"The Karate Master" - 09/16/2007 (FA)

"The Karate Master"

09/16/2007

(False Awakening)

(Had some B6 last night, so these were really vivid, and I was this [ ] close to having an LD, but I was also tired as Hell and didn't spend too much time on actually trying to recognize the dream state, so I was just missing clues all over the place.)

This one began with a false awakening. I was in my old house and the room was dark. I looked beside me and there was a baby swing sitting there. CJ was in it, and she was a baby again. Having not paid too much attention to it, at first, and turned away. I heard a noise and then turned back to look at the swing. CJ was now older, maybe 5, and was climbing out of the swing by herself. The swing tilted over, but CJ landed on her feet. Without even looking at me, she opened my room door and walked out.

I got out of bed and followed her, noticing that the kitchen light was on. She walked down the hall, toward the living room and, when I got there, I was surprised to see that my living room was FULL of people. A large portion of my friends and family members were just lounging around and watching TV, even my friend that lives in California was there. I stopped and just stared at all of them. They all just looked at me and smiled, and went back to whatever they were doing. I looked at a clock (and a digital one, at that. I should slap myself for not doing a reality check), and it said it was 10:40 PM. The gears in my head just barely started turning, and I finally said to them. "You know...It's strange enough that I remember going to bed at around 3am, and that clock says it's, somehow, 10:40..but....what the hell are all of you doing here??" BM, from Cali, gave me some bullshit explanation (that I can't remember, right now), and it was somehow enough to throw me off.

I walked into the kitchen and opened the freezer. There was (among other things) a half-eaten french-bread pizza in it. I closed the freezer door and walked back into the living room. It was now daytime and most of my friends and family had disappeared. Instead, CJ and a bunch of kids were hanging around the living room. They all seemed really happy to see me and said that they had been waiting for me to come back, so we could practice martial arts together. I helped them move some of the furniture and we cleared out a large space in the living room and started messing around with some basic martial arts moves.

After a while, the door opened and another, older, kid walked in. With her, was some big, barrel-chested man with a bald head and a black karate gi on. She introduced him as a "master" that was here to spar all the kids. The kids were now, suddenly, teenagers and dressed in karate gis of their own. There were three different styles of gi, each defining a different level of skill. So I sat back in the dining room area and gave them their space, watching.

It was an awesome sight. This guy was just plowing through these kids, but they were definitely putting up a great effort. The master was taking a different approach to each of the different skill levels. He was somewhat gentle to the kids with the all-white gis, the beginners, used a moderate level of control with the kids with a red sash, the intermediates, and absolutely destroyed the advanced students in the white/black Akido-style gis. He was just bouncing back and forth between all these kids, like Jackie Chan, as they rushed him, all at once. One of the girls did this sick combination where she jumped at him with a hurricane kick, which he stepped back from. As she landed, she continued the rotation (which was really fast), spinning like a top and swinging the foot around into a series of foot sweeps. The master evaded the first few rotations and then jammed his foot down on the ground, blocking the final kick with his leg before picking the girl up and flipping her over onto her back.

The second he did that, an older boy, one of the advanced fighters, came up and attacked the master from behind. This kid had no chance. The master turned around, swept the kid's legs into the air, and drove a hand down into chest, slamming the kid down into the floor so hard I thought he would break through it.

As I watched, part of me wanted to just rush in and try my hand at this guy, too, but I knew I would get owned, so I decided to just hang back, as this was their lesson, not mine. Lol.

Later (and I don't remember how this happened, but...), this master was reeeeeeeaaaallly pissed at me. This was, obviously, not a good thing. CJ; some of the rest of the kids; a few of my family members; and I were in some sort of theater. I had learned that the master was after me, and my perspective switched, momentarily, to a view in the lobby. It was as if I was a camera that was following the master as he stormed into the lobby of the theater, and stomped his way toward the theater hall that we were in.

Suddenly, it zoomed back in to first person, and I saw the doors fly open. The master stood there for a moment, glaring at me. The theater hall was nearly empty, and I was closer to the stage. Shortly after, the man was running toward me like a freight train. The kids, who were now their younger selves again, scattered as the master attacked. I tried to do whatever I could to defend myself, but this guy was completely wrecking me.

The theater was filled with those little iron folding chairs, instead of anchored seats, and the guy was just throwing me around them like a rag doll, pretty much. I was able to get a few shots in but, overall, he was just taking me apart.

The turning point came when I was able to trip him. He fell to the ground and I picked up one of the chairs. I tried to pin him by making the legs of the chair straddle over him, and keep him from standing up. He started crawling under the chairs, though. I jumped up on top of the chairs and ran across them, as he moved under them, balancing while trying to keep my weight right above the chairs that he was beneath, so that he couldn't stand up. Finally, moving parallel to each other, we came to the end of the row of chairs. As soon as he slid out from under the last chair and tried to stand up, I dove onto his back and put him in a rear naked choke, before he had a chance to do anything about it. He was still able to stand up and grabbed my arm and tried as hard as he could to pull it off, but I was holding on for dear life. This guy was so big that it felt like I was riding a bull as he flailed and spun around, trying to throw me off (I don't know how the hell he fit under those chairs. lol.) This went on for a few moments, and then I finally felt his body go limp and he fell to the floor, unconscious.

A little while later, we were leaving the theater. I think the cops had been called or something, because there was some big commotion going on. Through the crowd, the master (having awoken) walked toward me. He bowed at me, respectfully, and I simply bowed back. I think he said something to me but I don't remember what it was. (That's the second master that I've gotten my ass handed to me by. At least I was able to beat this guy. I still have to go find the old kung fu master that tore me up last year.)

"Desert Outpost" - 12/07/2006

”Desert Outpost”

12/07/2006

Dream #2

This one jumped around a lot. Me, T, JL and someone else were hanging out in an unfamiliar apartment complex. This girl, N, that I used to work with, a few years ago, lived in one of the apartments. Some time, throughout the dream, we’d gone to Burger King and, when we came back, my food was leaking through the bottom of my bag - a stringy mixture of mayonnaise, and grease dripping all over my legs. We got out of the car and were eating our food outside on the steps of N's apartment, when some little kid came up and was asking me about why my food was so soggy. I can’t remember what I told him though.

Later, some sort of drama happened and I think T ended up getting into a fight with someone in the neighborhood. It had been “hours” (perceived) since we ate at BK and he was feeling all good after winning a fight, so he said something like: “Let’s go get hot wings. I’m buying!” so we went and ate wings at some unfamiliar place. Standing in line, some of my ROTC buddies were there. I remember KA kept trying to get in front of me, in line, whenever I wasn’t paying attention. I’d grab him in a lock and shove him back to his spot, and we’d start play/fighting in line.

The dream shifted again, and it was daytime. A bunch of us (I think it was mostly the ROTC crew) were going on some “desert safari,” where we were supposed to venture to this mystical sort of place, way out in the desert. We each left at different times, because part of the trial was to see who would make it all the way there, without quitting. I had my camera with me and was walking alone through this scorching desert. T’s camera is on his phone, so he kept sending me pics that he was taking, while he was walking. After what seemed like forever, I came to a large mesa, with a sign in front of it. I knew there was some sort of civilization near this mesa, and I had been waiting to find it for a while. The sign, though, said that the “mystical city” we were looking for was still 2000 miles away, and something else about the sign evidenced that I’d only traveled 2000 miles in the first place. I was only halfway there, and about to pass out. The civilization that I heard this mesa was around was nothing but an outpost. I could see it way off in the distance and it was still quite a trip, so I continued walking.

At some point in time, I noticed that, instead of a poncho, I was wearing my bathroom robe (…which struck me as weird, but wasn’t enough to make me lucid). I noticed that there was supposed to be a lot of wildlife on this trip, and I hadn’t seen any. However, when I stepped into this small outpost of a town, there was wildlife running loose, all over it. The thing was: not only were these dangerous animals (alligators, bears, etc) but they were huge - gators as tall as 4 ft, while on all fours; bears which stood about as tall as full-grown men, again, on all fours.

Exhausted, I traveled to the center of this outpost and my surroundings were a mixture of calm and chaos. Some people were running for their lives as these monstrous beasts were chasing them down. Others were just standing around and taking pictures, like tourists in a theme park. I was about to start taking pictures of this weirdness, when I happened to turn around and see a guy running toward me with a massive bear - bigger than he was - closing in behind him. The bear caught the guy’s backpack in its mouth and picked him up off of the ground. He screamed in sheer, helpless terror, as the bear shook him from side to side, like a dog shaking a chew-toy, and then let go, the man flying through the air and smashing through a chain link fence a good 50 feet away.

I slowly lowered my camera and kept walking, thinking that now wasn’t a good time to stop and take pictures. Ultimately, I just wanted to get inside, where I could rest, peacefully, away from these dangerous animals. Strangely enough, there was a sandwich shop in one of the old buildings, which had a sign that said “Subs / Sodas” etc. on it. I remember getting some strange looks from the locals (probably because I was still wearing my bathrobe), before going inside the shop to find something to eat, but I don’t recall anything after this.