at the base of the mountain, but at the entrance to a cave about half way up the mountain. I hurry inside the cave and am now sheltered from the barrage of crap being fired at me by random Templars.

I now find myself in a long passageway, it definitely looks like the dungeon Nomad described seeing Asuka in, so I head down the hall to see if I can find her. I come around a corner and get attacked by a Templar guard, this one is stronger than the ones outside, he also seems to know what his mission is, his mission is clearly to kill me. He has some kind of weapon that fires tendrils much like a Witchblade, and those tendrils are spiked and wrap around me. They never actually get a hold on me, however, as I power up an energy field that holds them at a distance and then the energy field becomes strong enough to incinerate the tendrils in white flames. Not only that, but the white flames travel along the tendrils back to the Templar and engulf him in white flames, he burns brightly for a moment and then is gone. I continue down the halls, somehow sensing which way I have to go through the labyrinth of passages. I come around another corner and find myself face to face with the face of a big cat / human or something, it is hard to tell because it has its mouth wide open and is roaring deafeningly in my face… roaring an expletive? Roaring that it wants to be taken to Asuka now? Why is he asking me where Asuka is? If he's a Templar he should already know where Asuka is… if he is a Templar… So I wait for him to finish his yelling in my face, most of it isn't intelligible anyhow, then I finally decide to summon and pop a large breath mint into the yelling mouth.

That has an instant effect, the mouth closes, and the cat face has a thoughtful look on his face as he sucks on the breath mint, then he gets an interesting look on his face and says my poison tastes good… but it wasn't going to… uh… he stops talking mid-sentence. I tell him it's not poison, it's a breath mint for his foul breath. He stands there looking for a minute, then he clearly recognizes me as Raven, and it is the same time that I recognize him as Nomad… he says we have to get Asuka out of there, I say I know, and we continue down into the dungeon farther.

There are more Templars in the way, we take them all out, although the last one in the way looks more like a large mech than a regular Templar, and it has a lot more power than normal Templars. But between Nomad and me, we take him down without much trouble… I trip him up with some tendrils of Witchblade, Nomad ran something large and sharp through the thing's neck, which I hit with lightning… so the Templar mech was tripped, impaled and beheaded, and then electrocuted. I figure that should do the trick, and it does, so Nomad and I continue into the lowest part of the dungeon where we find Asuka chained to a wall, naked, it looks like she has been beaten badly… and there is a Templar there with a burning torch, he is burning her repeatedly and laughing at her. Before I can even react, Nomad was apparently so pissed nothing could get in his way, he is on top of the Templar tearing pieces off and throwing them randomly around… I get hit in the face with an unidentifiable chunk of bloody flesh… yuck… Since Nomad seems to have the Templar taken care of, I go over to free Asuka, heal her, and also to summon up some clothes to cover her, a nice kimono like I am used to seeing her in, she seems happy to see me. I am getting a hug from Asuka when Nomad finishes with the Templar and looks over at us, he is covered in blood and yuck but seems pleased with himself…

09/19/10

"No! No! Stop!" she shouts at the bizarre figures. She's the character from last night's dream, the roommate who looks like a younger Halle Berry. The girl struggles, tries to pull away, but she's strapped into the machine by strong hands holding her down.

The black tendrils bury into her wrists and she screams. Sizzling with dark energy and blue sparks, the wires grate against every nerve, causing her pain beyond what she's ever imagined. (I feel the echo.)

She's suspended horizontally, supported only by the wires on her wrists and ankles, which string her tightly over the laboratory floor. It's pure agony.

"You should be quiet." Says one of the aliens. "If you keep screaming, we'll put you in the chambers."

Images of coffin-sized capsules, each containing a human being. The capsules are filled with a liquid which burns ("like lava," whispers one of the victims) and seems to eat away at the person inside. It's a stable chemical reaction which will last for an eternity, providing power for the alien conquerors to sustain their society.

("This is hell.")

"Nonononono..." whispers the girl, trying to ignore the pain. "I'll be quiet, please! Don't put me in there, I can be quiet!"

I come back to myself. I'm sitting cross-legged on the cold floor, and my arms are suspended by the same tendrils that are causing the other girl such pain. The wires dig into my wrists, and the blue energy sizzles through my arms. I breathe out and sink into a meditation.

"Is it broken?" One of the aliens asks, curiously.

I open my eyes. The two aliens are talking quietly amongst themselves. It's unheard of for a human to be able to withstand this particular torture for so long. It's been at least twenty-four hours since I've been put into it, and the two beings in front of me seem to think that it's broken my mind.

I'm not, of course, human.

My possible futures flash before me. In one, I collaborate with the aliens and facilitate the destruction of the human race. Eventually, I'll destroy the conquering civilization itself, and move on to the rest of the galaxy. In a few futures, I'll lead humanity in a rebellion, with varying degrees of success.

I don't pick one. Instead, I play through each of them, living through each possibility until the point that all life in the universe is destroyed.

It never takes long.

Scare Factor: 5/10
Rating: 6/10

Note: Tonight I fell asleep with some very ambitious goals including checking to see if L will leave Asuka alone if she goes out, dream view a dream MoSh had quite a while ago where he was speaking with don Juan, sharing a DDO dream with Tigress, finding and doing another healing spell on Xildron, tasks of the year… the list of my goals just seems to go on and on… I fell asleep with my light / sound machine and successfully slipped into a WILD…

I found myself in a very familiar setting standing in the front yard of MoSh's house in his inner world. I went right up to the door without any hesitation, I wanted to get going on my goals. I knocked on the door and MoSh answered it. He was smiling when he saw me and he opened the door to let me in. When I looked around the room I saw Asuka sitting in the living room watching something on television. I walked over to Asuka and looked to see what she was watching, there was nothing actually on the television and I wondered why Asuka was staring at a blank screen. As if on cue, Asuka got up and came over to me, she said she was ready to go out and see that L had gotten the picture that he needs to leave her alone. I asked her where she wanted to go this time, it really should be somewhere she would be likely to go on her own. She said she knew of a mountain spring that was very relaxing. She said it was a place where she hoped to take MoSh someday so they could relax there and have some time to themselves. She said she was waiting until he started remembering her more consistently, though. After fusing with Asuka by using the fusion amulet she opened a portal and we went through it as one person.

The other side of the portal was a beautiful place. There was a crystal clear pool of water with colorful flowers growing on the surface of the water, numerous lily pads dotted the surface of the water as well. Colorful butterflies were flitting around near the shores of the pool, and there were even some butterflies out on the lily pads farther out in the pool.

It really was a very peaceful scene. I could see why Asuka would want to spend some time alone there with MoSh. I just let Asuka go where she wanted to go since she knew this place and liked it, and she waded into the water a bit. The water was very pleasant, and there were small fish tickling my feet. We spent quite a bit of time there wandering around the place, exploring all the hidden areas to find what wonders might be found there. We spent so much time there that I was beginning to wonder if the dream was going to end without L showing up… that would be a good sign that he had learned something from the last time he had kidnapped Asuka. After spending a bit longer there, Asuka said she was ready to go home… but first she wanted to go into the water in her own body, because the water here is so wonderfully refreshing and she couldn't feel it as well when fused with someone else. So we separated right there. Asuka swam out into the water still in her kimono which floated out beside her in an ethereal way. She sank beneath the surface of the water.

I had turned away from Asuka for only a short time to take a closer look at some of the beautiful flowers, to go over to them and smell them. The flowers were beautifully fragrant, and their fragrance was also very relaxing. I was smelling the flower when I heard some sounds from behind me. I turned around just in time to see there was a pair of tendrils were reaching through a portal and wrapped around Asuka, pulling her towards the portal. Wtf? I chased after her as she disappeared through the portal, jumping out over the pool of water and reaching to grab hold of Asuka's leg as she was disappearing through the portal. Then the portal was gone. I was yelling at an empty sky to give Asuka back right now, you yellow bellied bastard. My first thought was that L had come after Asuka again, well he would pay for that… I focused on opening a portal to follow Asuka to wherever she had been taken, then I flew through the portal ready to kick the ass of whoever I found on the other side.

I emerged from the portal in a world that looked like it was entirely made up of crystal formations. There was a sun shining brightly in the sky and rainbows were reflecting off of many of the crystal formations that made up the landscape. It was really a very beautiful place that I wouldn't have minded visiting if I hadn't been following after Asuka… Things being as they were, however, I didn't take time to notice the beauty of the place. I looked around for any sign of Asuka having had been through there recently. The fact was that I didn't see any sign of human life anywhere let alone Asuka… some very shiny butterflies were flitting around the crystal formations just as the ones near the mountain spring had been flitting around the flowers there. I called out to Asuka a couple of times, scanned for any trace of her, and I found nothing. I was in the wrong place! I wasn't sure how I had managed to get to the wrong place, but I tried the portal again.

I exited this portal to find myself about five feet in the air over a pool of rancid water. I wasn't ready to be in the air, so I fell right into the disgusting water which reminded me of sewer water. It was disgusting! It smelled bad, it was covered with a thick layer of slime, although the area around it didn't look contaminated or anything. It was just a typical stagnant pool of water. I paid about as much attention to the foul water as I had to the beautiful crystals, I flew back out of the pool and scanned the area for Asuka, for any trace of Asuka. Once again I could not find any sign that Asuka was there or that she had ever been there, at least not recently. Whoever had taken Asuka, I was on a wild goose chase, somehow they were making it so my portals weren't getting me to her! I was getting pissed at ending in the wrong places. I landed on dry land, felt like I was going to wake up when I didn't want to, so I dilated time. Something was keeping me from tracking down Asuka, and the first person on my list of suspects was still L, so instead of focusing my portal to follow Asuka I focused it on going to L's inner world. There was a bit of resistance when I tried opening the portal but it was nothing I couldn't easily overcome.

This time when I exited the portal I was in L's inner world, near his pool where I usually appear. I scanned the area for Asuka again, and I knew right away I had found the place she had been taken. I approached the house to see if they were in there, Asuka's energy frequency was still around the place from her last visit so it was a bit harder to tell which signals were more recent. When I headed for the house, however, Kanmuri came from around the corner of the house and pointed towards a building I hadn't noticed before. She said if I was looking for Asuka, L had taken her in there and insisted on being left alone, and when she had just peeked in out of curiosity L had gotten so pissed off at her… she said she didn't know what was going on in there. That was clearly where I had to go next, though.

I followed a path to the building which appeared to be a guest house, and though the path was very pleasant and beautiful with trees and flowers around it, now it seemed like a path descending into a nightmare. I didn't want anyone to see my approach so I used the song Of Wolf and Man by Metallica to change my form into a small blue bird since there were many similar birds around the area. I flew over to the guest house and landed on a window sill. I looked in through the window and I saw both Asuka and L, and I immediately wanted to kill L slowly and painfully. Asuka was sitting on a couch with no restraints or anything to keep her from leaving, but she was staring off into space with a blank expression on her face. She was also quite bruised and she was crying.

L was sitting beside her with his arm around her, had he been the one who had beaten her? He had wanted to take Asuka with him so he could beat her? Or had he done that out of anger over the torturing she (I) had given him last night? An unforeseen backlash of that tactic, making L want to get revenge for the pain she (I) had put him through.

I no longer cared about being unnoticed, instead I changed back to my normal form, my Assassin form, and kicked the front door of the guest house open, it slammed open with a loud crash that made L jump about three feet in surprise. Asuka didn't respond. I used telekinesis to slam L against the wall hard enough to put cracks in it, I asked him what the fuck he had done to Asuka, why was she like that, what had happened. He sniffed the air and said someone sure stank… I said it was him who stank even though I was pretty sure he was referring to the stink of the rancid water that was still on me. I demanded again to know what he had done to Asuka. He said he had just been playing games with her, those games that she seemed to like so well, it seemed she didn't like them anymore. He was laughing the whole time he said that, so I pounded the laughter out of him by slamming him around the room some more using telekinesis and I ended up slamming him right through one of the interior walls into the bathroom where I made sure his face landed in the toilet, actually he hit the toilet hard enough to crack the bowl… the icing on the cake was when raw sewage backed up from the pipe below and washed over L…

I looked over at Asuka, who had still not responded to anything that had happened. She seemed to have not noticed L getting thrown around the room, she hadn't noticed me yelling at him, she hadn't noticed him going through the wall or getting covered with sewage… I went over to Asuka, who didn't respond to my presence, but when I went to help her stand up she was very compliant to that. I focused on healing her injuries, I would do more healing on her once I had her somewhere safe. If she would snap out of this strange trance for anyone, that person would be MoSh. I opened a portal to get to MoSh's inner world and led Asuka through it.

I carefully helped Asuka out of the portal into the front yard of MoSh's house. I led her up to the front door with ease, she was offering no resistance, but she was also not reacting to the change in location. What the fuck had that asshole done to her to make her this unresponsive? We reached the front door and I opened it to find MoSh was right inside, he had been about to open the door. He asked what had happened, what was wrong with Asuka, who had done that to her, what had they done to her… I said I didn't know what had been done to her, but it was L who had done it. I told MoSh that L had shown up and kidnapped Asuka to take her… MoSh interrupted, asking how could I just let L have Asuka? I continued to tell MoSh that she had been taken, I had tracked her down to L's inner world and when I got to her she had been like this, worse in fact, it looked like L had been beating her. MoSh said something about a picture being real, and it had happened because I had let L take Asuka… what picture? He took Asuka into his arms and said something about so many men… so many men? I had only seen L… I told MoSh that Asuka needed healing, and he said any fool could see that. I said I would help him heal her, but he just glared over at me, he said Asuka didn't need any more of my help, I had clearly 'helped' her more than enough. He said they didn't need that kind of help. He slammed the door before I could say anything else.

I paused, I wanted to go inside and try to explain things to MoSh, but he was right… I was supposed to have been protecting Asuka, not just letting L walk off with her to do whatever he wanted to her… if I'd just been more careful she wouldn't have gotten taken, L wouldn't have done whatever it was he did to her… Maybe I should send Basara back over to do some healing on Asuka, who clearly needed it. How was she doing now that she was with MoSh? I walked around to the side of the house and peeked in through a window to see if I could find the two of them. First I saw Asuka's clothes tossed carelessly aside in the room. Then I saw Asuka was sitting naked in a corner of the room and I could see MoSh trying to get her to come out. Asuka wasn't responding to him, she had her knees pulled up to her chest, making herself as small as possible, and she was crying. That was because of what L had done to her, whatever he had done it must have been pretty awful to leave her in such a state. Seeing her like that made me want to hurt L, and hurt him bad, really bad.

So now it was time for L to pay, and the price was high. I opened a portal back to L's inner world and went through it looking to draw some blood. Kanmuri was standing near my portal when I got there, I asked her where L was, where was that foul piece of shit hiding, because I had some business to discuss with him… Kanmuri asked what was going on, she asked what had been wrong with Asuka when I had brought her out from the guest house? She had figured L was in there trying to coax Asuka into bed with him and probably epic failing at that, he wouldn't have hurt her, would he? I scanned the area for L and found him in the main house, I headed straight for him with Kanmuri following after me. She wouldn't shut up. L didn't hurt Asuka, did he? She said she knows he can be an ass sometimes, but she couldn't see him actually doing anything to hurt Asuka… he's too crazy about her… I told Kanmuri, focusing a bit too much of my anger on her, that I didn't know what L had done to Asuka, but he had definitely hurt her, and he'd hurt her bad. Kanmuri stopped and had a shocked look on her face as she watched me go into the house.

I found L in the living room kicked back on the couch as if nothing was wrong in the world, and that just pissed me off more. He looked up at me and smiled, he said it was so nice to see me again. He said if I wanted him all to myself, he could have said so instead of coming in and stealing Asuka. That was it, I was much too pissed off for words. All I could feel inside was unstable dark energy, but I didn't make any effort to control it, I just let it do what it wanted. The shadows in one corner of the room came to life as a swarm of scarab beetles each the size of a golf ball.

I used telekinesis to hold L still long enough for the bugs to get on him. The scarabs didn't stay still long enough for L to get them off, they immediately burrowed their way into L's skin, tunneling through his flesh as he was screaming in pain. I could see the moving bumps of the scarabs underneath L's skin, and he was apparently desparate to get rid of them as he tore through his own skin to get to one of the scarabs and pull it out. He threw the bug on the floor and stomped on it. So he had gotten rid of one of about ten bugs that were now tunneling through his flesh… several of which were in places he could not hope to reach. He was yelling at me or someone else to get those things out of him, get them OUT! While L was writhing on the floor in pain I was kicking him as hard as I could, anything to make him pay for what he had done… I'm not sure how long he was writhing and trying to reach the scarabs under his skin, how long I was kicking him before he was finally still, there was blood coming out of his mouth… and finally I woke, not really wanting to remember the events of this dream…

Note: It seems L has been causing problems again, still trying to get to Asuka even though he has a girlfriend of his own, and now he is using Kanmuri to do it! We came to the conclusion that we were going to try to make L afraid of Asuka, so that he would want to avoid her at all costs. My goal for tonight was to go ahead to do this. I fell asleep, failed to slip into my WILD. I actually don't remember the beginning of this dream or exactly how I became lucid, but here is the dream from the point where I start remembering it…


The earliest thing I remember in this dream is being in MoSh's inner world. I was in the living room with MoSh and Asuka. MoSh was playing a video game on the flat screen television while Asuka was watching him. Asuka got up and came over to me. She said she was ready to do whatever we had to do to make sure L would finally stop bothering her and MoSh. I told her I had a plan I thought might work. She said she knew, and she was ready to do the fusion. I said there was one more part to it… while fused, we should go out of MoSh's inner world and do something Asuka would enjoy doing… thus making her an easy target. So when L took her back to his inner world, that was when his nightmare would begin. MoSh seemed to have barely noticed I was there, I wasn't fully convinced MoSh had noticed me at all. I touched him on the shoulder and he finally looked up. I told him Asuka and I were off to give L a nice nightmare. I said L might need a few nightmares to get the point across, but it would start now. MoSh saved his video game and changed the channel. He said he would watch it from there. I asked Asuka what she would like to go out and do, she said she likes gardens and flowers, so that's what I focused on when I opened a portal. Asuka and I fused using the fusion amulet and went through the portal.

There was a beautiful garden on the other side of the portal, just as I had wanted to find. I could feel that Asuka liked it very much. I just let her control our fused body as she wandered through the garden, looking at the various flowers, smelling some of them, admiring others from afar, she picked one and put it in our hair. The garden was full of winding paths, there was a stream flowing through it with a pretty bridge over it, and Asuka's goal seemed to be to explore every bit of the garden. There was no questioning that the garden was pretty, but I was beginning to think L wasn't going to take the bait this time. Had he not noticed that Asuka was wandering around in a garden by herself? Had he caught on to the trick? Was he not as interested in Asuka as we had thought? Whatever the reason, it was beginning to look like he wasn't going to show up at all. I was just about to suggest to Asuka that we go home, I was getting a bit bored, when a portal opened in front of us. Without even giving much of a look around to make sure Asuka was alone, L's arm reached through the portal to grab our left arm and pull us through into his inner world.

I recognized L's inner world right away, we were near the pool that is outside of his house. I saw that Kanmuri was already back there, she was lying out on a lounge near the pool sunning herself when we arrived. She got up and looked over at L and me, rolling her eyes in an exacerbated manner. She asked L if he was never going to get it through his head that Asuka has no interest in him, he should stop going after some woman who didn't want him and give his attention all to her. She said she has an open mind about L having another woman around, but he should quit already with this woman who clearly doesn't like him. L said he had rescued me once more, that MoSh had carelessly let me out on my own, and now he would make sure I was protected. He said he knew I wanted to stay with him and he would make sure that this time it happened, MoSh and Raven weren't going to take me away from him this time.

I looked around at the pool and the house. I told L he might just be the man for me, assuming he has bigger balls than MoSh who seems to get mad at me every time I start to have some fun. L said of course, he has much bigger balls than MoSh, how could there be any doubt about that? He said his purpose would be to ensure I had fun every moment I was there with him. I smiled at him and said maybe I could be happy here after all, he said it had taken me long enough to acknowledge that he was really the one I want… he apparently thought I wasn't dressed properly, however, because he motioned and my clothes changed to a tiny sundress that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. I didn't really care. L looked at me in the sundress, practically drooling, and then said whatever would make me happy and want to stay was what I would get.

I told L what I really wanted to do was play some of the games I never get to play with MoSh without him getting mad. He asked what game I wanted to play. I said hide and seek… with a twist. I gave him a sexy look along with that suggestion which clearly got his attention. I said I would hide first. He said sure… then I said for him to count to 50, then come find me… He turned his back and started counting rather fast, I was actually surprised he could count that high. I went into the house and looked around in the first room I was in which appeared to be a kitchen. I moved through the kitchen into the living room where there was a lot of fancy furniture. I noticed one corner where there was a particularly dark shadow, I changed form into a shadow and merged with that shadow becoming completely invisible. Shortly later L came into the room. He said he knew I was in there. So… let the show begin.

L seemed pretty sure I was in the room, I wondered if he was cheating somehow. I focused on changing the dreamscape now, causing the shadows to grow and take over the room. Where it had been pretty bright and cheerful, now it was rather dark and dreary. L seemed to think that was strange, but he continued looking for me. I morphed my shadow form into my normal form, but I was dressed in tight leather instead of the sundress. L did a brief double take, but then said he had found me, so what was his reward? I said I wanted to hear him scream, he said he was sure I could make him scream. I said I knew I could, giving off an evil grin at the same time. Some of the other shadows formed dark tentacles and bound him to the floor, arms and legs spread, he apparently still thought he was in for some wild sex…

I had long fingernails which were actually thin blades dripping with acid. As I was standing over him some of the acid dripped onto him and burned through his clothes, burning into his skin. Those blade fingernails could be fired… so I fired one into his right shoulder where it smoked a bit as the acid ate away at his flesh, he let out a brief cry of pain and asked me what the fuck I thought I was doing… I said I was playing my game with him, I wanted to hear him scream. I fired more of the spears into him, into his arms, into his legs, anywhere I could fire one without hitting a vital organ and allowing him to die too quickly. I'd said I wanted to hear him scream, and he was screaming now. I took a couple of minutes to stand over him and laugh at his pain, he was screaming that it hurt so much, begging me to stop, crying like a baby, and a foul odor wafted over from him… he'd shit his pants! I acted disappointed, saying even MoSh had been able to play games better than this… how disappointing, because I was just getting started.

As I was deciding where to fire the next blade, Kanmuri came into the room and looked around. She asked what was going on in there, she had heard screaming… she looked and saw L pinned to the floor by shadows and with the blades sticking out of him, acid burning the areas around the blades. Now L was begging Kanmuri to help him, telling her that Asuka (I) had gone completely insane. Kanmuri looked upset, thought I think she was feigning it, and asked me what I was doing to her man, let him go right now. I made the dark tendrils retract, the room was bright and cheery once again. L still couldn't move, the blades had him pinned to the floor. I was definitely willing to help. I said it seemed neither L nor Kanmuri wanted to have any fun after all. I pulled the first blade out of L, doing this brought another scream of agonizing pain.

The blade was barbed so that it would go in smoothly but the barbs would extend when pulling it out, ripping the flesh on its way out. Kanmuri told me to stop doing that, I was hurting him. I said she wanted him to be free to get up, right? I continued pulling the blades out one by one, not doing it especially fast, twisting them a bit as I pulled them out, basically doing whatever I could to increase the pain they were causing… and of course the acid kept burning even after I had removed the blades. L was begging incoherently now, I couldn't tell what he was saying. The instant I got the last blade out Kanmuri was over to me telling me to stay away from him, how could I be so sick as to do those horrible things? I told her he had agreed to play my game… now he wanted to back out. How rude. Kanmuri told me to get out of L's inner world, she told me I wasn't welcome there. She began healing L's wounds, clearly soothing his pain with healing energy. I figured she wanted to be the good guy since she wanted L to focus his affection on her. I didn't interfere with that and I opened a portal back to MoSh's inner world when Kanmuri told me again that I was not welcome there.

Note: I fell asleep this night with my energy in a very unstable state due to some problems I had during the evening. When I say unstable, I mean unstable to the point where I was not able to finish my evening class in school… I had to tell the instructor I wasn't feeling well and then leave early. While I had managed to calm down some by the time I went to bed, I was still very unstable. A large portion of my negative energy was directed at the Templars who have given me nightmares on the previous two nights… so my main plan was to kick Templar ass. I had this plan in mind when I fell asleep, but I was not successful in entering my WILD. Fortunately, my intentions were strong enough that I still ended up where I wanted to be…

I was in my room. I was in bed. I rolled over and thought about the events of the previous evening. I was a nice mixture of pissed off and depressed, basically quite unstable. I was thinking that was why I was being unable to sleep. I sat up in bed and stroked the kitty beside me. She purred. I got out of bed to use the bathroom. I thought I should try to stay in the habit of doing an RC when I wake up or get up in the night… even if I don't think I've been asleep… I did a nose-pinch RC and found that I was dreaming. I became fully lucid.

I thought about what I wanted to do… I was feeling pissed off… and I wanted someone to take that out on. Templars! They were the origin of my current problems, so I would take it all out on Templars! I had told them that continuing to disturb my dreams and turn them into them nightmares would result in serious consequences. Now it was time to deliver on those consequences. I focused on opening a portal to find a Templar base, I would go straight to them and have a kill fest right there in their base. The portal opened and I went through it.

I was now in a Templar base. There were Templars wandering around. They all were going about their own business. At first no one noticed me. Those were the bastards who had turned my past two nights' dreams into nightmares… they were the cause of the instability and the situation that had led to an argument between a friend and mine who had told me that he no longer wants to be my friend… I walked over to the Templar closest to me as the others moved out of sight. I could feel unstable dark energy inside of me… my energy had been unstable all evening, and now I could finally do something about it! I grabbed the Templar by the throat and slammed him against the wall. He let out a surprised 'glurk' but could not speak to alert the others. I squeezed his throat until I felt something get crushed, then I let him down. He grabbed his neck and was choking… he couldn't breathe… he coughed up blood, collapsed, and died.

One dead Templar was not nearly enough. Time to start killing them in larger numbers. I went into a room with two Templars there. A big guard and another who looked more like a scientist. I used Master of Puppets on the guard, and made him beat the other Templar to death. I then made him grab a scissors from a desk and imbed it into his own throat, followed by using the scissors to cut the wound larger. He pierced his own jugular vein and bled out . I continued through the base. I met several Templars in the halls. I stabbed each of them with my hidden blade before they realized I didn't belong there. I looked into a large control room. There were 15 Templars in there at control stations. I let a tendril of Witchblade out, it went through the room and pierced the throats of each Templar. The instant I retracted the tendril, the blood flowed freely and they all died.

As I continued on my way, I tried to think of a creative way to kill the next Templar… I found a lone Templar in the hall. He stopped and looked at me. I used Damage, Inc. to set him on fire. The Templar was quickly engulfed in flames. In a blind panic, he ran into another room with a number of Templars in it. He wanted someone to help him, but all he ended up accomplishing was to set several more of the Templars on fire… now there were five Templars panicking in the room, engulfed in flames and screaming in pain. That didn't last long; they all collapsed, dead. I killed the next few Templars I met with my Witchblade sword. Electrocuted a few with lightning. Crushed several more with gravity. And each Templar I killed was immensely satisfying. My unstable energy was simmering down to an icy rage.

It was around here that I thought I was waking up… but I wasn't finished getting my payback against these Templar assholes! I focused on Allura's method of time dilation and the dream stabilized.

I made my way down into a dungeon. That looked like the kind of place where they would carry out their tortures. There were hooks on the walls from which lanterns were hanging. I used telekinesis and lifted a Templar up, impaling him on a hook through his abdomen. He was still alive when I left him, coughing up blood as he tried to call for help. The next several Templars I came across met the same fate as the first one, hung from those iron lantern hooks. I found three more Templars near an open dungeon cell door. A couple of big guards and a smaller one. I could hear them talking, I could hear them clearly.

"Ok… when she gets here," the one said to the others, "You grab her like last time. All you have to do is chain her up in this room, and we'll let the rats do the rest." He laughed.

I was standing right beside the three Templars now, between the two larger guards while the smaller man was facing away from me, looking at a door. "So…" I said, "What's the plan here?"

"Weren't you listening at all?" the Templar said with some frustration, "You two grab Raven, chain her up in the dungeon, and then we watch the rats eat her alive! Now get it…" the Templar had been turning around, and was now facing me. There was a big guy on either side of me. "There she is right now! Grab her, you idiots!"

Each of the big Templars grabbed one of my arms and held on tight. I didn't even try to pull free. Time to activate Witchblade. Nothing happened. The smaller Templar held up a remote and laughed. He said the dampening field was up, so I could forget my little tricks. I told him it was their loss. Using Witchblade would have brought them to a much quicker death than the alternative… The smaller Templar told the other two to put me in the cell; the rats are hungry. He laughed again. I focused on controlling dark energy into tendrils. The tendrils wove from each of my arms and wrapped around the arms of the big guys beside me. At first they didn't seem to notice. Then both of them started screaming and let go of me… or they tried to let go. Each of them had a black tendril boring its way into their arm. Each attempt to pull free resulted in more pain.

The third Templar just stood there and stared at us for a bit, muttering something about the dampening field he had mentioned before. He pulled out a sword and was apparently intent on just killing me so I would wake up and be away from them. A third dark energy tendril snaked out of where my 3rd eye would be and wrapped around the sword. The Templar dropped the sword and turned to run down the hall. The tendril was faster, and it bored its way into the Templar's back. Armor was nothing to the dark energy tendril. All three of the Templars were now screaming in pain. Their screams brought more Templars to see what was happening. The tendrils that attached me to the three separated, and I was able to direct those tendrils and more at the arriving Templars. Most of them didn't have a chance to react… a couple tried to cut the tendrils with swords, but that was completely ineffective. So soon all of the Templars in the room, the three I had found there plus 12 who had come to check it out, were writhing on the ground in pain.

I went over to the Templar who had been telling the big stupid ones the plan. He was grimacing in pain and clutching his abdomen. I kicked him there and lifted him up. I told him I knew he would wake up soon, but for his sake he had better have learned a valuable lesson… don't fuck with me. And don't go back to fucking with any of my friends, either. Harm one of them and the results will be the same, maybe worse. Get the picture? He cursed at me. I slammed him against the wall and said if he was still failing to get it, there's a lot more trouble where this came from. So stay away from me, stay away from my friends, or there would be consequences. I dropped him on the ground where he continued to writhe in pain. I wasn't sure what the dark energy tendrils were doing… or maybe I was… they were eating the Templars alive from the inside out. Well, they had intended for me to be eaten alive, so their plan backfired.

I went into the dungeon cell and looked around. Chains and shackles on the floor clearly meant to chain a prisoner so they couldn't move… cages with horribly underfed rats inside them; add animal cruelty to the list of Templar offenses… I felt my dark energy. It still felt like an icy rage… I was glad the Templars were in pain. But not the animals… they had done nothing. I opened the cages. The rats weren't in such bad condition that they couldn't make a run for it when given the chance. They ran for the cell door and out it. I heard more screams from the Templars. I glanced out and saw some of the rats were on various Templars. The Templars seemed nearly immobilized with pain from the dark energy tendrils… and now there were rats on them. A rat chewing on a Templar's ear, a rat chewing on a Templar's cheek, a rat chewing on a Templar's nose… The rats would be fed… but it was fresh Templar on the menu… I shut the cell door and was waiting to wake up. Now I was alone in the dark room with nothing but the background sounds of Templar pain.

I was waiting in the dark room to wake up. The icy rage inside me made the Templars' dying gasps of pain sound like wonderful music… then there was silence. Ok… now to wake up? Maybe that dampening field was still there and I would have to leave here by normal means and then wake up… I formed a fireball in my hand… my abilities seemed to be working fine.

"Raven!" came a voice from behind me. Wtf? Who had found me here? I turned and looked behind me, I saw MoSh was in the room with me. The icy rage I had felt inside had been starting to subside… but suddenly it surged back again, almost as strong as it had ever been. Now it was MoSh's turn… I would see him writhing on the ground in pain… I would… wait… no… I turned my gaze back to the blank dark stone wall. Watching Templars suffer… ok. But not MoSh… no. I focused on that blank stone wall and on The Curse by Disturbed, must stabilize the dark energy. It'd had its fun with the Templars… and that's all it was going to get. MoSh was saying something about dark energy and an attack. I said that telling me to stay out of his dreams doesn't make a whole lot of sense if he is just going to come into mine. He said he needed my help to stop the dark energy something… I said if there was a dark energy threat, get Walms or Tigress… and if it was simply an extremely powerful threat of any kind, get Vegeta… but don't stay here. My energy is currently about as stable as nitroglycerin… well shaken nitroglycerin, and could blow at any moment. And it was getting very unstable… it hadn't been very unstable earlier because I had been working with it to eliminate Templars, but now I was actively fighting it… and that was creating instability.

That was it… I wouldn't be able to keep it inside any longer. I turned back towards MoSh… who took a step back when he saw how crazed I probably looked… I opened a vortex portal right next to MoSh that led back to his inner world, used telekinesis to push him through, closed it behind him and then BOOM! There was an explosion… and then I was no longer standing in a Templar base… now I was standing in a crater… um… ok… I hadn't realized the explosion would be quite that bad… although the icy rage was completely gone now. Completely vented off against the Templars. I looked around the crater… I didn't think a single Templar could have survived… which brought me to a chuckle. But I felt stable. Finally it felt completely under control. Now that control was restored everything faded and I woke.

Note: I fell asleep with very little in the way of goals tonight… MoSh had said he was going to come over to do a healing on me, although I told him I felt ok. But then a little extra positive energy never hurts anything, so I figured if he wanted to do it, we could share some positive energy, most likely with Basara involved since he usually shows up whenever someone mentions the idea of healing. Unfortunately I was not successful in entering my WILD this night.

I was in a clearing in a forest. I could see there were buildings around, it looked like a small town was hidden amongst the trees. I wondered where I was. I didn't even consider the idea I might be dreaming. I noticed that there were quite a few people around, and then I noticed they were Templars. What the fuck was I doing in a Templar base? I figured I didn't want to be there, so I went to leave. That was when I noticed there was a big guy on either side of me holding onto me tightly. Their grip was like iron, and I could not make them budge to get free. I was a prisoner of the Templars… that couldn't be good.

I heard another Templar say they were ready. One of the big guys holding me forced me to the ground so that I was lying on my stomach with my face in the dirt. I felt someone lie a long wooden pole on my back, and I was quickly bound tightly to that pole. When the large Templars moved away from me I couldn't move at all except to turn my head and look around a bit. They turned me over onto my back and ripped my clothes off… I called them a bunch of fucking perverts. I was now naked and tied to a metal pole… I could hear people around me laughing and jeering.

The Templars then stood the pole up and I realized I was bound approximately in the middle. I saw they had a fire ring in the middle of the clearing, a rather large one. It was long and fairly narrow, there was a rotisserie stand on each end of the fire circle, and a pan sitting on top of the wood that looked like it was there to catch the juices of roasting meat. It looked a lot like the picture here, except the pan was on permanent metal legs and the fire pit and pan looked long enough to accommodate a very large piece of meat… or a person…

It was about then that I realized what they might be planning to do. Since I believed that was my waking life, this resulted in a feeling of ice cold fear at the pit of my stomach… I fought against my bonds, desperate to get away now, to avoid what it seemed they had planned. The bonds were too tight… I couldn't budge them even a millimeter. And my worst fear was confirmed when they carried the pole I was on over to the fire pit and placed it where the spit of the rotisserie would go with me hanging on it, looking down into the black pan. There was a quantity of grease in the pan, which was hardened right now. I was noticing every little detail… a fly stuck in the grease and trying to get free, but it was no more able to move than I was. Templars preparing to light the fire. This couldn't really be happening. I think I might have done a reality check if I could have even moved in order to do one… I found I kept repeating the word 'no' over and over, and I was ashamed of the fear I heard in my voice.

Then I said there must be some agreement we could reach that would allow me to get out of this. A couple of them laughed. But one of them said there was. He said if I could present one of my friends to take my place, they would gladly roast up my friend instead of me and I would be free to go. One of my friends? He said yes. Any of them would do. Either Nomad or MoSh would be their first choices… but if I presented them one of the others I have shared dreams with it would be sufficient, too. Markus, Tigress, or even Loaf… someone laughed that they could have toast… just choose one and teleport them here and I would be free to go while my friend was executed in my place. I told them they had to be kidding… there was no way I would betray a friend like that… I knew perfectly well I could never live with betraying a friend in that way, so in spite of my fear I told them to go fuck themselves. The Templar said it was my choice, and told the other one to go ahead and light the fire under the pan.

I didn't really notice anything at first. Then the pan was heated and it was getting a bit uncomfortable as the heat was rising off of the pan and into my face. The heat continued to increase, an intense and dry heat that made it feel almost like I was on fire. How long could this last? Wouldn't I get heat stroke and pass out from that heat before long? They let the fire die down a bit and the heat faded to a lower but continuous agony. For some reason it seemed to be imperative that I make no sound to let them know the pain I was in, so I kept my mouth tightly closed so I would not let an involuntary cry or moan or pain escape. I saw as the grease below me melted and the fly was consumed by the heating grease, killed. Another thought I was having was that the heat would burn through the ropes that bound me to the spit… then I could get free… but they were thick and sturdy ropes that didn't seem to be suffering from the exposure at all. A Templar came over and looked at me, then he poked something on my leg with a long fork, causing a sharp and excruciating pain… somehow I knew he had just popped a heat blister… that area of my leg was now in much more pain than the rest of me, and other parts of my body felt like they were beginning to blister, I could actually see a few blisters starting to form on my breasts… When would I finally get heat stroke and pass out?!

Another short while… and several more popped blisters later… a Templar came back over. I was expecting another popped blister… but instead he had a cup, which he used to scoop some of the now sizzling grease out of the pan. He proceeded to pour the sizzling grease all over my back… where it burned unbelievably hot. The Templar poured a couple more cups of blazing hot grease on my back, laughing when I was unable to contain a cry of pain… these assholes were basting me! And even after he walked away, the grease on my back was continuing to cause an unbelievably intense agony… it seemed I would surely pass out, but somehow I didn't… even though I wished I would, prayed that I would pass out or die from heat stroke… Instead I just hung there in agony, all hope seemed lost…

"Raven!" I heard a familiar voice and forced my head to turn, although that caused heat dried skin to crack and bleed, bringing with that another wave of pain… I someone standing off to my left a ways, and a portal opened behind him. My sight was fuzzy… I wasn't sure who it was… He continued talking. "It's time for… what the FUCK?!" Apparently he had taken a look around for the first time since arriving and noticed things were not as they should be. I wanted to call out to the man for help, but my throat was too dry and cracked to speak… and all that came out was a small squeak… As I have stated, my mind was really foggy from the heat and the pain, but I heard some cursing, a demand to release me, and then a fight. I saw movement to my right and the man who had just arrived shoved one of the Templar's faces into the hot grease in the pan below me. When the Templar's face came out it was covered with blisters and the Templar was screaming in pain. I heard more fighting, some Templars screaming about something… a loud hissing sound like an angry cat or snake… and then silence.

The man from the portal returned. He took the spit I was tied to away from the flame and started untying me. Every time he touched me it was excruciating, but I did my best not to let him know that because I knew he was just trying to help. Once I was free I found I couldn't even stand on my own… my legs were about like spaghetti… The man supported me, holding on to me as gently as he could… I heard him say he would get me healed up as good as new. He could heal IWL? Wow… I wondered if there was any possible way I could get him to teach me to do that… but even if he couldn't, he had already done so much by getting me free of the Templars. He lied me down in a soft area of grass. Even as soft as it was, each blade of grass was like a steel blade cutting in to me… I once again did not let him know how much it hurt. He was trying so hard to be careful.

The man sat down near me. I could hear him playing a guitar. I could feel healing energy come from that guitar. Soothing healing energy… it felt like a soothing healing salve had been applied to my entire body, and it felt wonderful. I tried to open my eyes and see who it was that had saved me… but I was so tired. Completely worn out. But he was playing a guitar to create a healing effect. I only know two people who do that. Basara and MoSh. And I couldn't see Basara shoving a Templar's face into burning grease under any circumstances, unless he had seen what they were doing and completely snapped, so I was assuming it was MoSh… I tried to ask the man if he was MoSh… "You… MoSh?" He didn't really answer that, he just told me to rest… when I fell asleep here I would wake up and be safe in bed. Safe in bed? Was this really just a nightmare? I let myself relax and slip into sleep. I could find out for sure later if it was MoSh who had come to find me. I fell asleep and woke up.

Note: I had a goal tonight of meeting up with MoSh, checking on and doing a healing spell on Asuka, who has been absent from his dreams lately. After that MoSh wanted to go view an event from a Carlos Castaneda book where Castaneda was watching don Genaro do something interesting near a waterfall… I'm not sure what, but MoSh said that to see the full extent of it I would have to look at his energy, not just his body. So we have tried to do this before and met with an epic fail, so we're going to try it again. I used my light / sound machine to meditate. I fell asleep and successfully slipped into a WILD…

*Execution*
Ok… I immediately noticed something was off… I was actually over someone's shoulder and being carried… wtf? Was this some kind of attack on MoSh's inner world? Because that was where I was supposed to be… I tried to ask the person carrying me who the fuck he was, but I found I couldn't speak… my mouth was full of a foul tasting fabric… yuck… I went to take it out of my mouth, but I found my hands were bound tightly behind my back. Ok… this was annoying. I tried to activate Witchblade to cut through my bonds… nothing happened. This was really starting to piss me off. I was going to try something else when the man carrying me slung me off of his back and stood me on my feet, which I also found were tightly bound. I looked at the jerk who had been carrying me and did a double take… it was a fucking Templar.

I tried to curse at him, momentarily forgetting my mouth was full of foul tasting cloth… apparently curious as to what I would say, the Templar removed the cloth. After a couple of spits to try to get rid of the taste, I did curse at the Templar. I told him if he didn't want a personal tour of Hell then he had better get those bonds off of me immediately. He just laughed. He said I was the one who would be going to Hell… He said he was glad I was awake for my sentence, although he was sure I would have awakened as it was being carried out. No one could sleep through that.

Ok, this guy was dense, so I would have to show him a thing or two… his armor was metal, so the first thing I thought of was to use Battery on him. Nothing happened. I repeated myself, "Battery!" Still nothing happened. The Templar laughed. He said I should know perfectly well that stuff doesn't work in waking life. I told him that this was a dream. He said the drugs must have gotten me quite confused… but I had already been convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. He said I had seemed to lose my senses when the method of my execution was announced… but he was glad to see I was fully lucid and able to experience every moment of it. I said of course I was lucid, it was a lucid dream. He said I could tell myself that all I wanted, it wouldn't change a thing. He pushed me to the side, I fell to the ground since my hands and feet were still tightly bound. I looked up and saw the Templar opening the doors of an old medieval execution device known as an iron maiden.

At first I wasn't really sure what to say… was this madman really intending to use that thing? He picked me back up by the ropes on my arms and carried me over to the device, setting me between the open doors. He laughed and said this was going to be fun. I had no thought that I could be actually killed here… I knew it was a dream… I told him if he even thought about trying to use that thing on me I would see him in the dark realm where I would have a front row seat to watch the cruelest demon I could find slowly burn the flesh from his bones. He just laughed again and started swinging the doors closed. I told him I had been leaving them alone because they hadn't been bothering me, but doing something like that would mean all bets are off. So unless he wanted to know… While I was threatening, he had continued swinging the doors slowly closed. The spikes on the doors were poking me, and pushing me back a bit into the spikes on the back of the device. He laughed when my words got cut off, then with one final hard shove, he pushed the doors completely closed.

The first reaction I had was that I couldn't believe he'd actually had the balls to do that… and of course his balls are something I would cheerfully relieve him of… That thought only had an instant in my mind before I was hit with a wave of excruciating pain, feeling each and every spike as it was rammed through my body… it was immediately the worse physical pain I have ever felt… and then to top it off, they had piped in some kind of loud screaming that sounded a bit like an enraged banshee who was also in pain. But this was a dream… why was I feeling so much physical pain in a dream? That damn screaming was too loud for me to think… and then I realized the one screaming was me… apparently an unconscious reaction to the excruciating pain… With an enormous effort of will, I forced myself to close my mouth and think… I just had to wake up. So I focused on waking up. Wake up… wake up… wake up… nothing happened. I tried to move a bit to wake myself up, but the attempt at movement only redoubled the excruciating pain I was in by shifting my position on the spikes… And still I did not wake up. Why could I not awaken? I also noticed I was no longer silent. I hadn't started screaming again, I was just emitting low groaning sounds of pain that sounded like the expression of someone in the deepest pits of despair. I could hear laughter outside… the Templar was enjoying this.

I remembered reading a couple of articles, from when I was doing some research on torture devices I could put in a dungeon for a video game I am designing, about a person shut inside an iron maiden living for as long as a couple of days. How long had I already been in there? Not long, I didn't think… this was a dream. That meant I would wake up. But how long would that take? This was a dream… that also meant I should have my powers. Why weren't they working? Maybe something was blocking them… I just needed to focus to overcome that block… As I was trying to focus, I unintentionally shifted my body again… another wave of unbelievable pain… an involuntary cry of pain and despair… a laugh from the Templar outside… broken focus. A simple ability, like telekinesis… I focused on opening the doors to the iron maiden. That would either result in my being free or in my dream body bleeding to death and me waking up. At that point either alternative was an acceptable result. Nothing happened. I was going to try to focus better when the floor literally dropped from beneath my feet. But of course I was pinned on the spikes and could not fall… instead I was hanging on the spikes now… and what I had thought was the worst possible physical pain got about ten times worse…

After hanging there with my mind clouded by pain for what felt like forever, the floor closed again and I was once again standing on something solid. Apparently that was something they would do for periodic amusement. I could now hear at least two or three Templars outside laughing. One kept saying to do it again. Another said they had to wait… set a pace for the pain, deliver it all at once, what do they do for fun then? For fun?! For fucking FUN?! Those fucking sick bastards, what kind of mind does a person have to have to think putting someone in a device like this is fun?! Rage and dark energy were boiling up within me… and I let it. The dark energy brought a feeling of cold numbness, which blocked out most of the pain. It was not stable dark energy, and I didn't care. I let it be unstable, let it expand and fill me until it was bursting out of me like an explosion… and then there actually was an explosion…

The resultant explosion that blew the iron maiden into three separate pieces… blasted the two doors off to the front, and threw the back half against the wall behind me. One of three Templars got slammed with a door to the iron maiden… it had flipped around in the explosion and he was now impaled on the spikes of the door. Another Templar was staring at me… and kept repeating two words… Oh, shit… oh, shit… oh, shit… He disappeared, abandoning his partners like the coward he was. I was currently pissed and full of unstable dark energy. I used telekinesis to lift the free Templar and slam him into the back half of the iron maiden, impaling him on the spikes there. Must have hit a vital organ or two, because he died quickly. I noticed the one pinned under the door was still moving. I went over and looked at him. His face was contorted by pain and terror. I wondered what I looked like that would instill such a fear response… as if that was a request, I saw a brief 3rd person view of myself… I looked like Sorceress Edea from Final Fantasy VIII (the form usually called the Queen of Night), but in addition to looking like a dark sorceress, I looked dementedly pissed off…

ok… it was a bit disturbing, or it would have been if I hadn't been bursting with unstable dark energy. I stepped on the door under which the terrified Templar was pinned... forcing the spikes further into him, and eliciting a cry of pain and a plea for mercy. I had no urge to be merciful… I gave one more shove down on the door and then walked away as the Templar was grimacing in pain and trying in vain to lift the heavy iron door off of himself.

I walked over to the dungeon door… and did absolutely nothing, but the door blasted off of its hinges apparently of its own accord. I left the dungeon into the main Templar base, throwing dark energy spears at the Templars, randomly impaling them and pinning them to the wall. Some died quickly, others cried out in pain as they hung there dying a much slower death. I got to the center of the base, or what looked like the center, and unleashed an Immortal Fire of pure unstable dark energy, a wall of black flames burst out from me, incinerating everything in its path. I was feeling a bit disoriented… and the scene around me shifted.

*Visions of Castaneda*
Now I was in MoSh's inner world where I had intended to go in the first place. My dark energy had been drained off in the Templar base, and I just felt drained rather than homicidal. I collapsed to my knees in the yard in front of MoSh's house, taking deep breaths and trying to calm myself down. I noticed all my wounds had somehow healed, probably from the intense energy flow… The door to the house flew open and MoSh came running out with Asuka right behind him. MoSh got over to me and was worriedly asking if I was ok… what had happened? I wasn't able to answer right away, which seemed to worry him even more… but finally I was able to tell him I would be ok. Data was there… and he opened a portal. MoSh picked me up… I was trying to tell him I could walk just fine… and carried me through the portal, Asuka followed, and we were in the healing glen. Basara also showed up, and we did a mutual healing, with the crystal golem putting in extra healing energy. My dark energy was stable again, completely controlled.

"Carlos Castaneda," I said to MoSh, "Let's go watch him." MoSh looked surprised. He said no, we didn't have to do that tonight. He said I should get my rest. I felt the dream slipping, too… but for some reason I thought it would be a worst case scenario to let this entire dream be wasted on being tortured by and subsequently killing stupid Templars. I wanted to do something productive. I told him I was ok and I wanted to do it now. I focused on time dilation to stabilize the dream, turning one hour of IWL time into four hours of dream time… I asked for the book… then I remembered it was called 'A Separate Reality' by Carlos Castaneda. I summoned the book. I opened it and skimmed for the word waterfall or don Genaro. Found mention of don Genaro, so I transported MoSh and myself to my room in my inner world and got my laptop. I loaded the book into my laptop through a scanner and then activated the holographic viewing system… I was wondering if it would work… the new scene took shape around us. We could now watch the events in the book… and see the events of the book instead of looking like snack food to a bunch of hungry graboids.

I looked around and saw the target of our viewing. Castaneda, don Juan, and a couple other guys were sitting in a line on a row of rocks that they were using as chairs. They were all staring at a waterfall. The waterfall was quite beautiful, but I didn't see that the beauty of the waterfall alone would command their full attention for that long… I looked over at the waterfall. There was an older man climbing a trail beside the waterfall. It looked like a difficult trail, but the man looked like he was in much better shape than his age might indicate. For the most part he was sure footed about his ascent to the top of the falls where he disappeared from sight.

MoSh touched me on the shoulder and asked if I was sure I was ok… he said it looked like something pretty serious had happened to me. I said I was ok now. He hesitated, then said since we were here, we might as well do it right. He said to point at don Genaro with my pinky when he came back into view. I didn't say anything about that not being my method of energy scanning… I knew what he meant, that was really all that was necessary. The man, apparently don Genaro, appeared by the edge of the waterfall at the top.

I focused on seeing his energy, not just his body. At first I just saw a bright aura, he had strong energy… but also pure and stable. No corruption there, but that wasn't what I was looking for. I watched him for a bit, then his energy field seemed to change its shape, he was clearly manipulating his energy. I watched from next to MoSh as he used tendrils of energy like ropes to help him get to a small stone in the middle of the falls… and then to an even smaller one… somehow without getting swept away. He wouldn't be swept away, he had his energy tendrils to hold on to. He stayed on the second stone for a while, positioning his energy tendrils just right, removing them from the first rock and anchoring them to the far bank of the river… And then he used them to pull himself over to the far bank where he landed with cat-like grace on all fours. He paused there and pulled his energy tendrils back into himself, then finally stood up and looked down at his audience. All four men were staring wide eyed. Don Genaro now momentarily glowed brightly, expanding his energy field in a bright and colorful aura that looked like it might be visible from space… before disappearing from sight on the other side of the waterfall.

It started raining now. The four men who had been sitting got up. I could hear Castaneda talking plaintively to don Juan who was responding as one might to a child who is complaining too much… responding in a tone that sounded like a reprimand… but I couldn't hear what they were saying. And I also had the feeling it didn't matter what they were saying. MoSh and I had been there to see don Genaro's show, not to find out what Carlos Castaneda was complaining to don Juan about… MoSh asked what I had seen. I told him what I had seen, don Genaro using his energy tendrils to help him get across the flowing waterfall without falling off. He commented that it seems I had seen it. I said yeah, I have been able to see energy in the dream state for quite some time… though I didn't remember seeing someone use the energy in that manner before… MoSh said that when Castaneda and don Juan had first watched this, it had been in the physical plane of our own home world… and then Castaneda had written about his experiences, although Castaneda had not been able to see what don Genaro had done at that point. Castaneda had looked, but had not been able to see. That didn't seem odd since most people on our physical plane aren't able to see energy…

The hologram shut down at that point, apparently MoSh and I had seen everything we were going to see. MoSh said don Genaro had been manipulating his energy body on the physical plane of our world. I said yeah, that was pretty cool. I saw MoSh and I were back in my inner world again. I went over to the couch and sat down. MoSh was walking around looking at things. I could feel myself about to wake up again. I told MoSh that I was about to wake up, and time dilation seemed like too much effort to try again when it has never worked the second time anyway. MoSh was saying something else to me when everything faded and I woke.