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A scene ended with me getting into a car and driving away. While I'm driving, however, something goes wrong, I keep weaving into the other lane, and I wind up getting pulled over by a cop. I'm thinking, good thing this is just a dream. And I'd rather not stick around for this, so I go incorporeal and float through the roof, invisible. I look down at the cop being surprised by the car without a driver, and then I decide to bring the car with me: I turn it into water droplets, which collect in the palm of my hand.

There's a memory gap, but I doubt the semi-lucidity lasted long after that. Next scene I remember clearly is non-lucid: a woman is consulting a witch, asking her to do a spell or divination for her. When it's over, the witch asks the woman what that looked like from her end - meaning that during the course of the spell, the witch realized this woman's got some magic of her own. And the god this witch works for may or may not have an interest in this woman. The witch asks her a question, about why she's trying to (do something) when she's got too much on her plate already. The woman explains: there's a guy who loves her "pretty bad" - no mention of whether it's reciprocated - and she "can't hear him anymore," by which she means hear him in her head - it's a vampire thing - and she's worried about him.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm temporarily working for a doctor with a small private practice, I'm in training. The doctor's showing me a patient's chart and is asking me if anything jumps out at me - I say the patient's lost 10 pounds, but I'm thinking, that could just be a diet. The doctor points out what she wanted me to see: this patient's been suffering from hallucinations, describing strange sights and sounds. But she lives in the city, and there are all sorts of strange things there; and on the date that she experienced these 'strange sights and sounds,' there was a parade. I'm doubtful. I say, "I don't know, it's pretty difficult to confuse a parade with a hallucination." The doctor admits this is true.

There was a scene where I went to talk with that patient, and by the end of that scene we've wound up talking casually in the waiting room, she's very pretty and very easy to talk to. Then a baby belonging to one of the other patients crawls up into her lap. It's got a dripping diaper. This eventually leads to an unpleasant confrontation with the mother, who denied that the baby was the cause of the mess; the mother becomes so outraged that she takes out a gun, points it at the ceiling and shoots.

I grab the woman's arm holding the gun. The other patients in the waiting room all run out the door, except the one I'd been talking to. I get the gun away from her before she can fire the other bullet - it's a two shot derringer - and I hand it to the other patient. As I do so I say something along the lines of "Hold this for me, honey." Then I think, wait a minute, she was my patient a minute ago, that's very unprofessional, I can't go around changing a DC's relationship to me mid-storyline just because we shared a nice conversation and a life-or-death situation. The woman has pulled out another gun, and I take it away from her and hand it to the patient again - there wind up being 4 guns total.

I'm someone who's investigating a woman, and my partner and I are searching her apartment. I'm going through old chat logs on her computer. As we leave, walking down the stairwell, we talk about something I found in those logs. I'm saying to her something about "the desire to feel someone else can understand your experience, your point of view. The internet can be great for that." I'm thinking that I'm starting to understand this woman we're investigating, to know how she thinks; I can relate to her. I'm also thinking that the internet's never worked out that way for me - but then I think, feeling alone in something is a universal human experience in itself.

Connecting directly to that feeling-alone-in-something thought - we get to the bottom of the stairwell and walk out the door, and outside, we're in the ruins of an apartment building where I used to live. Everything I can see is covered in debris. We're standing in front of what used to be the indoor pool on the first floor - there's no water, there's a layer of debris at the bottom, and there's no wall or ceiling, the pool is the only recognizable part of the building left. This is a memory of where I was when my wife and daughter died. I climb down to the pool ladder, trying to recreate the moment. But I'm shorter now than I was then, the perspective's wrong. Getting the right eye level means putting my feet on a different rung of the ladder than before. It's not quite right.

Looking around, I find something in the debris. It looks like a cartridge for an old video game console; from the pictures and words on it, I get the impression it's not a game itself, but a soundtrack. My partner takes it from me and looks it over and says, yeah, if you don't know what you're doing it'll just be a soundtrack - but this contains a hidden emulator.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

Fantasy setting loosely based on ancient China. As a disembodied observer, I'm watching a man teleport into a large tunnel or cave, only to immediately crumble into dust. I'm thinking, whoops. Let's retry that.

Earlier, a woman showed that man a dark green and glittering substance kept in a small, rectangular, light green bottle, and explained that to use it you simply rub it over the palms of your hands and clap them together. Having seen him crumble into dust, I can tell she was tricking him, deliberately leading him to his death, but I'm also aware that this substance really is something of value - this man only asked her about it because he's seen her use it before. There's an old man listening to their conversation, and when she's left that old man catches the younger man's eye and takes the bottle himself, tucking it into his sleeve. The scene skips ahead to a moment when those two men are surrounded and need to escape in a hurry; the old man produces that bottle, rubs the contents over his hands - which causes them to look claw-like - and claps his hands together. Both men are teleported to that tunnel - this time around, the original teleporter lives, and the old man crumbles into dust.

A sort of ancient China-based fantasy setting. Someone's left an offering of a fish for me at my shrine, and I'm suspicious of it, so I only take a taste. It turns out to be fine. Now I feel regret; if I'd known it was good, I would have eaten the whole thing. From my perspective, after I tasted it, the rest turned to stone; I'm aware the humans offering it would have seen it differently.

Nearby, there's a man talking with his wife in their home late at night. He's going through a sort of existential despair, and he's sort of thinking through it out loud, talking more to himself than to his wife. Someone else appears and tells him that this existential despair is good, it's an indication that it's time for him to move on to the next stage of life, to become immortal. The man totally buys it. I'm a disembodied observer, but I still have the mindset of the character from the shrine in the previous scene, and I'm extremely irritated with that new person/creature. I think of this man and his wife as mine, and I don't appreciate others attempting to mislead and take advantage of them.

Outside - I remain in 3rd person POV and lose that shrine character's mindset. That couple's house is part of a small complex of several buildings enclosed by a wall, and elsewhere within that wall there's a woman who hunts demons, dressed like a man, chasing after a three-eyed crow, with another woman (a local, not a demon hunter) trying to keep up with her. They don't manage to catch it; it flew over the wall, and it didn't seem at all concerned about its pursuers. She's seen that crow before, the one controlling it has caused trouble for her in the past.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm traveling through a forest, and changing into a suit of chainmail. It's gleaming white, head to toe.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

A fantasy China setting again. There's an elf woman dressed all in white, head to toe, and there are two men taking her over to an island in a rowboat. One of the men is young, the other is middle-aged and has been recently disgraced in some way, he's cut off his hair to reflect that. Reaching the island she wants to go to involves passing through several veil-like things in the air covering the opening between two cliffs.

When they reach the town on the other side of that passage, the older man immediately jumps out of the boat and heads off through the streets, moving quickly. As a disembodied observer, I follow him, and I'm thinking that I've seen this scene before, from the younger man's POV. (Which is probably a false memory, but there's a chance it's true - it's true that I was in the young man's POV in a scene just before the rowboat, and I can only remember very vague fragments of that scene.) I'm thinking now that last time, that man had met up with us after we'd taken care of some business, just before we left the island. I had wondered what he was doing while he was gone, but he'd refused to say, he's always very secretive - I'm pleased I'm going to be able to find out now. (Of course, as soon as I thought that, I woke up.)

2.10.14 Monday

Last night, bed 11:45pm - 8:45am

DR 5:37am

I'm sitting on a chair, behind a table, in Ophelia's kitchen. Danny is standing there. Op walks in in white bathrobe. She says she wanted to go potty, but... [I don't understand what she is saying here].

Suddenly there is a huge earthquake jolt, that moves my upper body forward. No sound, no nothing. Just one big jolt. I start explaining, why jolts are a scary shit, unlike the rolling kinds, that give you at least some kind of a warning by starting small.

I get by the wall and we look at each other, knowing that it was fate, quake happening when I was not home. I get a mental piture of a nearby river and I expect it to overflow or break from it's banks. Either from that jolt, or from the aftershocks, that we are bracing for. Aftershock comes minutes later, and we know it's a bad sign. Feel of doom, that had to happen, it was unavoidable.

DR
I'm cutting fruit. Lots of fruit. Strawberry juices all over the table.

DR
Lots of people, most dressed in black. They are going for a funeral. Something about not having enough flowers. I think I left my shoes behind someplace. I'm sitting on a chair and my late godfather is flirting with me, he wants me to go with him so he can bone me. Tsk tsk.

DR
Something about large grocery store, checkout lanes, bad guys, ...

Yeey, 4 dream recall. Thank you

Dream 1: [COLOR="#800080"]I was in a train station waiting for someone to go on a trip. I keep waiting and waiting but nobody comes so I try to call mom. I see mom and I ask her where the person is. She says that the person should be here already. I tell her it's not here and she grabs my hand and drags me into a little garden. I see there a man without his arms and mom tells me he's a relative. He does the split and mom laughs while saying to me : "That was his position when he beat up that nurse because she wanted to kill him" and then a train drives over him and he still laughs. I get on a tube(blue color) and I stay there. The man says that I need to walk away because that's a water tube. I said : I just stayed there because It's so hot outside and that tube is cold. Then my sister jumps on it and it breaks. The relative gets angry and yells at her. Mom runs fast and repairs it. Suddenly, a snow storm comes and everybody flies away except me and my sister. My sister runs somewhere and I stay there yelling for help. I see a guy with a red hat and he says he will help me but then he runs. I try to move and I find this kid who is like 3 years old. She is really scared and yells and I run to her and pick her up saying : Don't worry, we'll get through this. I lose her and I start looking for her but all I find is another girl who looks like 5 years old(She had blonde hair and green eyes). I grab her hand and we try to walk. I see a fireplace and I tell to this old man if he can let us stay there for a night because it's really cold and we can't see. He says yes so I jump the fence and we sit near the fireplace. It's really hot there and there's no snow. I talk to the girl and she says she got lost from her parents and I tell her that we'll find her parents no matter what. I look over the fence and there's no snow so I'm really happy and I tell the girl that we can go now. We jump over the fence and I see my sister. I run to her and hug her. There's my classmate that comes from the back yelling : ALINA!!! and he jumps on her and we fall. Kris comes and he says that we really need to go a building and he points at it. I say okay and we all go into the building. We play some game and then I get into this hall that has lots of doors and walls in the middle of it and all kind of things. I run but Kris grabs my shirt and he says that the game is over. I run to this other hall. I see some the snsd member and I say that they're really pretty but they're so small(height). I get to this room and there are some papers. I look at them and there are only math problems. [/COLOR]
Dream 2 : [COLOR="#800080"]Something about my grandmother. She wanted me to bring her all kind of stuff.[/COLOR]
Dream 3 : [COLOR="#800080"]I was in my classroom and I was playing on my phone.[/COLOR]
Dream 4 : [COLOR="#800080"]I'm with mom and dad on a street. Mom sees an ambulance and she tells us to run because they will kill us. [/COLOR]

I'm flying down the center of a stairwell.

At the bottom of the stairs, I switch to 3rd person. This is a college, and classes are letting out. There's this incredibly beautiful androgynous person who stops a guy in the hall and talks to him, then s/he gives him this piece of paper with a small square smear of something dark green on it. This color will alter the guy's personality. The guy takes it, and he refers to them as boss and generally acts friendly and cheerful, but he's careful not to actually touch the color. S/he tells him to find a place without any people.

The guy heads up the stairs to the second floor, and I switch to his POV. Most of the classrooms have a few people in them even though they're between classes, but I find one where the chairs have been stacked up on the tables, I figure no one's going to be using this classroom for the rest of the night, and I call the boss over. S/he gives me some more of those papers, with different colors on them and labels giving an idea of their effects, and tells me to distribute them to some of the other students here. I go to do so, but then realize I've mixed up the one s/he gave me with the others. It was clear when s/he was talking to me in the empty classroom that s/he expected me to have already taken it, and now I'm worried about making them mad. When I can't find it again, I wind up taking a different one instead, a slightly lighter colored green, the closest match I could find. Immediately after, I find the one I was looking for, and I wonder whether it's safe to take two. I take it anyway.

I'm talking to someone against the boss's wishes. I consider myself loyal to the boss, but s/he's got a self-destructive streak that I have no problem acting against. Those papers would have prevented me from doing so, but taking two of them sort of cancelled each other out, the changes they caused didn't stick. This guy I'm talking to is a detective or something similar, and I'm telling him a woman's name. He has others working for him and he has them ask after the woman.

I'm a different character in that same college setting. There are police or military or something surrounding an angel - which looks nothing at all like a human, I mostly have an impression of a vast white face like a mask or a doll, twice the height of a man, alien and hostile. I'm thinking to myself that I can't die, it's impossible, like I'm trying to convince myself, but seeing that angel shook me - something about seeing something that old, something that existed before I was created. The disembodied observer side of me is thinking that although the character side of me isn't aware of it, there's some connection between me-the-character and that angel.

As the same character, I'm talking to a woman, and ask her to lend me some money. I don't need a lot, just something to get me into a game, I'm confident as long as I have some money to start with I can easily multiply it. She's disgusted, says it's always the same with me. She gave me a business (I have some mental association here with both religion and gambling) and she expected me to run it, so why am I still doing this? I find this ridiculous of her. I had absolutely no interest in the business she gave me.

I'm talking to someone about characters from Buffy - but all but one of us here are aware that I'm just using them as metaphors to talk about us. The one who isn't aware, who thinks I'm just talking about fictional characters, gets bored and leaves, but I keep using the metaphor. I'm saying, no, Giles's problem was that he knew exactly what his - and more importantly, Buffy's - destiny was supposed to be, and he knew it wasn't going to happen. Hence his downward spiral; he knew what they should be doing, and yet there was nothing he could do. I'm looking at a woman who I equate with Buffy as I say this.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I've just driven to my IRL mother's house from a lake, and decided I'm too tired to drive back to the lake tonight, I'll spend the night. Mom gets me a coffee, there's chunks of chocolate floating on the top, I'm thinking about how much I appreciate her thinking to provide comfort food like that. The coffee's too bitter for my taste. I'm thinking that's odd, since I usually drink black coffee. We talk about how tired I've been, and she says it's due to the work I've been doing. I think that's strange, since the job I've been doing is easy, but she says anything you're not used to will tire you out, and relates it to her own similar experience.

Regina is surrounded by people she resents and is saying "Get me my advisor. Now!" As a disembodied observer, I'm pleased to hear this - the advisor she's referring to is Rumpelstiltskin, and earlier someone used a similar phrasing and tone to ask for their father, so I take this parallel as an indication that she's viewing Rumpelstiltskin as a father figure, which was something I wanted.

As Rumpelstiltskin, I've been recently de-cursed but have made sure no one else realizes that. I'm looking through a cabinet for an object related to the situation Regina's currently in. I find it: a small statue of a man in armor standing beside a stone pillar with what looks like Chinese characters on it. I pick up the pillar, removing it from the rest of the statue. I'm talking to myself as I do this, saying "You're here, but are-" I hear Regina's soldiers arriving outside, come to fetch me. I've been expecting them. I immediately pocket the pillar and statue and adopt a pose appropriate for my old cursed self, irritating my bad knee for a moment but making sure no one else will be able to tell it's bothering me, adopting a mindset and mannerisms as if I were putting on a costume and mask, though it takes effort to mimic what used to come naturally - that manic delight and curiosity and energy and attention focused in a million different directions at once. I'm getting used to faking this, though, and am more worried about whether that trinket I'm carrying will work.

This is my first dream about water in a long time.

I had a dream that I had turned on the water to wash my hands, but when I turned it off the water still kept pouring as if the faucet was still on. The sink was filling up quickly and soon water was overflowing onto the floor. When I looked at the floor - it was the floor of my bedroom - all the water was soaking into the carpet. I was in the process of writing the owner of the house about the problem when my mother woke me up.

I'm trying to catch a bus, but the station I've found turns out to be the wrong place - it's a place for repairs only. I sit around the station anyway. There's a guy who I initially thought worked there, turns out to be just another person waiting like me, who tells a story about a dead body that was left unburied. There's a girl listening to the story who slips and falls, hurts herself, and I pick her up and carry her somewhere. She works for my family, who owns most of this town, and she's worried that slipping like that might get her fired - her job involves athletic skill. She's not wrong.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

After an IRL-based scene and a memory gap, I'm lying in a bed, watching a dream image form; I have an impression of gold and light and a woman's face, but it's blurred and I'm thinking that I can influence it too easily, I decide I'm not asleep enough for this, it's more imagination than dream. I decide to just let myself wake up instead, and let the image disappear, so there's no visuals. I open my eyes. I'm in a dorm, I'm a high school kid at either a boarding school or a very fancy camp or something, rooming with two other guys, and we go out to the lake and have some competition that winds up accidentally involving other people and getting us in trouble. I fall on top of the rotting body of a snake in the water, and a bit of it gets stuck under one of my fingernails. The teacher or counselor or whoever it is that tells us off for causing trouble mostly just seems amused by us; he refers to us as Vision house, and says it's all valuable experience.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm traveling with two other people, looking for something or someone, and right now I'm making a deal with an old woman I associate with trolls, to allow us to pass. She's sitting on a rock in some canyon, dry earth without any plants, and there's a cloud of dust over some footprints that appear and disappear as if there were invisible people moving around just in front of her. I associate those footprints with whoever/whatever we're looking for, it's why I'm talking to the troll-woman. She agrees to a deal: three for three. She'll allow the three of us to pass if we can win three fights against her people.

The scene changes: we're at an indoor pool, facing the first of her people. Although the two guys I was traveling with are still here, they're standing aside; I have the impression they'll stop the guy we have to beat if he moves towards them, but otherwise, I'm the one handling this. I'm in the water, and I become aware that I have a long fin on my back like a lancetfish, that there's something off, fish-like, about my hands and skin and eyes as well. The guy and I both follow the same pattern of engaging only to immediately back off, until eventually I get him into the water and hold him under. Once this is done, I look at him and think that he looked malnourished. I recognize him as someone who'd been on death row 'before we all came here.'

I'm walking slowly through a really crappy, almost deserted carnival. It's really quiet and unsettling. As I walk I keep looking into empty cages, wondering why they are empty. I stop walking and decide to turn around and go back. I turn around and behind me is a huge, full grown tiger. It startles me a bit but it has a calm look on it's face so I don't feel afraid. It's really beautiful and bigger than normal. I go to walk around it, but it turns around as well and begins to follow me. I continue walking and place my hand on it's head when it catches up to my side. While walking, the scenery changes and we are walking on a sidewalk next to the stater bros in my town. Again the area is pretty quiet and empty. It suddenly gets insanely hot and the tiger and I start panting and walking slower. I get horribly worried about it and stop walking. I kneel down beside him and stroke his face, talking to him and telling him we are almost home. He looks sad and he collapses, his head resting on my lap. I start to panic and yell for someone to get me some water. Suddenly I look up and my Grandma and my little sister are there next to me. I tell them to please buy me some water because my tiger is sick. They agree and start walking to the store. Half way there my sister yells that this is stupid and she leaves. I start crying and murmuring to my tiger, telling him that everything will be okay. I look up again and my grandma hands me a big bottle of cold water and a red bowl to pour it in. I sigh with relief and pour the water into the bowl. The tiger lifts it's head and drinks it all. I scratch it's head the whole time. After he is done, we get up and start walking again. I keep my hand on his head, petting it lightly and he purrs happily. We our on our way home.

Several fragments based on Tolkien, involving hooded figures, the statement that "No (name of hooded figures) will survive Aragorn" which has some vague association with atheism, and a few scenes in which Aragorn is either fighting the hooded figures alongside one or two other humans, or calmly talking to them, and either way shown to be in complete control.

As Rumpelstiltskin, I'm stopping by the door of one of the storerooms. Belle's inside, talking. The room's mostly filled with straw, but it also holds a mirror, and she's using it to speak with the image of an old woman sitting in a chair and knitting, a woman I know. The woman's giving her advice. I'm pleased - partially at seeing the two of them get along well, but mostly at seeing Belle making use of my magic. They stop talking and Belle turns around and sees me watching them, and I feign disinterest.

As FK's Nick, I'm stretched out on the floor of my apartment, talking to someone and using a laptop on a low table to search for something; the side of me that's a disembodied observer associates this with the semi-lucid search techniques used in other recent dreams.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

A vampire watching a woman turn, which at this stage mostly consists of becoming more physical, much like the old movies - not sexual specifically, just more aware of the senses. He's saying something about how there's no need to believe in a divine plan to explain the way they find each other again and again.

Mina and Grayson are talking in a train car; she says she loves him, and the moment she does, he's flung by some invisible force out of the car, into the next, which is filling rapidly with water, up to the ceiling. He's thinking something regretful about Lucy.

Dune-based, a Fremen leader has just died and everyone's chanting the name of someone they're choosing for the new Naib, a well-respected middle-aged man known for being level-headed. But they're interrupted by Paul and Jessica, performing some Bene Gesserit trick with light that makes them appear god-like, a move to take power over the Fremen. It works. I find it extremely distasteful.

My IRL mother weighing a desire to give up physical possessions against the potential uses for the land she owns, and considering an apiary.

A wrong number from an angry woman looking for a Melissa. (Not the one from the myths specifically, but still presumably inspired by the apiary bit.)

I'm looking at a digital folder labeled 'Eric'; none of the files inside have anything to do with him.

An earlier, lower-budget movie version of Barbarella.

A variety of nautical references: ornaments shaped like ships, a trip to the beach and a mention of pirates.

A painting of pale, black-haired elves with ravens on their shoulders, in a park.

Two homeless men, one with a dog, the other a preacher standing on a wooden crate, arguing about Jesus and whether or not he spent a lifetime as a cat.

"So ever shall be considered the gardens of Biblios."

10.01.2014

Fishing a purse from the Ice (DILD)

NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID

I was at some woods or something, or maybe some sort of camp grounds. I was aware I was in a dream, something that I cannot recall triggered lucidity.

I took of and started to fly as usual to balance the dream. This place felt to be a very Lord of the Rings type of place and I recalled I had to do the task of the months. I saw a lake and I believe I had to do something with it.

As I approached the lake, I saw a lot of children taking a bath at the Lake, and some adults too. I recalled I had to freeze it, so I placed my finger in the water and visualized it turning into ice. Apparently, nothing was going on, even thought the water stopped moving. I touched the water with my other hand and it was solid, and right away, I saw how around my finger the water started to turn white until it was a very solid and thick piece of ice.

The whole lake was frozen and I recalled I had to make a hole and fish something. So I started kicking the ice and a small hole cracked open. Do not ask me how, but I just sat and pulled a fishing rod out of nowhere and started to fish. I felt a very strong pull and I started to pull... I pulled a brown purse, yes... a women's purse... LOL.

With that done, I started to doubt if it was the Task of the month or from last month. I recalled I could do also one of the ToTY, but a small kid came to me and told me with a New York accent (Why did you freeze the lakeeeeeeeeeeee siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir?" I lost lucidity and the dream went on for a long time, but I cannot recall well what happened, something about feeding a snake.

I'm using a tea cup to catch rain that contains some kind of power.

There's a very important (possibly sacred) torch that I was meant to do something with (I have a vague impression of something involving the sky) but, while standing at the edge of a cliff, I've managed to drop the torch, and I'm watching it fall into the waves and go out. "Oops."

A group of five people in a car, on a road trip. They stop at a sushi place and one of them goes off to try to pick up a woman he saw outside. Two of the others say something, sheepish, about how they've been hitting the 'family' note a little too much on this trip, it must have freaked him out, and now he's proving to himself how unattached to them he is. They don't mind.

There's a portrait, tall and very narrow, of a woman standing in front of a Buddhist grave marker. The woman who was the subject of the portrait is standing in front of the painting, looking at it. A strange reptile-like creature steps out of the painting of the grave, and I know this is her dead son.

There's a memory gap - next fragment I remember clearly is in a dark space with three exits, an entrance to an afterlife, and the woman's talking with her son, who now looks more or less as he did in life - human - although there are shadows clinging to him in a shape suggesting a tail, and he's standing halfway in one of those three exits, with flames around his feet. They'd been saying something about how that exit's not for her, after she tried to hug him and he stopped her. She says, "Mommas hurt, darling. Men die." Then she vanishes.

I'm reading a book. In it, the main character is looking at a river and thinking "The mare of time." The river surface usually looks calm, but it's been disturbed due to the ongoing combat. There's a thought that it's only humanocentrism that makes him see the 'calm' river as better/more natural than the 'disturbed' river. There's a reference to a distant place he's been searching for, or came from, or that otherwise has been referenced frequently in the story before now; from this point in the story onward, that place will no longer be a major part of the story. There will be a few minor finds, items from that place, fruits, henna - accompanied by the line "It was a good henna, but not enough to sit in front of the Skillet-mirror" - but the place itself will never appear in the story again, which gives the story as a whole a sort of surreal feeling, with storylines that go nowhere and scenes that don't quite match up, aside from always containing the same main character; a focus on imagery rather than plot. It reminds me of a less surreal Maldoror, or a more surreal Gormenghast, and I start thinking about the surreal in my own writing.

There's a Lost Boys tv show, currently showing the Boys versus some vampire skinheads.

A doctor who is giving up his practice and moving to an isolated island, moving in with the couple he loves. He's talking to his mother (a relatively young woman who insists he refers to her as his sister in public) about his intent to stop practicing medicine. They're standing on a small wooden hanging bridge high over a river, surrounded by tropical plants with broad leaves and looking out over the sea; it's very beautiful.

I'm in a marketplace filled with angry people. They don't like being guarded by off-worlders like us, and we're trying to arrange things so we can get at least half the guard duty covered by their own people. One of our guys in uniform is saying something about how surveys indicate the majority of locals don't mind having some off-worlder presence, and we're trying to find the best solution for everyone here, and more research is going to have to be done. I'm not joining in the discussion, I'm sitting in the dirt at the edge of the marketplace, out of uniform, just listening and watching. There'd been a chance of a riot here, but the danger seems to have passed. Now that things seem to have calmed down, the kid who alerted me to the situation and led me here reaches out and picks up the chips - money - that I left beside me on the ground. I put it there for him, but he seemed unsure if it was really okay for him to take it. When he sees me looking at him, he looks scared and smiles at me; I nod, and he grabs the money and runs off.

Someone with a different face than usual is explaining to a horrified listener that he's learned to shapeshift. The listener asks who he can shapeshift into; the answer is something along the lines of "oh, people I've eaten, people I've physically bonded with, anyone really." The listener wonders, but doesn't ask out loud, what physically bonded means exactly; he's wondering if just seeing someone is enough. "Objects, even." The listener, horrified by all this, asks, "What happens to your personhood?" The shapeshifter says he's removed a piece of himself and keeps it separate in this box, which he's now asking the listener to deliver to his aunt for him for safekeeping. It looks ordinary, and the listener asks if this shouldn't be labeled in some way. The shifter mocks the idea. It's not necessary to know something's significance to keep it safe; often it's the opposite, it's simpler and safer if they don't know.

A pair of time-travelers who've recently reunited are stopping by a football game they've been to before. They kept meaning to get around to changing this one little moment in time, and now they've got the chance. There's a guy who's been meaning to propose to his girlfriend, and they're about to be featured on the big screen; the first time around, neither of them had noticed they were on camera, and something unfortunate happened afterward. This time around, the time-travelers are sitting just behind the couple, and they poke them and draw their attention to the camera. The guy takes the moment to propose, the girl accepts - but they both seem rather awkward and uncomfortable with all the attention.

I've been living in a foreign country, working as a live-in tutor, but this is the end of my last day and I'm about to leave. I'm packing up the last of my things and then head downstairs. Downstairs appears to be the house I grew up in, but I'm thinking to myself that this stuff isn't really here, I'm dreaming, and this is only being used as a convenient background, so there's no need to pack it all. Despite this thought, I don't become very lucid; I just focus on sorting out which things only seem to be here because it's a dream, and which things I actually need to pack.

Julie's patting a big, shaggy old dog, in a room with four guys behind her, talking to her, though I can't make out what's being said. I'm using magic to check in on her from a distance and I don't have a very good connection in this room. She gets up and goes into the corridor, where I can't see her at all, but I recognize the sound of her sister's voice. I realize they're heading outside, which is convenient, there's tons of running water out there I can use. I switch the spell to a bit of water running down the side of the wall, and see that they've gone out into the courtyard and are sitting down on the benches around the fountain - even better. As I move the spell, I remember seeing a post here on DV with a title about learning to control the elements in dreams, which I hadn't read, since thinking of the elements as something you have to learn to use sounded counterproductive. I'm thinking about how helpful water spirits have always been. Again, I don't go lucid; the spell's POV has been moved, and I go back to focusing on the view. They're in the courtyard of a building made of large sand-colored stones, surrounded by potted and hanging plants, and from the fountain I'm looking up at Julie's sister, a woman with long black hair, wearing a black dress. She's saying something about "outlanders."

I'm with a group of people crossing a desert, when a girl - Julia - arrives in our camp on foot. She'd been following us after we left town, refusing to take her with us. She's an English woman, dressed in Victorian clothing; she looks as if she must be very hot in those clothes, but she's kept struggling along. Then a scene change, just a quick image: Julia walking in the desert on foot, while I and a woman sitting behind me are riding a horse, far ahead of her.

A fragment: an image of cities and towers in domes surrounded by wilderness, one of which has been heavily decayed, but which appears to rebuild itself as I'm watching; it's related to the breaking of a Sleeping Beauty-style curse.

Wasn't really trying to lucid dream last night, or recall anything, and i hadnt taken the vitamins i usually do so it's hard to remember:

I was about 30 feet underwater, just swimming around in an empty ocean. I remembered I needed to breathe, so I just took in a deep breath. That was a dream sign for me, and I became lucid. I decided I wanted to become a dolphin so I could swim faster, and I did. I didnt want to stop because it felt amazing. After an unclear amount of time, I started to lose some lucidity so I tried to stabilize. I usually look at my hands to do this, but I was a dolphin.... So I just turned myself back into human and was on land. The stabilization kind of failed, and I had a false awakening.
That's all i can remember.