"Escort Servicemen" - 08/22/2011

"Escort Servicemen"
08/22/2011 

Dream #1 

 I was a soldier during a modern war, and we men were going through some sort of archaic rite of passage, where we had to choose wives from a crowd of random women, and prove ourselves capable of being their protectors/providers by escorting them through this sort of 'bonding' exercise. That exercise consisted of leading them into a hostile area - which was, basically, a live-fire obstacle course - reaching a checkpoint at about 100 yards, and then escorting them back to our camp. 

The twist was that we men were given blast-resistant suits, and the women were made to remain in their civilian clothing. With our flack suits, we men had to shield our prospective women with our bodies, while escorting them across the killing field, constantly maneuvering ourselves to block the bullets and explosive blasts that were barreling in on us from all sides. The conditions were hellish, moving from cover to cover, while getting tagged by all kinds of ammunition, and staggering through the explosions with bullets zipping by our ladies' uncovered bodies. We did our best to traverse the field, but I watched many couples die in their attempts, either blown apart by ordinance or gunned down by shots to unprotected areas.

The smoke was blinding, and the explosions were disorienting, but my potential bride and I had finally made it to the end of the field. This area was like the hornets' nest, and the resistance greatly intensified. I don't even remember the moment at which we hit the checkpoint and began our way back, but we were soon huddling back toward camp, fighting off the continued barrage. The finish line wasn't too far away, when I noticed that I couldn't feel the woman in my padded arms anymore. Looking down at the hollow between my arms, I saw that she was nowhere to be found. Immediately, I knew what happened, stopping in place and turning back to face the checkpoint we had last passed. It was now being swarmed with enemy combatants, and I knew that I had somehow lost her in the fray. For a moment, I tried to muscle my way back toward the checkpoint, but I was getting hammered with heavy machine gun fire and RPG's; smoke trails streaming out from the 'hornets next' and detonating on and around my huge, cumbersome flack suit.

Finally, I caught a glimpse of her, through the smoke and flames, and she was being hanged. I can't remember if I actually saw her, or just a silhouette, but I remember the image of her dangling from the noose, before being cut down and then impaled on a spike, for good measure, as if to be propped up for show. At this point, I knew there was nothing I could do and I turned to make my way back to camp, feeling absolutely horrible about my failure...and still getting rocked by explosions and assaulted with gunfire. On the way back, I found another woman on the ground. Her protector had been killed in the chaos, ahead of her, and she was left down in the dirt, completely helpless. I lifted her to her feet and shielded her as I had done with the other woman, guiding her the rest of the way back to camp to meet up with the rest of the survivors. At this point, I didn't know or care whether or not saving someone else was 'allowed' in the trial, but I wasn't going to leave anyone else behind.

I don't remember anything that happened when I got there, though.

"Looking for a Fight, and Post-Mortem Parenting" - 01/15/2007 (Lucid)

"Looking for a Fight / Post-Mortum Parenting"
01/15/2007 

Dream #3 

(Lucid)

 I was on a slightly-deserted street, at night. Someone was with me, but I can’t remember who it was. Suddenly, and without much of a noticeable cue, I realized I was dreaming.

The first thing I did was stabilize the dream by looking at my hands, however, I can’t remember what I saw in them, or whether they were even warped at all. My next order of business was trying to find the old, blind Chinese(ish) man, so we could finish our fight (which I had been planning on doing during my next lucid, while I was awake, the past few days). I remember trying the “around the corner” method of manifesting people, to see if he would just 'appear', that way. That didn’t work. I also tried to just make him appear in front of me. That didn’t work, either. Walking around with my friend, we came to where there was a store on the side of the road. Toward this store, walked some stranger with a black jacket on. I couldn’t quite see what he looked like, but I’m pretty sure he also had a beanie on.

While this guy was walking - somewhat toward us, but indirectly - I held up my fingers toward him and focused, trying to get him to turn into the old Chinese guy. The shit just Would Not work, and I was starting to get frustrated by it. Then, for no reason at all, the guy that was walking, still paying us no attention, walked straight toward the wall of the store that we were now standing in front of. Without breaking stride, he simply stepped up onto the wall and began walking, vertically, up the front of the building; hands in is pockets as if this was completely normal behavior for him. My “friend” and I looked at each other like, “What the fuck?” and then looked back at the guy, just as he disappeared over the rooftop.

Not to be outdone, I quickly levitated up into the air, stopping to hover just a few feet higher than the rooftop, which was only illuminated by a bright street lamp a few yards away. The guy didn’t even pay me any mind. He simply kept on walking in his straight line, across the rooftop, and down the other side. Still hovering in the air, my curiosity found itself wandering away from this character (although, looking back on it, I could have attempted to turn the guy into the old Chinese dude, and fought him, but I'd forgotten all about it, by this time). I decided to go off and just explore a lil' bit, so I started flying down the street, following this dark main road through a rural area. Traffic picked up, the further I went, a few cars passing under me. I kept trying to go faster but I couldn’t get any speed, while flying, no matter how hard I tried. It seemed the harder I concentrated on going faster, the slower I went.

Another car came, speeding up from behind me, passing under me and heading in the same direction I was. So, holding out one arm in front of me, I imagined as if there was a long rope tied to the car that just passed me; which had to have been going about 60-70mph. Even though it was planned, I was rather surprised when I suddenly picked up speed, being yanked by the invisible, imaginary string. Flying behind the car was pretty intense and fun as hell. I was only a good 10-15 feet off of the ground, and felt kind of like a kite.

As I was passing a bunch of houses that sat on either side of the road, something (though I can’t remember what) drew me to one of them. I “disconnected” myself from the car and stepped down into a landing on the front lawn of the unfamiliar house. I can’t remember whether I opened the door or just walked through it, but I was soon inside, and not even the interior of the house looked familiar. That’s why I found it all the more strange to see my Dad, sitting on the couch with his head back and his eyes closed.

Now, being completely lucid and knowing that my Dad is dead in real life, I didn’t really know what to make of this situation. Since the front door was behind the couch he sat on, which was in the middle of the living room, I walked around toward it, eyeing my Dad, suspiciously. I wasn’t quite sure what my subconscious might have had in store for me, but I walked calmly, prepared for pretty much anything. As I circled around beside him, I stuck out one arm and tapped him on the arm and said, “Hey,” to see if he was really ‘dead’ in the dream. He opened his eyes as if he’d only been sleeping and looked up as if he was surprised to see me.

He got up and hugged me and I told him that, even though I knew he was a DC, it was good to see him. I sat down on the couch next to him and then we just got into some conversation about how things have been going, with me. We didn’t have very many of those types of conversations when he was alive, so this was actually pretty nice. I lost lucidity during the conversation and vaguely remember a bunch of my Dad’s friends coming over and all of us having a party.

Things pretty much faded out, after that. I then “woke up,” still at “Dad’s house.” (I very rarely fall asleep and wake up still within the same dream. I find it fascinating that it happened twice in one night, as it also happened in a previous dream, on the night of this entry). I was not lucid though and remembered it was Monday morning, and I had to be at work. I checked my watch and it was 10 till 8:00. “Shit.” I was going to be late for work. I still had to go home, shower and change. I jumped in the car and, not really knowing where the hell I was, ended up driving a good 10 minutes in the wrong direction. I figured this out, eventually, and turned around, headed back toward my house.

There was no fighting it, I figured, and I was going to be really late, so I stopped in some convenience store that also sold hot breakfast like sausage and eggs; etc. I remember looking at the sky to see the sun coming up. Finally, I ended up getting home and, when I looked at my watch, it said it was already 9:30am. I was like “What? That’s not right. It couldn’t have taken me an hour and a half just to get here.” I tapped on the watch a few times and put my ear up to it. It wasn’t ticking. Turns out it was broken. (Or, at least, I thought it was broken. Instead of wondering if it being broken was because I might have been dreaming, I was stuck trying to rationalize why it said 7:50, the last time I looked at it. I don’t think I actually figured out that I was dreaming before I woke up again.)

"Trainhopping" - 12/02/2011 (Lucid)

"Trainhopping"
12/02/2011

Dream #1

(Lucid)

 

The first thing I remember is being on an elevated train. It felt kind of like a theme park monorail, in that it was on a single-railed track, and distinctly had that 'touristy' feel to it. Somewhere along our trip, the train malfunctioned - beginning to break down and lose speed - but I can't exactly remember the reason why. It was in this moment, when most of the people around me were reacting to the failing train, that I realized I was dreaming.

Looking out the window nearest me, I could see another elevated track. Far ahead, I could see another train speeding toward in our direction, but on the parallel railing which sat a couple-dozen yards away from the one our own train was riding on. Even in this short period of time, I could see that the train was moving insanely fast. It wasn't a regular monorail, but a bullet train. I knew, immediately, that I would much rather be on that train than the dysfunctional POS that I was on, now. With a pretty good sense of control in the dream, I levitated in the air and phased through the roof of my train, landing on top of it. I don't believe my train had completely stopped, but it definitely wasn't moving along at full speed. I could see the other train nearing us. Both of these tracks sat high enough above the ground that I don't actually remember seeing anything but an obscure blur of green fields, far below us. The oncoming train would be passing us soon, so I knew I had to hurry, in order to catch it.

When it did pass my train, I ran along the length of the roof; from one of the first cars, which I had been in, and all the way to the caboose. At the last car, I jumped from the monorail, in a vain attempt to clear the wide gap between the two of them. Of course, I fell extremely short, and I could feel myself begin to fall toward the ground below me. Again (much like the T-Rex fighting lucid I'd had a few days before this dream), I had to focus on righting myself, while falling.

I concentrated on 'pushing' myself forward, to turn my downward free-fall into forward/upward arc, wildly flying across the gap and just barely making it to the bullet train as it whipped by the failing one that I had been on, moments ago. I grabbed the outside of the bullet train - sticking to it like Spider-Man, part-ways between the side of the train and the rooftop - and then crawled the rest of the way onto the roof. The speed of the train made being on the roof very intense, and I figured it might be better if I made my way inside. So, slinking back around to the edge of the roof, I eased myself over the side of the speeding train, and phased myself through the window without opening the glass, dropping silently inside the train car. Unfortunately, I don't remember anything after entering the bullet train.