"A Lesson in Na'vi Pain Management" - 12/30/2010

"A Lesson in Na'vi Pain Management"
12/30/2010

(Tried a little dream incubation, this morning, and paid for it. I had turned on Avatar, focusing on my intention to draw myself into the movie, through DILD. Unfortunately, it worked. Quite possibly the most painful dream I have ever had in my life. I wasn't even on B6, but I did have a good liquor buzz when I went to bed. It was just as intense, though.)

I was Jake, from the movie Avatar, standing high in one of the mighty, cloud-scraping trees of the life-harboring moon, Pandora. The war with Colonel Quaritch was soon coming, and the rest of the Na'vi were off somewhere else, preparing themselves for the impending battle. Upon a single, gargantuan branch of this tree, I was being trained by a man who identified himself as an old arch-enemy of mine. He looked human, but this dude was enormous; bigger than I was, even at Na'vi size. (He kind of looked like this picture of Heihachi Mishima, but thicker; with longer limbs, and completely bald.) According to this guy, I wasn't quite 'ready' to face Colonel Quaritch and his battalion. I was still "just Jake," and - as this guy would tell it - I was not accustomed to my Na'vi form enough to maximize its potential. So, he was about to teach me about how to manage my perception of pain, as experienced through this neuro-linked clone of a Na'vi body, that my human mind was inhabiting.. Apparently, I had somehow already known that this powerful man was renown for his skills - on an interstellar level - and my best move would be to listen to everything he said. I braced myself, knowing I was going to be in for a tough trial.

Suddenly, I was rocked in the stomach with a fist that might have caused a human being to explode on impact. Another one followed, with yet another close behind. Before I knew it, I was on my knees, in agony; my ribs feeling like they were being beaten in with a baseball bat. He didn't stop, though, screaming at me to get up, just before slamming me with another devastating body shot. This man was definitely not human - as if his size didn't immediately give that away. His strength was something straight out of a video game, and I could swear I was able to sense the shock waves jetting off of each punch to my midsection. I honestly don't know of many times I've ever felt pain like this - if any. The blows drove in on me...almost rhythmically. He was in no rush...just punching away, at his leisure. Completely unprepared for this, I tried desperately to drag myself away from him; helpless.

At this point, I didn't know if he was supposed to be teaching me or was actually trying to kill me. That was until he began to explain how I had the potential to block all of the pain out of my mind, and maintain focus and endurance for battle. He said that it was something that all warriors were able to do, and that I would be able to tap into the Na'vi's ability to do it at an accelerated rate (which was never explained as having been an actual ability of the Na'vi, in the movie. I think this DC just made it up on the spot, which is interesting). He wasn't exactly nice about it, though... Each punch would hurl itself into my gut, and I would yell out in pain - this man's only response being to yell back at me for not taking it 'like a warrior'.

...I definitely didn't feel like a warrior, at the time...

The cadence of punches continued, and I was now in too much collective pain to fight back, even if I wanted to.  Still, I dragged myself along the beast of a tree branch beneath us, which easily supported our bodies without wavering. He was all over me, though, and just would not fucking let up. He jumped from one side of me to the other, anytime I would start trying to scramble away a little more quickly. Each punch was now starting to bring me closer to tears, already having me openly screaming out with each torturous thud - and he could see it. He picked me up to my feet, my body practically limp, and glared at me sternly. Holding me up with one hand and barking at me to 'stop crying', he slammed more punches into me with his free hand, and each one was no less crushing than the last. I was being brutally beaten, and it was more than I could bear.

The gnarled look of torment in my face was slowly turning into a snarl of determination. I knew I couldn't just sit there and let him beat me to a meat-sack of pulverized bone. My eyes locked on his, and my fists tightened - every muscle in my body soon following suit. Immediately, he picked up on this and sneered, growling "WHAT?! ARE YOU ANGRY?! HUH??" through his teeth. His eyes were on fire with the a show of malice that just couldn't have been false. This was becoming a life or death situation. I felt my legs strengthen beneath me, beginning to stand up straight, slowly, but almost involuntarily. The pain was sequentially residing as the fist continued to pound away. I was getting stronger with each blow, able to sense that each punch would still have left a crater upon the trunk of the enormous tree we were in, yet I was becoming increasingly unable to feel them.

After a few more seconds of the onslaught, I was standing up tall, glaring at him with a scowl. Finally, he stopped punching, glaring back at me, still looking at me like a mortal enemy, but no doubt gauging my stoicism after such a merciless attack. From what I could tell, he had decided that I must have been successful in my ascension. My torso still burned from all angles, but my entire muscular structure felt tightened and invigorated. The pain was still there, and it was damn intense....but I just didn't care. He told me that I was now ready for battle...

My recollection of the dream skipped ahead, and I was then running and jumping through the towering trees with a female Na'vi. She swung across a gap between branches, on a vine, and I did the same, right behind her. The two of us landed on another branch, this one just barely big enough for us to fit upon. When we landed, I took a sweeping glance down toward the ground - hundreds of yards below us - and I felt my stomach turn. It was the first time that I realized just how high up we really were. I found myself thinking "what the hell am I doing way up here?" and I think this could have eventually led to lucid dream. However, all chance of that soon disappeared, when our attention got drawn to the sight of the Colonel's aerial gunships flying in over the landscape, toward our village. What might have been our last run through the trees together was now over, and it was time to go to war.

(I woke up here, and the movie was actually just getting to the final battle, practically in sync with the content of my dream, leading me to believe that some of the audio might have been seeping into my dream, when I was beginning to awaken - which happens every now and then I was hungover, and it seemed to take some time for the sensation of pain in my stomach to fade. Instead, it seemed to go to my head, which was now throbbing. Even some time after all of this, while sitting at the computer, I had to hug my stomach, just because it seemed like the faintest - probably just mentally projected - trace of that horrible pain still lingered.

Not the best sleep I've ever had...)

"The Pack" - 05/01/2006

"The Pack"
05/01/2006

Ok, I can’t exactly remember how the plot to this got started, but it had something to do with Tony, Bo, and myself, and we were searching for some kind of treasure or mythical artifact. I can’t remember exactly what it was we were hunting for, but it was hidden somewhere up in the mountains. The thing about this little quest was that we knew very well that the areas were being guarded by werewolves, and that the treasure we were looking for was actually hidden inside the skull of one of these beasts. The greater twist, though, was what I'd later realized (through conversation, I think); ...that we were werewolves, also.

We pulled up to a narrow passageway in the snow-covered mountains. We were in Tony's Jeep, but I think it was a different color than it is in waking life. We'd gotten out of the vehicle and began walking slowly through this area that was nothing but high stone walls and snow all around - and was leading into the mouth of a cave. It daytime out, and the sky was a bleak and ominous gray.

At first, we’d been moving cautiously, not knowing exactly how many of these werewolf sentinels were out here, but we knew we only needed to kill a certain one of these things to get what it was we needed, so we planned on making this an in-and-out operation.

As we were going in, the three of us saw something stirring in the cave. It only flashed by for a second, but we could tell that whatever animal was moving around in an off-section of the little cave was alone. Seeing the possibility for a 1-on-1 fight, Tony said something very Vegeta-esque, like; “This shouldn’t take long,” and suddenly started running forward in the snow, throwing off his jacket while sprinting toward the cave - toward the large shadow looming within. He disappeared among the surrounding surrounding shadows and we couldn’t see him transform but - from the sounds of the two monsters fighting in the cave, - it was apparent that he had, seconds before engaging. Bo and I waited outside for a moment, listening to them go at it, and keeping our eyes on our surroundings because we knew the sounds of struggle would attract more wolves to the scene. 

A few moments later, all had gone silent. Tony came striding back out of the cave, proudly - back in his human form - and wearing the tatters of what was left of a shirt and pants (as far as can remember. The detail on what he was wearing was sketchy). The thing was, he came out empty-handed.

When Bo asked where the [whatever it was] was, Tony said something about “not doing all of the dirty work on this little trip.” I remember arguing with him about that because the whole point of trying to do this as quickly as possible was to get out before reinforcements came, and now, one of us was going to have to take the time to go back in. I don’t remember much of the argument, but I think we cut it short and decided to all go back in and get it, because the three of us were in the cave before I knew it.

Within the rocky chamber, Tony was still refusing to get the (whatever it was) and was standing with his arms crossed, defiant. Bo - looking at the corpse of the werewolf that Tony had just killed - didn’t exactly jump at the chance to retrieve the item, neither. Finally I’m like “Fuck..I’ll do it..,” and moved in closer to the hulking mass of flesh and fur, slumped upon the floor. I remember hesitating a little bit, because I had to stick my arm up inside this werewolf’s gaping mouth and pull something down from out of its skull. This wasn't exactly appealing to me. I just stared at the thing - with its lifeless eyes staring back at me - not wanting to put my arm up between those jaws, and Tony said something sarcastically about us “having to hurry up,” mocking me for arguing about hurrying before taking my time with this part. Sooner or later, I got up the nerve and just shoved my arm up into the huge mouth of this thing, closing my fist around [something] and prying it free from what might have been the creature's brain (I still don’t know what the hell it was we went up there for). With our objective in hand, we started running back toward the Jeep.

Upon our return, the inevitable happened. Just as we saw the Jeep in view, streams of these beasts came stampeding out of caves etched into the high mountain walls of the V-shaped canyon in which had parked. There was no way that we were going to make it to the Jeep in time, and we knew it. Their four legs were bringing them directly down the walls - and toward us - faster than our two legs were letting us run toward them and the car.

I drew back my shoulders and threw my coat in the snow. Leaning forward, I could feel myself transform; my muscles and bones expanding and popping into their new shapes; mind racing as if I’d just shot up pure adrenaline. I’ll never forget the feeling of running on all fours - paralleled by Tony and Bo, who had also transformed - directly toward the horde of other werewolves, which were matching speed, in our direction.

Our groups clashed in the middle of the basin, and what followed was an epic battle between our side - outnumbered - and theirs. Bones cracked; blood and gore sprayed along the jagged walls of the mountain’s face; bodies were tackled and slammed up against the Jeep so hard that it cracked the windshield and metal frame. It was just an all out war with the ferocity of a pack of rabid….well….werewolves. (It all felt very Underworld 2-ish.)

I don’t remember whether we actually won - or if we just managed to transform again and escape, when there was a break in the action (which could be considered winning, given the circumstances ) - but, before I knew it, we were back in the Jeep and leaving the mountains, covered in blood from head to toe. As we were driving back, I remember that one of my teeth were loose. Slightly irritated by this, I worked it out of my mouth and threw it out the passenger window. Then I noticed another was loose, and I did the same thing. Then another...and another. Though my mouth was already bloody with residue left over from mauling our opponents, it was starting to gush with my own blood as my teeth were now seeming to fall out out by the dozen. (I never had the old common “my teeth are falling out” dream before now, that I can remember. It figures it takes such a wild situation for me to experience one of the most universally archetypal dream scenarios. Lol.)

Later, we were in some high-rise hotel suite at night. (All my teeth had come back in but I’m still pretty sure it was the same dream.) We were throwing a party that - I think - was to celebrate the victory (and money ) we’d made off of whatever the hell it was that we'd brought down out of the mountains. There was a hell of a lot of people there; good music; low lighting and everything. I can’t remember too much of the detail from then on, but the dream pretty much ended on a hazy, but much appreciated, party atmosphere.

Good stuff.

"Batgirl, Interrupted" - 02/28/2010

"Batgirl, Interrupted"
02/28/2010

I was at this insane frat party. The entire house was full of people - standing room only - and it was one Hell of a house. Downstairs, in one far corner of the house, was where the junkies seemed to hang out, and they were all down there doing God knows what, while everyone else was partaking in less seedy activities. Sometime during the night, I found myself downstairs, moving through the area where the junkies were having this hypodermic orgy and partying their asses off. Everyone was sharing needles with everyone else, and everyone was visibly stoned off their asses. This wasn't my thing, but apparently I had friends down here. Suddenly, I felt a pinprick. I can't remember if it was on my arm or my lower body, but it was on my right side. I knew, immediately, that I had just been stuck with something that was just going around, and I was terrified, because I didn't know what it was or how much I was just given.

Practically jumping out of my skin, I pushed the stranger's arm away from me and turned around to see who had just injected me. There was this absolutely smokin' chick standing in front of me, with short, black hair. (Looked kinda like This picture of Victoria Beckham.) She was swaying and grinning widely - her eyes nearly shut - and she was apparently wasted off of something. She kept telling me to relax and have a good time. I was worried about what she just gave me, and at first she was having fun with my not knowing. She just refused to tell me what it was, and she kept teasing me about it. We talked a little bit, though, and she turned out to be really cool and down to earth - outside of having her fun at my expense. I asked her again, in all seriousness, what she had stuck me with. She said it was "just codeine", and aside from possibly feeling a little drunk, I would be fine. She said this with a very matter-of-fact - but reassuring - "dude, don't freak out" smile on her face, that actually made her all the more attractive. We flirted a lot, but I decided not to get too wrapped up with her, because apparently she had a problem with a lot more than "just codeine," and I didn't want too much to do with that sorta scenario. The sexual chemistry was definitely there, though, so while I didn't completely go after her, I filed her away as a 'maybe,' and ended up going back to another section of the party.

Later, a really rowdy bunch of bikers showed up to the party. Their leader appeared to be Bobcat Goldthwait, playing a loud, over-the-top character like his Zed from the Police Academy movies, but much younger and more built - more threatening, overall. This group actually turned out to be shape-shifters. They morphed into these reptilian creatures that looked almost like Xenomorphs. (I've been playing the AvP demo lately, on the ps3.) Pretty soon, the entire party was in chaos, and these things were going around, attacking everyone in sight. I don't really remember how it happened, but I ended up getting the black, symbiote Spider-Man suit. It had something to do with the shape-shifters' being here, and I just happened to be the one to get my hands on the living, extra-terrestrial suit. An absolutely insane battle ensued - with me as the black-suited Spidey - but I don't remember too much of it.

What I do remember is that I got my ass handed to me by these things. I was buried in a pile of rubble, on top of a high building, somewhere else in the city, and felt like I was just regaining consciousness. I remember being pulled out of the rubble by some unknown figure. It took me a moment, straining to focus my eyes, but I slowly began to realize who it was. It was dark out, but there was the occasional white flash of what seemed to be a spotlight sweeping across our position.

It was the girl from the party...but she was dressed as Batgirl. No. She wasn't just dressed as Batgirl. She was Batgirl. The armored suit she had on was amazing - definitely the real deal (and actually kind of masculine, as if it was fitted for Batman's torso). She hauled me out of the pile of pulverized metal and stone. Throwing anonymity to the wind, her mask was off - and she was still obviously a bit intoxicated, but looking much better and more coherent than when I had last seen her. We had a short conversation about how she was actually the famous 'Superheroine,' but was just going through some things and - among other personal issues - had a drug problem, but she'd taken a liking to me and pulled herself together, when she saw that I'd been injured in fighting off those alien/things. She also had a hoverboard, like Goblin Jr. had in Spider-Man 3, and we teamed up to fight against the remaining creatures. The final battle was amazing, and there was a lot of high-flying acrobatics and web swinging. I remember, by the end, I had actually gotten control of her board, still wearing the black Spidey suit, and launched one of the pumpkin grenades up into my hand - from a switch near my foot - caught it, and threw it at the last remaining shape-shifter to kill it.

Pretty bad ass.

"Blackmail: Return to Sender" - 12/08/2010 (Lucid)

"Blackmail: Return to Sender"
12/08/2010
(Lucid)

Some goons had kidnapped my daughter.

They were using her as leverage, to blackmail me into coming along with them and helping them to commit an armed robbery. With no other choice, I went along with it. I don't remember very much of the whole situation, as it began, but it involved being something of a point-man in the heist, within a enormous estate home. The squad of thugs were charged with keeping the people in the house at bay, while I was supposed to be the one who actually went in to steal whatever was in the safe. It wasn't long before the occupants of the house began fighting back, though, and soon there was an insane firefight going on. I wasn't fortunate enough to be given a gun so, once I had what I came for, I had to haul ass through the house, ducking and dodging as guns were blazing around me. For the most part, the folks in the house were completely outgunned, and there were innocent people dying all around me. The inhabitants of the home figured me to be one of the bad guys (which, in essence, I was), so I ended up having to grab a pistol off of a dead man and shoot my way out, rounding the stairwell and rushing down, level after level; covering my own ass with frantic shots until I made it to the ground floor.

I rushed outside of the house, gunfire still crackling in all directions. As I was running, a van hurriedly pulled up beside me, and the door opened. Still at a sprint, I jumped inside the van and we sped off. I had completed my mission and gotten the goons whatever it was they were searching for (though I don't remember what it was. The whole thing felt much like Cobb's attempted escape at the beginning of Inception). All I could feel was that the victory was a bit dubious. I wanted my daughter back, but I felt horrible about all of the people that had to die for me to complete my objective. To make things even worse, I was greeted with the old bait-and-switch, for my services. The goons refused to give my daughter back. They said that they would need me for another job or so, before they would consider returning her to me. Needless to say, I was furious. I was not about to be made into a lap dog for these sons of bitches. I knew I had to do something about this.

Half-heartedly - and biding my time while trying to think of what course of action to take - I agreed to this new mission. It was supposed to be another armed robbery, much like the last one. I was told that the Head Goon was going to be there, himself, so I had a 'plan' on how I was going to end all of this. It was half-baked, but it was the best I had. Somehow, I had the luxury of having my good friend, T, be my transportation to this heist. We were in a car that I don't believe was his Jeep, but he was driving. We had to circle the neighborhood a few times, and wait until the goons had already secured the house, which seemed like a cross between an old house of mine, in Houston, and my Grandmother's house, in Daytona. Also inexplicably, I knew that there was a rack of weaponry waiting for me, down the street from the target home. My "employers" didn't know about this, and it was my intention to use these to get close enough to the leader of the group to take him at gunpoint, and bargain his life for that of CJ. Like I said; half-baked, but what other choice did I have?

Making one of our rounds, we stopped over at this rack of weapons (which was, amusingly, just set up right beside some random house - all out in the open) and stocked up. T already had a handgun and ammunition in his car, just in case, but I needed to get my own. Going up to the rack, though, I saw that the only gun it had was a model of a real piece. I didn't even think it was functional, but for some reason, I packed it anyway. There were no bullets on this rack of weapons, but T's bullets were able to fit in my 'model' gun, and that made me a little more confident that it would fire. After loading it, though, I didn't dare test it, because we were in a neighborhood and didn't want to draw too much attention to ourselves before getting the job done. I also grabbed a samurai sword from off the rack and slung the sheath over my shoulder. Packing a modest amount of arms, we went back to circling the block. On what I thought was our last pass, we saw the goons storm into the target house. I knew that I was going to be on, in just a few moments. T was beginning to lose his nerve about having any part in this, though. I told him that he was going to have to stop and wait for me to come back out of the house, but he didn't want to stop, even to drop me off. We just kept driving around the block while I argued with him about how I had to go through with this. Another pass. Now, there were people streaming out of the house, some of them dragging their bullet ridden bodies under their own power, clinging desperately to their lives. I knew that there was going to be no other chance. Again, I told T that he had to stop, so I could get this done before the cops came. And, again, he doubted the situation just long enough to roll passed the house again. Sure enough, on our next trip around, there were cop cars in the driveway. I knew that, If I were to go in now, I would have bought myself a 1-way ticket to prison. It was too late to complete the job as ordered, anymore...I had failed.

Then I got a phone call. The leader of the goon squad said that he wasn't even present, during the heist. He had been testing me, and I let him down by not completing my task. He told me to report back to him, because we had some things to 'discuss,' and it was the most ominous thing I had heard in my life. He still didn't know that I was armed, though (if you could call it that). We drove down the block, still in my grandma's hood, and I got out of the car, staring at the house, knowing the shit was about to hit the fan. I didn't plan on making much small talk...at all. I was going in there determined to get my daughter back, by any means necessary. Clutching the pistol and sword, and making my way up to the door - practically on fire with anticipation - I suddenly realized that I was dreaming! I was absolutely ecstatic. Lol. Any trace elements of fear that I'd had just moments ago (and there was a lot of it) instantly disappeared. This entire scenario had just done a complete 180, and now, even though I was fully aware that this was not reality, I damn sure wasn't leaving this scene without settling the score.

I burst into the run-down old house, immediately stepping in and waving the gun around. There was one guy on a couch to my right, another standing in a hallway to my left, and the leader was directly across the room from me. He sat in a chair, smug, with a gun in one hand and my daughter in his lap. She sat rather stoically, looking at me with a calmness in her face as if she was just waiting patiently for this to be over with. I glared at the leader, beginning to walk toward him (before this time, I had never actually seen him, and he reminded me a lot of Victor Sweet, the demented, ego-maniacal villain from the movie Four Brothers). The guy on the couch suddenly threw out his arm and aimed his gun at me. I aimed back at him and tried to pull the trigger. Nothing. I squeezed it harder. Still nothing. Even though I was lucid, the gun was still acting like a damn model! I just couldn't squeeze the trigger. Even when I clutched it with two hands and squeezed with both index fingers, it wouldn't budge. I thought that it should be easy, since I was aware this was just a dream, but no matter what I did, this gun just would not shoot. Frustrated, I began taunting the guy on the couch. I dared him to shoot me, telling him that he could take all the shots he wanted, but it wasn't going to stop me from killing every single one of them, beginning with him. I began to slowly walk in his direction.

He fired. Anticipating the attempt, I swung my hand up in front of me, imagining the bullet hitting my palm and snatching it out of the air. He fired again. My other hand raised, slapping the bullet off to one side while I continued in a steady pace toward him. His shots came in quicker as I advanced, and I simply stopped paying attention to the bullets, stalking toward the increasingly terrified man. His bullets pelted lightly off of my chest like grains of rice against cowhide. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the leader was getting uneasy, too. He tried getting my attention and stalling me with some talk about how he "knows me" from somewhere, but I completely ignored him. I would get to him...in time. But for now, I was relishing in the moment.

By this point, I was standing right over the man on the couch. He had stopped shooting, and his eyes were wide with fear. He was shaking. Again, I tried to squeeze off a few rounds into his stomach, from point blank range, but the gun I held was completely useless, and I just didn't have enough control of the dream to overpower it. I finally threw it to the ground, having had enough, and reached around behind me to pull the samurai sword out of the sheath over my shoulder. The last thing I remember, before waking up, was the look on the goon's face when he realized that he was about to be carved into tiny little pieces.

"Water Dragon" - 03/23/2008 (Lucid)

”Water Dragon”
03/23/2008
(Lucid)

(This was one of the most memorable - and longest - lucid dreams I had had in a really long time. I didn't get to bed until about 5am, and I had been having really strong HI, a few minutes after I lay down. I was hearing wisps of conversations and seeing people walking by or sitting around and talking. I decided to try to WILD, but ended up falling asleep.)

In my dream, my car was in the shop, and the servicing company was giving me some bullshit about not getting it out on time. A lot of my family was there, and I ran into my Australian friend N - from my old job - and some of her family members. It turned out that the mechanics were supposed to be detailing my car, but something happened to where it had gotten mixed up with the wrong work-order, and they’d (for some reason) shredded the entire roof off of it. While sitting in the waiting room, I had been chewing on a pen cap or something small, and I remember it breaking into millions of pieces, in my mouth. I tried forever to spit it all out, but I just couldn’t get it all. Anyway - in talking to N - we discovered that our families were intertwined at some level, and one of my unfamiliar uncles was like one of her cousins or something like that. I remember being really happy to see her and, while she was talking to the shop owner about her own car, I was standing behind her chair and moving it around with her in it –swiveling it left and right and bouncing the back of it gently, like she was a kid or something.

Later, our two sides of the family got together and had a cookout. There was one guy there that kept giving me shit. I don’t know why, but he really didn’t like me. The drunker he got, the more belligerent. Finally, he came over near me and sat down on the grass, obviously drunk off his ass. Without looking at me, he slurred something like: “You know…I was thinking about killing you. I still might, actually. But right now, I’m just going to sit right here.” Part of me wanted to just reach over and kick him in the face, but I didn’t want to start anything major at this family gathering, so, ignoring him, I began to walk away, still kind of fuming that I let him talk to me, but knowing that it was better than I walked away.

After walking a few yards, through the crowd of people, I stopped; wondering just who that guy was, and how exactly I’d gotten to this gathering. I began to suspect that I was dreaming, and thought about trying to move something with telekinesis to confirm it, but figured that it was too unreliable a reality check at the time. Instead, I tried the finger-through-palm technique. At first, the finger wouldn’t go through, and I almost gave up. Then, I decided not to focus so hard on it, and relaxed. I put my finger to my palm again, and it sank right through, like it was made of liquid, and poked out the other side. I was definitely dreaming! Immediately, I turned around and began looking for the DC that had given me such a hard time, about ready to teach him a thing or two. Unexpectedly, though, everyone was now gone, and I was alone in the field. Wondering what to do next, I decided to try a complete scene change, to see what I could come up with. Before doing so, I looked at my hands to ground myself in the dream, bringing the world around me into extra-high definition. I thought about spinning, but decided not to do that (because it usually tends to just wake me up), and thought up a new way to transport to another scene. I put one hand down on the ground, focusing, and began to pull it upward. At first, nothing happened. I set it down again, and concentrated on what I was trying to do. Then, when I pulled my hand up, this time, I materialized a wooden door that stretched from my hand to the ground, until it was big enough for me to walk through. I turned the gold knob and stepped through the door.

Before I knew it, I was walking into a new, fantasy landscape that absolutely amazed me. Everything was made out of vibrant, larger than life color. It was filled with blues, pinks and greens all over, and looked like a really detailed landscape straight out of the movie What Dreams May Come. It was, easily, the most incredible dream landscape I have ever seen. I could only stand there, in awe, for a good while. There were a few surreal buildings/structures around, and a roller-coaster in the background. I walked around to explore, and happened to catch sight of a car that was riding down a path, in the distance. Without really interacting with it, I just kind of watched and zoomed in on it, with my eyes. There was a very religious air about the car – almost comically “happy” - and I could somehow tell that the man driving was a hardcore theist, maybe even a pastor. He had two children in the back, though, and they seemed less than “happy.” In passing, I glimpsed something that looked like it was painted on the side of the car. It was a cartoon of the driver, and he was being depicted as having sex with one of the children. Despite the “happy and religious” feeling of their commute, this stuck out to me as an ominous sign that something was terribly wrong. My perspective then flashed across the field, and I was shown the house that they were driving to – their house. Over a few seconds, the house, itself, then became darker, and more foreboding. I could practically feel the intense evil coming out of the house. I immediately knew what this meant in this narrative. Those may have been the guy’s children, but he was a child molester and, as soon as they got home, as has happened time and time again, he would be having his way with his kids – who looked to be around 9 or 10 yrs old - behind closed doors. 

Sickened by the thought of this, I impulsively raced across the field and jumped high into the air, landing with a catlike crouch on the hood of the man’s car. I tried to force a punch through his windshield but didn’t do anything but crack it. Then, I relaxed slightly and concentrated on phasing through the glass, sinking my arm in through the windshield like it was made out of water. Grabbing the guy by the collar, I yanked him out through the windshield, took him somewhere secluded, and proceeded to beat the crap out of him. (Unfortunately, though, I don't remember much of that particular part.)

After that, I decided to go exploring again.

Once again, I was just completely astounded by the scenery. I kept reaching out and touching things just to feel them and how real they were, and continued repeating to myself “I’m Dreaming, I’m Dreaming, I’m Dreaming” so that I wouldn’t lose focus and lose my lucidity. Off in the distance, I noticed what looked like a tidal wave. It was standing some 100 ft high, but I couldn’t tell if it was coming toward me or not. In the back of my mind, I sort of “commanded” it to stay there, and it was more or less like a fountain; a wall of water that just sat there, off in the distance. The water was a deep blue that looked more like dark blue paint than water. Wondering what to do now, I thought about the Lucid Dreaming Task of the Month (which is a monthly task given to us to try, on DreamViews.com). It took me a moment to remember what the tasks were, and I finally remembered that one of them was to bring something to life. I wanted it to be good, but I had no idea what I wanted that something to be. I started walking around to see what kinds of things I’d have to work with.

There were a few old statues here and there. One was of an alligator, but was really old and had grass growing around it. I was kind of weary, because I didn’t really want to give something life that was going to come after me and try to kill me. I was having enough fun without all that drama. I thought it would be cool to make a giant eagle come to life, but I didn’t have a statue of one. I tried to materialize one to have it fly in out of the sky, but the most I got, when I looked up, was a regular-sized eagle. I then remembered that whatever I gave life to had to already have been inanimate (as per the rules). Just making it appear wouldn’t count. Coming closer to the roller coaster, I looked in the lake beside it, and there was a giant stone hand that was sticking up out of the water. It was obviously a decoration, but it gave the feeling that there was an enormous stone giant beneath the water. I thought about trying to bring that to life, but was kind of apprehensive about what this massive giant would have been like, since I couldn’t see anything but its hand. Finally, I heard a voice over the PA system, advertising the roller coaster that I had noticed in the background. The voice said something like “Come on up and ride Hydra, the Water Dragon!!” I looked over toward the coaster, and found my target.

The roller coaster was designed to look like a blue dragon (much like the 'Dueling Dragons' coaster, here, in the Orlando area). Coiled around the track itself was a fake dragon body, which snaked in and out of itself and the trees around it, and came to a head that was down by the entrance. I was still kind of cautious, because this thing looked pretty damn fierce, but I couldn’t think of anything more bad ass to bring to life than a dragon. Lol. I didn’t have a really good vantage point to see the head, from where I was, so I flew up through the serpentine tracks, passing the coaster car, which had people riding on it, and then sitting on a high platform that looked down at the dragon’s head. Holding my hands out, I focused on bringing the dragon to life. It was actually much easier than I thought it would be. The body of the dragon turned from a hard, painted stone, to thick, scaly reptile skin. I reached out and ran my hand across its body, feeling the scales beneath my fingers. Then I looked back at the head. The dragon, which had been mostly blue, turned into more of a red-orange color. It began moving its head around, as if trying to break free, but the struts and beams that had held the dragon in place - while it was a statue/decoration - still kept it held in place while it was alive, preventing it from going anywhere. With this extra security, I flew off of the platform I was sitting on, and landed on one a little closer to the dragon's face.

Remembering that I’d wanted to try interacting with DCs a little more, while lucid, I sat down and asked the dragon a question. It was something about the nature of DCs, but I don’t remember what I asked him. I don’t even know if I expected him to answer, but, surprisingly, it did. It had a very proper speaking voice, and sounded rather intelligent. A bit impressed, I asked it another question that I don’t remember, and it answered back with this really long response; something that seemed to be more of an attempt to sound smart by using the biggest words and concepts it could (like talking about hypotenuses and isosceles triangles as if he was solving an algebraic equation), than anything else. But, I gave him in the benefit of the doubt as if he knew what he was talking about, even though I wasn’t quite sure he did. I asked him another question, and he sighed as if he didn’t want to answer, or my question was too hard to answer. I actually do remember asking him why he didn’t want to answer that one. He sighed again with a big of an arrogant “Oh, God. Do I really have to go into all this?” sort of flair. He then asked me “Well…do you mind of I ramble on and on?” as if the only answer he could offer would take six years. A bit impatient, I laughed a bit and said “No no no…that’s alright,” and I got up and flew off to find something else to do. Shortly after this, I began to feel something moving, on my neck. I sat still and I felt it again. When I put my hand up, I couldn’t feel anything with my fingers, but when I felt the strange sensation again, I knew it was coming from the waking world.

A bit freaked out by this, I woke myself up.

(I came to find out that the sensation was just the ring on my necklace, slowly sliding down the chain and lightly dragging across my skin, because of the position in which I had been sleeping. I was a little disappointed, but excited about the dream. Even though it was only 2 hours after I’d lied down to go to sleep, I got up and typed up my notes on the dream. Then I lay back down and tried to WILD, but failed. Overall, an incredible, exploratory lucid dreaming experience.)

(^Picture of the scene, which I drew for my Perspective class.) 

"Little Girl Ghost" - 07/20/2007

"Little Girl Ghost" 7/20/2007
(This dream seems eerily familiar. It feels like I've had it before (with subtle differences), but I can't say that I have.) I can't exactly remember all the details, but it was set back in my old neighborhood (as so many of my dreams are). I had a bunch of friends and family members over; mostly little kids and people my own age. There were a lot of strange things going on, between my house, and the house around the corner, which is the house to/from which most of us were going back and forth, throughout the dream. It was really late at night. A lot of the kids dipped into my stash of fireworks and went running around outside to start playing with them. I followed them, trying to get them to knock it off, but they were still able to set a few off before I confiscated them, telling them all that it was way too late at night and that my neighborhood was much too close-knit for them to be doing that. Basically, a couple of others and I were the only ones old enough to be keeping an eye on these kids.

Well, I can't remember how, but I was somehow tipped off that there was a ghost that was roaming around between our houses. (I had watched an episode of Supernatural last night.) Strange things kept happening; objects falling off of counters/shelves and whatnot. I believe I even caught a glimpse of her - who turned out to be the ghost of a little girl - out of the corner of my eye, a time or two. She was a somewhat vengeful spirit and definitely had some specific, unfinished business. These are all vagaries, though. My recollection of this dream, for the most part, is Really hazy.

Apparently, I spent a large portion of the dream trying to convince one of my friends that there was the ghost of a little girl roaming around. He wouldn't believe me, at all. At one point, we were walking in from outside, as I was telling him about the ghost, and he was like "Yeah, right, man. You're cracked." Just as he said this, I noticed he hadn't closed the back door, as we walked through it. I turned and told him to close the door. Just as he turned around and held out his hand to the doorknob, the door slammed, by itself. I knew, instantly, it was the ghost. I said "SEE?!!!" and he just looked at me, like it was so obviously the wind, though there was none. He scoffed a bit and we kept walking.

Later, we were sitting in the living room. I forgot how this part began, but it seemed that one of the little girls in the group of kids we were babysitting could actually see the ghost, all the time. She was having conversations with it. I brought her to my friend and said something like "She can see the ghost." I told her to point to the ghost, and she pointed just a few feet in front her. I asked her if she could talk to the ghost, and she nodded her head. She started translating things back and forth, but my friend still wasn't buying it, writing it off as just another stupid little thing kids do. I told the girl to ask the ghost something that was impossible for the little girl to know. She did, and told my friend the answer, but I can't remember what it was. This peaked his interest, slightly...but Only slightly.

Well, there is a lot more to this dream, that is all a blur. I know word started to spread (and evidence mounted) of the existence of this ghost. She had something that needed to get done, and I'm pretty sure her ultimate goal was leading us to her killers (but that whole concept is really blurry, so I'm only assuming that's what it all came down to). None of the older people were buying into it, though, until this one particular scene, when we were all getting in my car, to go somewhere. We all got in and I turned on the car, and then chaos ensued: All the doors locked; the horn started blaring like an alarm; the stereo turned up; the windshield wipers came on; and the engine started revving. We all freaked the hell out. The car started moving itself - jerking violently forward and stopping, forward and stopping, forward and stopping - over and over again - before slamming into the parked car near the house in front of us. Everyone inside my car was screaming. Through the panic, I pointed through the windshield at the other car, and said "LOOK!!" We could all see that the same electrical insanity that was happening to my car, was happening to the other car, simultaneously, with the exception that we were all locked in my car, and the doors of the other car were all opening and closing by themselves. This ghost was obviously REALLY pissed that she wasn't being taken seriously, by so many. And she'd definitely gotten her point across, this time.

The door locks eventually disengaged and we were freed from the car. From this point on, we were all pretty much watching our backs, avoiding looking into the shadows for fear that we'd see this dead little girl staring back at us. I can't remember how this went down, but we eventually found out what she was trying to do. Her killers were still at large   and we were somehow directed into going to find them. My car was wrecked and a tow truck came. The guys in the tow truck were let in on what was going on (while all other kinds of spooky paranormal stuff was happening, throughout this time, that I really wish I could remember).

To make this long dream somewhat short: These freakishly large and powerful-looking tow truck guys ended up agreeing to give us a ride to where we told them this little ghost girl was directing us. We knew we could use them because even their looks alone were intimidating. I can't really remember what happened, when we got there, but I'm pretty sure it involved us all catching up to - and killing - the murderers;s with some help from our invisible acquaintance, if I'm not mistaken. Whether she actually Helped or not, I'm not sure, but after the job was done, and the girl was avenged, something had tipped us off that she was there with us. I just can't remember what it was. In any case, this later was confirmed when my friend (the one that was skeptical, in the beginning) knelt down to the floor - which was slick, wet, hardwood. (I can't remember what kind of liquid it was covered in. I'm pretty sure it wasn't blood, though.) He reached out to the floor, with his index finger, wrote the word "Hi" in the wetness - like writing on a steamed up window - and stood back up. We both looked at the word for a moment and then, next to it, a tiny, invisible finger slowly replied in the wetness: "Hi," and finished off by scrawling a smiley face beneath the lettering.   That's all I remember. 

"Bloodsports" - 12/19/2007 (Lucid)

"Bloodsports"
12/19/2007
(Lucid)

I was chillin' with TW, walking the streets of Lake Mary at night. When we got around this apartment complex that was close to my old house, an S.U.V. pulled up beside us. Inside the SUV were three guys and two girls. After a moment, I could see that one of the girls was a friend of mine, AC, who lived in Louisiana. I said “...AC? What the hell are You doing here?!” and she said “Were’ here to gouge out your eyes,” and smiled, sarcastically. For a second, I was genuinely stunned by her reply - but I then realized she was just joking and said “Oh…ok, cool,” and laughed about it. She asked if we wanted to come and hang out, at her friend’s apartment. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay long, because I had something important to do (don’t remember what it was, though). When we agreed, TW quickly jumped into the seat beside her.

While we were at the apartment, watching movies, TW and AC were basically all over each other - so much so that I didn’t even really get a chance to talk to her, but she was obviously eating it up. Time went on, and I'd just begun to fool around with her friend, but I remembered that I had somewhere to be. When I realized what time it was, I said that we had to go. I called out to TW and AC, and they came out from the room, still partially clothed. They were both extremely pissed that they didn’t get very far, and basically bitched at me about it, the whole way back, but I knew I had to get back and they would have probably been in there forever.

When we got back to the apartment where they’d picked us up, AC was still pissed. She threw a bit of a tantrum and we got into a huge fight. She kept trying to walk away mad, and I was trying to reason with her, but then these three wannabe-thugs that she was riding with stepped in between us, drawing guns on me as if I was some kind of threat to her. AC walked off, and I don’t know where TW disappeared to, so it was now just me and these three guys, that were still holding me at gunpoint. They started cracking jokes about me (as “tough-guys” with guns do), and I began to get nervous as to where this was going to lead. Suddenly, that nervousness made me recognize that this had to be a dream, and I became lucid. Just to be sure, without saying a word, I simply levitate off of the ground, about three feet. All three guys looked at me in shock as I grinned back at them. I rushed them, quickly grabbing them by the arm, one by one, and slinging them through the wall of the nearest apartment. Before following, I stopped and looked at my hands, stabilizing the dream and trying to eliminate any chance of my waking up before I got to have some fun. I then flew in through the wall, chasing these guys down and throwing them through wall after wall, watching them try to run and scream in terror as I stalked them through the buildings and slung them around like rag-dolls. Needless to say, I was having a ball.

The dream transitioned and I was still lucid. I found myself standing on a platform, with a bunch of people standing around me. A little Asian man that I recognized as either Pat Morita (“Mister Miyagi”) or Victor Wong (“Egg Shen from Big Trouble in Little China”) told me that I this was a tournament of some sort. I was about to fight a major bad ass, but I was still lucid, and I was amped and ready to go. I looked at my hands, one more time, to ground myself in the dream, and everything came even more into focus.

This guy came out and, as far as looks go, he was pretty intimidating. He was wearing baggy white pants, no shirt with a slim but insanely muscular torso, and long black hair that strong down over his eyes, and hung down to nearly his waist. The fight started and it was amazing. (besides the old blind Asian guy that beat me a year ago, this guy was the hardest DC I think I’d ever fought, while lucid). We were just going fucking nuts on each other, doing all kinds of flips around the platform, one-handed handsprings over each others’ attacks, trading punches and kicks, dodging at superhuman speed. It was crazy. At one point, I stopped on the opposite side of the platform and looked at my hands again. I didn’t want to lose the dream. My hands were still balled into fists, and I could see the blood (dunno if it was mine or his), pooling up in the crevices of my skin. The visuals became more solid, and the fight went on. There was one of those training dummy things - that people practice Wing Chun on - in the room, and the fight ended when I punched the guy in the chest so hard that he flew backward, into one of the pegs, and it impaled him from behind, pushing his intestines out of his stomach. Yeah, it was pretty freakin disgusting.

I had won, and a few moments passed. In this down time, I’d lost my lucidity. Suddenly most of the lights around us blew out. There was a huge commotion in the crowd, and it was obvious that something sinister was going on. This guy, that I’d just killed, had come back as a demon, or spirit, or whatever you want to call it. Even with a little bit of light left, I could only see him as a shadow, like the light never touched him. He started throwing these flaming darts of some kind at me, occasionally stabbing me with them as I tried to scramble away from this vengeful specter. He flew at me from behind and grabbed me by my head, pulling it back. With his other hand, he reaches his fingers down to my eye socket, and tried to dig in. I happened to wake up just as he was attempting to pry my eyeballs out of my face.

"Whose War is it, Anyway?" - 03/25/2008

"Whose War is it, Anyway?"
03/25/2008
Dream #2


I was in Iraq - infantry - walking around with my weapon at ease, however I knew that I had to watch my back for insurgents. I was definitely not there to just be all gung ho or anything, and was pretty much just watching my post and minding my business. As I came around a corner, I saw some children playing a couple of yards away. I stopped for a moment, kind of heart-warmed to see them playing so happily, in such a terrifying time, as if they didn't have a care in the world. I just stood and watched from a distance, smiling.

Unbeknownst to me, while I was doing that, a man had approached the fence that was directly behind me. He was an Iraqi man, but he was not Al Qaeda. He was just an ordinary man. Could have been a father to one of those kids, for all I know. The only thing I knew was what I quickly found out; this man was opposed to our occupation. He was terrified of the American forces after hearing so much of the most horrible acts that some of our soldiers had committed, and his perspective of all of us had been tainted. Seeing me standing there, watching the children, his distorted view made him assume that I was about to open fire on them.

I heard him scream "Child-killer!!" behind me, and open fire. Completely surprised, I turned around, but there was no way I could get in a position to aim and fire because his machine gun was already raining down on me, wildly. Bullets were tearing through my legs, and I collapsed, rolling toward the fence and closer to him, trying to do something before he landed any fatal shots. My lower legs now useless, I could only reach up from the ground in a sit-up position and grab the guy by his shirt, yanking him over the fence and into the dirt beside me. I then rolled on top of him. I was both blindly enraged at the fact that he'd shot my legs out from under me and devastatingly heart-broken that this man, who I could tell wasn't a terrorist, had misjudged me so badly. He was trying to fight me off, continuously trying to swing the barrel of his gun up in my direction, but I was just completely irate. I completely overpowered him with an insulted hatred, screaming "WHY?!!" over and over as I swung my rifle down on him like a club. Wounded, but not defeated, the man continued trying to defend, fighting me off and attempting to aim his gun up at me. Finally, I whipped the barrel of my own rifle down and, while straddling his thighs, fired off about half a clip into his chest. When it was over, I rolled off of him, not able to feel my legs anymore, and nearly broke down into tears.

"Underground Water" - 11/22/2010 (Lucid)

"Underground Water" 
11/22/2010
(Lucid)

I was in a small, snow-covered town. The town was very close-knit, and everybody was friends with everybody else. Many of us were playing a huge game of manhunt, and some people were even burying themselves in the snow, for hiding places. I remember one of my female friends changing clothes and trying to blend in with those pedestrians who weren't playing. I don't remember much of the game, itself, besides digging through the snow and trying to find some of the people hiding within it.

At one point, though, a bunch of us ended up falling into what seemed like some sort of mine/tomb, deep underground. It was a huge chamber, with story-telling drawings and other enigmatic patterns on the walls. We spent a while exploring this chasm, joined by many other townsfolk, who had followed us down below. After some time of poking around the chamber, someone pressed a 'button' that activated some sort of mechanism. The floor beneath us began rumbling. Fire jetted upward, like geysers, from all points around the area. The fire spouts gave way to small explosions, which were soon too much to withstand. We all ran off of the rectangular floor area, fleeing the basin and up to higher ground, looking down at the spectacle below us. The ground opened up; black stone cracking down the middle and splitting apart to swallow the flames. Beneath a few feet of stone lay a crystalline pool of water. It was, easily, half the size of a football field, and took up most of the chamber. The slabs of stone flooring peeled away and locked into place, out of sight, leaving us all to stare, in awe, at this huge pool that had opened before us.

This was just too weird. The 'tomb.' The huge, underground pool. The spectacularly explosive 'booby trap.' The realization just hit me, as we were all standing there, gawking in apprehensive awe. I was dreaming. It was the only logical explanation. As soon as I became lucid, my excitement rang out through the chasm. I yelled out to everyone - knowing that they were all stricken with fear - that "THIS IS A DREAM!! IT'S NOT REAL!!" I seemed to have been more reminding myself of the fact, than actually trying to get a point across, to these dream characters. But they all took it as just as much a relief as I did.


I led the charge, and we all ran down the steps toward the enormous pool, jumping into the water with no further anxiety about what might have come from the explosive chain reaction we'd just witnessed. It instantly turned into an enormous pool party - our dozens of party-goers secluded away within this cavern of ice and stone. Even though the pool seemed to be just a hole in the earth, it was clearly marked with the paintings of a regulation swimming pool, as if just swimming in it was the main reason for it being there.


While in the water, I was showing the DC's some "lucid tricks." I focused on my own body, and lifted myself out of the water with telekinesis, hovering just a few inches over the surface. Everyone looked on, in wonder, while I floated above the water. I felt really heavy, and wasn't sure that I could keep myself hovering, the way that I was, so I decided to get a little more control of the situation. I released my telekinetic hold on myself, dropping into the water and sinking down to the floor of the 15-or-so-feet-deep pool. Once my feet touched the ground, I pushed off as hard as I could, bursting up through the surface of the water and soaring up to the ceiling - some 30+ feet above. I slapped my hands against the warm stone ceiling and pushed myself back down into the water below. There were a few other people in the crowd copying me, flying up and out of the water, touching the ceiling and splashing back down, afterward.


After some playing around, I got out of the water and walked around the area. Everyone was having a great time. I saw that some of the characters had gotten into some vampiric hedonism; slumped in a corner with blood streaming down their faces, obviously having fed on each other just because it was something to pass the time. (I would call that random, if not for the vampire dream I had, the other night.) They all looked completely drunk. I just walked passed them and continued on, taking in the sight of my surroundings. One of the girls in the group called me over to her, asking me if I wanted to go back to her place for some "one on one." I just kind of smiled at her and waved her off, not wanting to waste this lucid dream on sex - though the thought crossed my mind.


Much more time had passed, and I began to realize that I'd probably be waking up soon. By this time, my lucidity began waning. Even though I still partially knew I was dreaming, I was beginning to think of these dream characters more as sentient beings. I called everyone together, and made a small speech, simply conceding to the possibility that these could all be conscious entities within my dream. I told them all to "remember the dream", because we would soon be waking up, and our memories of this moment would be fading quickly (more or less reminding myself to remember it). I told them to go back over the events of the dream, in their minds. I told them to remember the game of manhunt, and falling into the mine, etc. - basically recounting all of the events in the dream. Above all else, I knew that I would be waking up soon, so I wanted to just go ahead and end it. Not really wanting to leave everyone else, I gathered a group of them in the center of the chamber, and we all lowered our heads. When I was sure I had enough of the dream's details to carry over into waking life, I put all of my will into waking up, and pulled my eyes open.

"Riding the Wave" - 10/13/2009

"Riding the Wave"
10/13/2009


I was in an apartment complex on the beach. There was a lot going on in this dream, before this point, but not much that I can remember. My earliest memory was walking outside, in the back of the complex, and looking out over the beach. I had been with a large group of people, before this, but I was alone at the time. I was about to take a short-cut back to my own house, which was maybe a mile away from this complex, when I heard a series of massive booms, over the water. I looked out to the horizon and saw a large plume of smoke stretching from the heavens to the water. Apparently, an asteroid had just broken through the atmosphere and splashed-down into the ocean. It didn't take me long to anticipate what was most likely to happen next.

From the base of the smoke column, I saw the water rise and swell. It continued to swell outward, in all direction, creating a ring that grew taller just as it did wider. It was a tidal wave, and it was heading in toward the shore quickly. What few people were outside of their apartments ran frantically for cover, as did I. I could see that, with the speed in which the wall of water was moving in, I wouldn't have much time, so I jumped into a semi-cylindrical nook that stretched up one of the buildings' walls. I wasn't sure how much this was going to help, but at least it was around the side of the building, so I wasn't facing the surge. I pressed my back to one side of the column, and planted my feet firmly against the other, bracing myself to keep from getting swept away. When the water hit, though, there was nothing I could do. It slammed into the complex, and surged into the nook where I was hiding. With nowhere to really go, but up, the water rose through the nook, pushing me upward as the whole area flooded. Guided by the water pressure, I was forced out of the top of the nook, and high over the roof of the building, like a cork out of a bottle. Before I knew it, I was catapulted through the air, and falling back toward the surge.

I'm not sure how this part worked, but I somehow landed on top of the wave, which was stationary, and just kind of hovering in one spot, right upon shore. The wave was a few hundred feet high, and being on top of it felt as if I was sitting atop a jet of water from a geyser. What I was afraid of, was that this surge/spout would soon lose power, and I would be left to free-fall toward the ground, from a few hundred feet in the air. At this point, I figured there was little - if anything - that I could do about it. Finally, after a few minutes of floating high above the rooftops, the water settled, literally dropping out from under me and flattening itself. I slipped into a free-fall, bracing myself for what was sure to be a bone-crushing collision with the ground. Instead, surprisingly, I was a few meters out into the water, and when I landed, the water was just deep enough for me to splash down and not kill myself.

That last thing I remember is sitting there, treading water, then beginning swim/walk back toward the shore and tell everyone about how close I came to dying.