"Mario and Mertha" - 12-07-2006 (Lucid)

”Mario and Mertha”

12-07-2006

Dream #1

(Lucid)

(This one was weird. The vividness seems to be back, but there are still some pretty big gaps in my recall.)

There was this guy who I can only identify as "Mario," from "Super Mario Brothers". He was about 3 or 4 feet tall, and he was a real asshole. (Though this was a live-action character, he was dressed like Mario, so I’d have to say it was him.) The trump card behind his massive ego was the fact that he had a really scary companion, named “Big Mertha.” She was like 8 feet tall with a 70-something inch waist. (Think Andre the Giant with breasts and like 45% more body fat. Terrifying. Lol.) Anyway, the scariest thing about Mertha was that she had the ability to just appear and disappear, like she was the f*ckin Candyman, or something. So, whenever Mario, who was often alone, would hear someone talking trash about him, he’d just “call” Mertha, and she’d just show up and mangle whoever it was that had been talking bad about her "friend."

At one point me, a friend of mine (JC I think) and Mario were at my old house. I think JC and I got into an argument with Mario, and it resulted in us saying what we thought about him and Mertha. Before I could do anything about it, I saw Mertha’s big-ass hulk of a body stomping down the hallway toward us.

Needless to say: we got the hell out of there.

Later, we were outside, in a park by a neighborhood near my old one (the park doesn’t really exist in waking life). I was sitting on a swing, and Mario was there, being a cocky little bastard (emphasis on “little”), as he was talking to someone else. I don’t think it was JC, but I know JC was still in the picture. Sooner or later, words started flying and Mario, whose lil’ ass would get wrecked by just about anybody, conjured up Mertha. She appeared and was towering over the other person, about to beat him to the ground.

As I sat there, swinging and watching, I remember thinking “Jesus, here those two go again,” and I was feeling a sense of pity for the person about to get beat down, and a deepening irritation with these two assholes.

That’s when I realized that this was all a dream.

I continued to swing, lightly, for a little while and watched as Mertha began just annihilating this guy. After a couple of seconds I’d about had my fill and hopped out of the swing. I walked nonchalantly over to Mario and Mertha, brimming with confidence. Without saying a word, I wound up and gave Mario a roundhouse kick to the face that sent him flying off, into the side of one of the apartment buildings a few yards away. Mertha left the other guy alone and started trying to swing on me but I was too quick and I vaguely remember giving her a couple uppercuts to the jaw. I then stepped back and stayed on the defensive, ducking and dodging this giant’s attempts to grab me.

At one point, I wound up in a small alleyway between buildings and did one of those zig-zagging, videogame-like jumps, where you jump from back and forth, between two walls, kicking yourself higher each time, until you reach the top. Both Mario and Mertha (somehow) followed me onto the roof, and we started fighting up there. I remember jumping from rooftop to rooftop, but not much of the fight in general. All I know is that I had them completely outmatched, and I ended up knocking them both off of the roof.

Something I saw from the rooftop made me think of Spiderman (I can’t remember exactly what it was, though) and, having had my fun with Mario and Mertha, I decided to try sticking to the wall, so I scaled down the side of one of the buildings, sticking with my hands and feet, and dropped down onto an apartment balcony. I walked inside and, unexpectedly, I saw a bunch of my friends sitting around and playing video games.

My recall gets a little hazy, here, but I remember summoning Mario and Mertha again, later on, to go another round while I could still hold onto the dream. Some time after slapping them around, again, I woke up.

"Die Hard with Lucidity" - 11/20/2006

“Die Hard with Lucidity”

11/20/2006

(Lucid)

(I popped some B6 and melatonin before bed and had what is probably the longest, single, lucid experience I’ve ever had.

Possible content influences: Just finished watching “Walking Tall” starring The Rock, which involved dirty cops – also just finished watching (coincidentally): “The Rock” starring Sean Connery and Nic Cage, which involved corrupt Marines – Also, my cousin was over here playing Grand Theft Auto on Friday - which spawned past Friday’s dream - and I haven’t played my GTA in over a year, so it was fresh in my mind.)

The first thing I remember, in this dream, is being on the top floor of a two-story apartment building, at night. I was outside, walking through a hallway, and had just realized I was dreaming. I don’t even remember what it was that brought this to my attention. It was pretty-much just “Bam. Here I am. And I’m obviously dreaming.”

I immediately forgot what it was I was doing, and I decided to go exploring for awhile, walking over to the staircase while looking down to examine my hands. They were very normal looking, except for waves of wispy, dark shadows flowing over them. Jumping off the top stair, I caught myself in the air, levitating, and began to hover around the complex. Even though it was dark, I could tell that this definitely looked something like the apartment complex I was staying in - in Georgia - like 13 years ago.

Flying felt uncommonly easy, and I just stayed a good 15-20ft above the ground, floating about, almost aimlessly. When I was flying toward another hallway, across a large section of grass, I noticed a little girl walking by herself. Since she was the first DC I saw, I hovered in a little closer and was about to speak to her. She looked up at me, looking exactly like the little girl that showed up at the end of my “Possessed House” dream (The one that I thought might have been an older version of my daughter), except that she was wearing a frilly, white and black dress, instead of a black hoodie. (I didn’t notice the resemblance though, until after I woke up.) As I was approaching, her eyes suddenly flashed a bright orange. They weren’t really threatening, but just…bright orange. Aware that I took B6 before bed, those eyes deterred me enough to make me change directions and decide not to get involved with her, because I didn’t want this dream taking a nightmarish turn for the worse.

I thought it might be a good idea to counter that potentially unpleasant experience with something a little more umm…enjoyable, so I went flying around looking for some women more my age. Haha. With flying coming as easily as it was, I was feeling a lot of control in this dream. I flew from apartment to apartment (simply phasing through the walls). Eventually, I ended up flying back up to the second floor, floating over the railing and landing softly on the walkway. I noticed that there was a party going on, a few doors down from where I landed, and decided to check it out.

There were a bunch of people I didn’t know, just hanging out at this apartment, a few of them wandering in and out of the doorway, drinking. The door remained wide open, so I just stepped in, not really bothering to introduce myself. I started mingling with the crowd as if I knew them all and ended up talking to one of the girls – really cute. Sort of like Jessica Alba’s features with shoulder-length, curly, auburn hair. We slid off to one of the back rooms, got undressed (though I don’t remember undressing), and had a bit of fun while the party went on throughout the rest of the apartment.

When we were finished, I was leaning over her, in push-up position, and my mind was already starting to wander. I was thinking something about phasing through walls and ceilings, and how I’ve never tried phasing downward before. I told her something like “hang on. I wanna try something,” and then I held onto her and started making us sink down through the bed and the floor beneath it. (I’m guessing this was due to not really knowing what to expect but…) We sank away into an empty white void. I kept trying to think of something to fill the space with – some kind of new scene (even the apartment below us, which seemed logical), but nothing came into focus. Having considered this as proof of the phasing experiment being a failure, I focused on phasing upward, instead. I jumped up as if I was jumping off of the ground and, before I knew it, I had phased up through the roof of the apartment complex and was now standing on top of it, looking out over the neighborhood.

The girl was gone and (to the best of my knowledge) I was fully clothed again. I know I took a moment to look at my hands again, right around this time, but I can’t remember what I saw in them. I do know, though, that I definitely felt more grounded in the dream state and more confident that I could take the some time to explore without having to worry about waking up. It was still night out, and I could see an industrial yard about a half-mile or so away. I decided to check it out, jumping off of the rooftop and flying off in that direction. I don’t remember landing, but I was soon snooping around a warehouse where a lot of men were working. I could tell by their uniforms that they were military men. Staying out of sight, I was trying to see what it was they were doing, but I couldn’t.

Somewhere around here (though, I don’t know exactly how this transition happened), I was sort of “remote-viewing” into one of the nearby buildings. (I think I lost lucidity here, for a moment. I’m not sure, so I’ll just assume I did, because this part is so hazy, and I don't specifically recall still recognizing that I was dreaming.) Two high-ranking officers were talking in a small room; one black, one white. The centerpiece of their conversation was the model of an airliner jet that was sitting on a table in front of them and, in particular, one of the turbine engines on the wing.

I knew, immediately, who these guys were: They were the two main villains from Die Hard 2. The white guy was telling the black guy about how his death (getting chopped up by the jet turbine in the movie) could have been avoided and what to do, next time, if such a situation should come up again. (Which is pretty funny, now that I think about it. Lol.)

After a couple of seconds, I was back in my own perspective, again, still stealthily creeping around in the warehouse. I knew that these guys were all up to something big and I was determined to stop them. The feeling of impending danger brought me to lucidity again. The dream was still feeling hazy (after that disembodied transition), and I solidified it once more by looking at my hand. I focused on it, noticing the texture was kind of bumpy and calloused. The details of my hand became more and more resolute and, once I looked up, I could see that everything else in the dream environment had, too.

I don’t remember how the whole thing started, but I was eventually spotted, and the whole place went crazy. The two C.O.s were trying to make their escape in a jet (much like in the movie) only this time it was a huge fighter jet that looked something like the X-Men’s Blackbird with two, parallel cockpits. Pretty badass looking, actually. They were taxiing  onto a nearby airstrip, and I was gun-fighting/running my way through the warehouses and industrial clutter in the yard, trying to catch up to the plane before take-off. I was hauling ass, too, on foot, actively pushing all doubt of catching this thing out of my mind, because I was lucid and knew I could catch up to it.

Suddenly, I saw a figure jump off of the plane and roll to a stop in front of me, sliding out of the roll and into a perfect stance. It was the white Officer, who was a martial arts expert in the movie. He’d stayed behind to fight me off, while the rest of his crew got away in the jet that was now gaining speed and moving faster off in the distance, in preparation to take-off.

I ran toward the guy and we started brawling. Unfortunately, I don’t even remember how the hell I ended the fight so quick but, before I knew it, I was continuing to run down the airstrip, chasing after the jet, having already defeated its defender. I could see the afterburners flare up in the night, as it began to leave the ground. Following suit, I jumped into the air and started flying as fast as I could, a few feet from the cement. I could tell I wasn’t gaining any ground, though. I was stuck at like 70mph and the plane was pulling further away. I remember thinking to myself “COME ON!! How the hell do I go faster?!? This is my Dream! It should be easy!!” I tried visualizing the world in my peripherals as a motion blur and willing myself closer to the plane. That didn’t help at all, and the jet was losing me.

Unexpectedly, I heard sirens behind me and, when I looked back, I saw a black Lamborghini with police lights on, it tailing me. (The same one that pulled me over in the recent bowling alley dream? Apparently, the cops were in on this “military” operation, as well.) I dropped out of the air and landed in front of the car. When the car skid to a stop, I obviously jacked it from the cop (don’t remember doing it, though) and, before I knew it, I was speeding down the airstrip, trying to find another jet. I remember the awesome feeling of pushing the engine on this thing and shifting gears, letting go of the stick at one point to look at my right hand again in the, passing, airfield lights, trying to keep the dream stable. This time, my hand seemed to have tiny boils and blisters all over it, but I was too preoccupied to worry about the details. I focused on the whole hand for a moment - clearing up the little bit of fog that had started to haze over the dream - met again with a sense of confidence that I wouldn’t be waking up too soon.

There was a long sequence involving me driving through some twists and turns of this “industrial yard,” looking for another jet. The military men that stayed behind were still out there and trying to kill me. At some point, I was headed toward where I had a feeling I could find another plane, when the car I was riding in got sprayed with bullets. The engine caught fire and the first thing I could think about was Grand Theft Auto. (Anyone who plays that game knows that you have like 10 seconds, after your car catches fire, before it explodes.) 

A million things ran through my mind. It started off with “SHIT! What’s the cheat code to put out the fire in GTA?!” Then, I thought “Wait..this isn’t GTA! There is no cheat code! Ok, I should bail out! How do you bail out, in GTA?! Uhm Uhhhhhh…..Triangle! You Press Triangle! Wait! I don’t have a controller!!” As soon as I thought this, I looked away from the steering wheel and looked back, and a PlayStation controller appeared, embedded into the vinyl. (Haha)

I slammed my thumb down on the triangle and was ejected from the side of the car, hitting the ground rolling, but feeling no pain. The car kept driving and, as I stopped rolling, I looked up and saw it crash into a wall and explode. (Funny that I went through all that, and all I had to do was open the door and jump out. The ridiculous stuff we do, when we panic. Lol.)

So, I was on foot, again, dipping away behind all of the crates and industrial clutter. When I was sure no one could see me, I took a moment to look at my hands, yet again, stabilizing and prolonging the dream. As I was walking and analyzing my hand, I remember thinking to myself “There is No Way I’m going to remember all of this, when I wake up. I need key words or something...” I started backtracking over my dream, picking out all the little details that I wanted to make it a point to remember: It took a minute but I was able to remember certain factors, all the way back to becoming lucid in the apartment complex.

While lost in thought (I didn’t really get a chance to focus on clarity, when I looked at my hand, because I got sidetracked), I noticed that I’d come across another, dual-cockpit, jet, like the one I had been chasing. It was sitting in a docking station - steam rising from the afterburners, like it was ready to go. I crept over to it, and was just about to climb aboard, when someone started shooting at me. I had to jump back down off of the ladder as more people ran in to assist the shooter, gunfire coming from all over the place. The firefight lasted a couple seconds, and I’d lost lucidity, during it. I remember beginning to get so overwhelmed that I had to completely abort the plan of using the other jet and (I think) resorted to blowing it up in order to kill a lot of the bad guys, that were now swarming around it, so as to make my getaway. I, conveniently, found another car in the industrial yard. It was some sort of suped-up racer. I only remember seeing it from behind.

The dream shifted, and I was suddenly way out in the boonies, somewhere. I still had this sleek car and was stopping in at a gas station. I think I was still on the mission; driving out to wherever it was the black C.O. flew off to. Coming out of the convenience store, I saw flashing lights and heard sirens coming in my direction. The dirty cops were after me, again. The last thing I remember is speeding away from the gas station with all these cops on my tail.

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"Candyman is Coming" - 05/06/2009

"Candyman Is Coming" 

05/06/2009

Dream #1

I was a detective, in this dream, and I was investigating a recent wave of deaths that were being blamed on the fabled "Candyman" (from the movie - but, in the dream, it was like the movie didn't exist, and he was an actual urban legend). I remember a brief period of riding around the city on a motorcycle, trying to get to these crime scenes as quickly as I could, so that I could either prove or disprove Candyman's existence. I don't recall much of the riding, but I know that I had a really fast bike, and I would sometimes take the turns by squeezing the front brake for stability and gunning the engine so the rear tire skid as it spun, kicking the back end of the bike out to drift around the tight corners at high speed. Every time I would show up at the scene after a call, though, it would be too late. The person would already be dead, and the killer would be nowhere in sight. All of the deaths were gruesome. The victims were all either gutted completely or just gored beyond recognition. The puncture wounds and lacerations all seemed as though they actually could have come from the Candyman's hook, though I remained skeptical of the supernatural implications of the murders.

Later, there was a pattern shown to be forming, and people who were dying were all known to have come down with a certain type of illness before their brutal deaths. They would all be sick to their stomachs, nauseated, and disoriented. It was really the only piece of information that I had, aside from the bodies, themselves. I ended up going to a multi-story building that was a mixture between a high-rise apartment building, and what kind of reminded me of my old office at B&B. I had raced there as fast as I could, and had shown up (in what must have been) seconds after another murder. While I was going around and questioning some of the people in the building, I started to get this sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach.

At first, I didn't know what it was, and I continued doing my job. Then, it began to grow more and more severe, until I was practically doubled over, holding my gut. I felt the urge to leave the office, immediately, and started looking for the stairs. The more I looked around for them, the more I began to realize that I was lost. I was so disoriented that it was like the building was shifting, and the stairs were nowhere to be found. Anxiety and claustrophobia were creeping in, and I was frantically searching for a way out, but it seemed as if I was going through the same hallways over and over. I knew that something was definitely wrong, not only with my condition, but with the entire situation.

Moving through one of the hallways, I started thinking about the murders - and the urban legend. "There's no way," I thought to myself. I wasn't even going to begin to take the possible connection seriously - that is until the florescent light above me suddenly  shorted out. I kept moving, feeling sick, trying to find my way out of this maze of corners and doors, and as I ran, more and more lights over my head started flickering and bursting into showers of white sparks. I noticed that the trail of malfunctioning lights was actually following me, strobing or darkening patches of only the hallways I ran through. I began getting the feeling that I was being followed, and the sickness in my stomach was getting worse. There was no doubt in my mind, by now, that the Candyman stories were real, and that he was coming after me.

I was finally able to find a winding stairwell and ran down it, flickering lights following me the whole way. When I got down to the bottom floor, I still found myself running through hallway after hallway, all of them seeming to double back on themselves, just as they had done on the levels above. Now, my relationship with this building somehow changed, and I knew that I actually had my own room behind one of these doors. It was now more like an apartment building than the office setting that was more dominant, upstairs. The last thing I remember is getting to my door and it being locked from the inside. I kept trying as hard as I could to pull it open, feeling death looming in on me, all of the lights around me strobing wildly, as if the ghostly killer would be showing up any second.

That's all, though.

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"Gun Kata" - 10/11/2007 (Lucid)

"Gun Kata"

10/11/2020

Dream #1 (pt 2)

(Lucid)

I was upstairs, in the [girl from Part 1's] two-story apartment. Walking down the hallway, toward her staircase, I abruptly stopped and wondered how I'd gotten there. I looked around and began questioning whether this was a dream, but (even after waking up from a long period of sleep, and going back to bed) everything was just so vivid. So realistic. I looked down at my hands, and they looked just fine. Normal. Reaching out, my hands ran across the banister, and it was just as firm and realistic as anything I've ever felt. For a moment, I had thought about jumping all the way down the stairs but, then, figured that it wouldn't be the best idea, until I was 100% sure of my state. Finally, I tried something that I don't think I've ever tried before: the "nose-plug" reality check. I pinched my nose with my fingers and inhaled, and to my surprise, I could breathe! I thought I'd done something wrong, and maybe didn't fully cover my nostrils, so I squeezed my nose even harder, and inhaled. It was like my hand wasn't even there. I was definitely dreaming. 

I went to the top stair and jumped off of it, trying to clear all the stairs, at once. When I landed, everything was still so damned vivid, that it actually hurt a little bit, and I stumbled and nearly fell to the ground. I realized, though, that - had this been waking life - I would have seriously injured myself, so I was even more sure that I was dreaming. I walked outside, and the same awesome car I had been driving (in the first "half" of this dream) was still in the parking lot, and there was a police car parked beside it. As I was getting in the car, ready to take a little joyride, the police radio sounded, and I could hear dispatch say that there was some huge gang bust going down and that all units needed to respond. Knowing that this was all a dream, I thought this sounded like fun.

A swarm of cops were already hauling ass to this spot, and I was right there behind them. It was another apartment complex. (Why are there so many apartment complexes in my dreams?) I just followed them in, now on foot, and we came upon a HUGE firefight, in a courtyard. Everybody was dressed up in suits, and it was just a relatively-few cops vs. some upscale crime syndicate, like the Yakuza. Everybody had automatic weapons, and it was just a crazy amount of gunfire, all over the place. Without missing a beat, I took the side of the cops (they were seriously outnumbered, and I tend to side with the underdogs) and walked into the middle of the battlefield. I can't even remember what I said to provoke the gang, but I suddenly draw all of their fire on me.

(This has to have been one of the coolest things I've done, while lucid, yet...)

As all of these guns started shooting at me, I instinctively started spinning around and flailing my arms in a mock-wushu / kung-fu motion, moving left right, up down, corkscrew-flipping and ducking from side to side, in rapid succession. While doing this, I tried to take my mind off of the bullets, and to act as if they weren't even there. The illusion created was that I dodged every single bullet that was shot at me, aside from one that I felt graze my hand but caused no pain. What I'd fallen into was an exaggeratedly-acrobatic version of UltraViolet's "No-touch Gun-Kata", and it was f*cking awesome. Even though I was trying not to think about the bullets hitting me, I could hear them whizzing around my head, while I continued to move erradically, as fast as possible.

At some point, someone randomly started using a glowing disc as a weapon. They'd throw it at me and I would flip out of the way, and it would pretty much just ricochet all over the battlefield and kill a whole bunch of people, inadvertently. One thing that motivated me to keep moving was thinking of Spider-Man and the way he moves and the last thing I remember doing is jumping off of the ground, over the glowing disc, and landing, horizontally, on a wall, standing on it as if it were the ground and looking down at the body-littered battlefield. I could see that the cops now had the advantage and were taking out the last few of the gang memebers, and that was about the last thing I remember.

(Absolutely incredible experience. I woke up and it was daylight. I came to the PC to jot down some dream notes and decided to see if I could squeeze an extra hour or so of sleep in.)

"Epic Lucid Dream" - 10/19/2005 (Lucid)

(This was one of the most substantial lucid dreams that I have ever had. It came at the time when I had recently joined the DreamViews forums, and was getting serious about - and quite good at - developing my dream control. My recall, around this time, was about at its highest, and the sense of wonder and adventure that I got from this dream is something that has always stayed with me, over all these years. It was also around the time that I first started using photomanipulations to illustrate my dreams. Over what has been more than 15 years of epic dream journal entries, this was practically the "one that started it all.")

"Epic Lucid Dream"

10/19/2005

(Lucid)

Ok, this started off, innocently enough, involving 3 of my waking life friends - J; T; and BM - and myself. We were up in this random apartment, one morning. If I'm not mistaken, someone had brought me a small telescope as a gift. It was a pretty slick contraption, actually - all gold, ornate, and small, like some antique from the captain's quarters of a great, old ship. With it, I stepped over to the window of the apartment and threw open the blinds, having a look around, outside.

Scanning across the street, I saw that I was in a sort of run-down town, which reminded me somewhat of coverage I've seen from New Orleans, lately, after Katrina. (The only comparison I could really make, at the time of writing this entry.) Peering through the window and refocusing the telescope, I looked upward, parallel to our approximate 6th story window, at the building across the street. Bringing the scope into a little more focus, I saw someone with a pair of binoculars which seemed to be pointed back at me.



"What the...?" I thought, turning to grab the attention of my friends, and they all joined me at the window. Looking back through the scope, I found that this person was actually looking down toward the street, and no longer back at me. So, I panned back down with the telescope and set my eyes on a surprisingly chaotic scene, below. Moving from person to person with the scope, I saw what seemed to be the final moments of a store looting, with the store itself just out of my field of view, blocked by another building. People were walking around the streets, carrying whatever it is they could hold. Apparently, there were a few police units around, but ultimately not enough to stop what was going on. My friends turned on news coverage of the incident, I continued to watch it unfold from the balcony.

Without any visible warning, there was a loud crash from within the crowd. One might have thought that a car had veered and plowed through a bunch of people, throwing them violently to one side, and out of my field of view...except that there was no car - only a strange black blur that came and went like a gust of pitch-dark wind.

“…..Did anyone just see that?” I asked. By this time, BM had opened a second balcony door, beside me, and was stepping out to the deck to get a better view. “Those people,” I continued, talking mainly to myself, at that point. “Something just…Crashed into 'em….and knocked them off the street!” Dumbfounded, I wasn’t looking through the scope any more.

“Yeah,” said BM. “And it flew right up into the leaning tower of Pisa over there.” Even before his words registered, I could hear that there was a shock in his voice when he said it, and when I craned my neck to look at him, he was gazing, awestruck, around the side of our building's balcony. I got up from where I was, walked out onto the deck, where he was standing, and turned to the right to look around the side of our apartmet building. There, in the distance, behind the backdrop of an entire city that seemed to be in shambles, with highways that stretched on for miles (some of which were collapsed if I remember correctly), was a MASSIVE tower structure that stretched crookedly up into the distant skies. (It looked like something straight out of "Digital Blasphemy," the 3D art site I was browsing shortly before bed.)

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!?!” I asked, damn near falling off of the balcony to get a better view.

We were all standing on the balcony now, and I think it was the shock of seeing such a surreal, monolithic structure that brought me into a very very low level of lucidity. I didn’t say anything at first about this being a dream (and, actually, I don’t think I was REALLY sure that it was a dream, but I had my hunch, and that was all I needed).

“….I’m Going!” I said. Everyone snapped their eyes toward me.

“What are you talking about??” One of them asked, and I repeated: “I’m Going!” 

My sense of curiosity had gotten the better of me. “There is some strange shit going on here, and I’m going to find out what.” I'm not sure whether I tossed the telescope away, but I didn’t have it any more. “If you’re coming, follow me, and do what I do!” I didn’t feel that I had much time to explain the whole lucidity thing, but I was definitely feeling it. I took a few steps forward and dove over the balcony railing. Free-falling - almost sickeningly - toward the ground below, which had began to clear of crowds after the recent occurrence.

Diving straight down, I tucked my chin and rolled forward, front flipping one half time and landing on both feet with a small crouch, sort of like Kadaj’s building dive in the FF7 Advent Children movie. Shortly afterward, I was hearing the feet of my friends landing behind me. No one asked any questions as to how it was we just jumped from about 6 stories up, but that would seem almost normal, compared to the things that were about to transpire.



“Ok, so how do you suggest we get over there?” T asked. Exhaling once, I tried to give the easiest directions I could. “Just tell yourself that you’re dreaming, and follow me.” Of course this got the deer-in-headlights reaction from all three of them. With no further words, I took my own advice, knowing that it would be a far distance to the tower (and flying, sometimes, was not my strong point unless I was in the right frame of mind). I closed my eyes. “I’m dreaming I’m dreaming I’m dreaming!!” I demanded to myself, reassuringly. And *Boom*. It was as if I was opening my eyes for the very first time. A sense of confidence washed over me as the dream world around me became all that much more vivid.

“So…you’re dreaming?” BM asked, a bit confused. I didn’t even answer. I just ran forward and lept into the air, the wind screaming in my ears as I shot toward the horizon like a missile, arcing straight at the huge architectural marvel in the distance.

I thought nothing of flying, which is the way I have the best luck with it. My mind was simply on getting from point A to point B. It was only a matter of seconds before my feet touched down upon the high, circular platform of the tower's main balcony. This thing had to be a few miles high; a twisted wonder of stone that seemed it was erected back in some mythical past. I gazed inside, through one of the numerous, open, balcony doors, and I began to walk forward. Turning my attention behind me, I’d noticed that BM and T were already walking on the stone surface, right on my heels, J was just landing as well. With no words about why we were able to do the things we were doing, we entered the tower like some small, unlikely task force.

Surprisingly enough, the inside of this tower looked more like a run-down urban apartment than some regal imperial landmark. There were worn couches, and a tiny kitchen area that would have barely fit the four of us. Food had been left out on the counters, and a large steak, which still looked fresh, sat in a pan on the stove. (From here, on, my recollection of things gets a little more hazy.)

It seems there is this old man that lives in this tower. (And let me just say, I’ve faced some pretty rough characters, in my dreams, but this guy was Bad.) After what was most likely a long utterance of “I’m taking this world over” clichés, the fight broke out.

This guy’s magic was crazy, and he was an expert at hand to hand combat. While the others were a little reluctant - not quite sure of the powers my lucidity had afforded them, I suppose - I went all out on this guy with improvised Kung Fu-like flavor that would have made Jet Li cower.

But GodDAMN was this guy good.

*Punch kick block kick block punch block dodge kick feign punch wall-smash punch floor-break dodge punch.*

Fists and feet were flying everywhere, but I was just not making any progress with this guy. And on top of that, just as it seemed the others were ready to throw down…this old bastard just up and disappeared; so quick that we were left standing in what seemed to be a bedroom (or study. It wasn’t furnished, and there were paint cans and newspapers all over the place), all alone and wondering just wtf happened. We knew that the only way out of this dead end bedroom was back through the hallway we’d just passed, because the spacious living area nearest the balcony was the one that connected all the rooms on the top floor.

Slowly, we began to file out of the room, and as we went through the hallway, I made my way to the front of the group. One hand held low, I concentrated my mind on the pyrokinesis I knew was possible, because I still knew I was dreaming. (just not enough to KNOW that I could defeat this guy) My hand flickered once, and then it ignited into a bright orange flame. I held the flame around my hand while searching with my eyes for any signs of the old man.

There was another small room (small is a relative term), which was parallel to the tiny kitchen in the center of the hallway. Slowly, I made my way toward it. Behind me, I heard a familiar *Fwooosh* and saw a flash of light. When I turned around, I’d seen that BM had followed my lead and found his own ability to produce a flame like mine. He smiled enthusiastically, holding up his flaming hand, and I couldn’t help but do the same. However, unfortunately, I hadn’t stopped walking toward the room when I looked back at him, and when I turned to look inside of the small room as I crossed the doorframe, I was blindsided.

A vicious punch crashed into the side of my face and sent me to the side, I countered with multiple fire blasts from both hands, swinging my arms like an ambidextrous pitcher and assaulting this guy with pyrotechnics. His own magic countered horrifically well, though, small explosions of blues and greens emanating from his person to show that my fire blasts were simply having no effect. Finally, before I could get another shot off, or think of another tactic, the old man fired some green energy blast that blew me off of my feet and sent me crashing into the wall behind me, now on the left side of the room from the doorway. Shaking off the cobwebs, I glanced up to see the others streaming into the room, battle cries filling the air as they all went 3 on 1 with this f*cker. It was all out war with this guy…and we were losing.

I stood up and tried to clear my mind. I wanted a charge of energy, and if that meant destroying this room to do it, so be it. I doubted the small explosion I was about to cause would have effected either of us too much, the way we were fighting, but the energy I might get from it could be invaluable. Clenching my fists, I began to well up my energy like a Saiyan from DBZ, a low “rrrrrrrrrrrraaahhhhh….” building up in my throat. I could feel the coming energy start to push outward from my center, beginning to crack the floor under me, bending the wall behind me out into the hall, and pushing the ceiling over my head up into itself.

However, I was not truly focused. I think it was the sounds of our side losing that broke my concentration and kept me from getting that explosive, battle-ending power that I was going for. No matter how much I tried, I just didn't feel like my show of force was getting me anywhere. Not sure whether to keep charging or not, I suddenly noticed that everything had fallen silent. I stopped focusing my energy all together and opened my eyes. The old man had disappeared again, leaving the four of us alone in the room.

The fight was definitely taking its toll. We were all suffering from various levels of kicked-asses. We were much more reluctant to search for him this time, but we were definitely feeling a sense of responsibility. My lucidity was beginning to fade right about this time, so I was getting more attached to the narrative but I was still very much in non-lucid control of my actions.

We filed, slowly, out of the second bedroom, passing the kitchen that was almost straight across from it. J leaned into the kitchen and stepped inside. Obviously exhausted, he uttered something like “God, I Have to Eat Something,” as tiredly as if he was in a trance, and the only thing that could save him was food, even at a time like this. (Lol..that J…always eating.) So he went straight for the huge steak on the stove and began to cut it. A bit disgusted - not to mention thinking that this was Not the time for food - I blurted out “Man, what are you doing?! Don’t eat That!”

The moment I said this, the pantry door beside us slid open, and inside, the old man stood, covered from head to toe in a pantry full of…insect larvae. (Yeah..I know: "….wtf?!") The only thing we could see, within the writhing mountain of bugs around him, was his face, and the stone dead gaze of his whitish blue eyes that implied he might have been fighting us all while blind.

He yelled, in a thunderous voice: “You have all fought well, but you will never escape my locusts!” And an endless flood of flying locusts streamed out of the pantry, covering the entire top floor of the tower in seconds, before we even had a chance to respond. I was able to bust off a few more pyro blasts from my hands - even though I wasn’t lucid any more - while I staggered through the hallway away from the kitchen, but the blasts seemed to just dissolve in the thickening cloud of locusts with no effect.

“Your powers are useless!” I could hear the old man’s voice through the swirling buzz around me. “My locusts feed off your energies! Your powers will drain, and soon you will feel your life force slipping from you!”

He was right. Being no longer lucid, I could feel myself being suffocated by millions of locusts swarming around me, masses of them coating my body like mud. I could hear nothing from my friends and was finding it harder and harder to stand. One of my very few tastes of dream defeat, I finally collapsed to my knees amongst the relentless swarm, prolonging the inevitable by trying to stand again, but to no avail.

I was so tired.

So tired that I knew I couldn’t go on.

So, there on the floor, still in a knelt position, refusing to go down any further, I closed my eyes, and welcomed the darkness. …..and then I woke up.

(Damnit……….this isn’t over…his ass is MINE.)

(*Recent Sketch of the Old Man*)

Last Night's Dreams, in One Sentence - 5/25/2020

(From Last Night!)

"Genetically-enhanced Penguin" - 05/29/2007

"Genetically Enhanced Penguin"

5/29/2007

Dream #5

(This one was just weird and random.)

The first thing I remember is being in some type of laboratory. These people had either created or "enhanced" a young penguin that was lying in an incubator. Somehow, I got the job of taking care of this little guy, after he was done...incubating? (for lack of a better word).

Later, I was in an unfamiliar apartment complex. I don't know exactly where the penguin was, during this part but, before I knew it, Ice Cube (the rapper) showed up to hang out and sell me a bag of smoke. He was pitching how good this batch was, to me, and I picked up a bag and smelled it. It smelled really good, however, when I looked inside, I could see that there were little corn kernals mixed in with the buds. He said something about that having to do with the re-plant-ability of the buds and how it would grow into some super-strain or something, with the help of the corn kernals. Haha. Hilarious.

Without warning, some psychopath came barging into the apartment and just immediately opened fire on everyone inside. (There were like 6 of us in the apartment, at the time). He missed me, but I went down on the couch and played possum, until he was done with his rampage. When he was through, I saw him turn the gun on himself and shoot himself in the head. He went down, on the couch, right beside me.

I don't remember too much more about that scene, but I was soon taking the small penguin home, driving around in a convertible with some girl in the passenger seat. Suddenly, the penguin stood up straight - all alert - as if there was some trouble coming. Before we could figure out what it was doing, it immediately took off into the sky like a missle (I think he even had a vapor trail behind him. Haha.) and arced over the rooftops of the apartments that we were driving next to. I pulled the car to a stop and we could see a light show of explosions, behind the buildings. The explosions then detonated in succession, in a straight line, toward the front of the complex to our right, which was a few yards in front of us. When the blasts reached the end of the block, there was another large explosion as the penguin came smashing through one of the buildings like it was paper, and back onto the street we were parked on. The explosions, that we'd seen a few minutes ago, had been shockwaves from the penguin, running so fast that he was destroying the brick buildings as if they were made of glass.

He came running back toward us and passed us, moving toward this huge mound that was coming up out of the ground, behind us. From this concrete mound/mountain, a swarm of giant bugs that looked like the aliens from Starship Troopers came pouring out. Their front arms were equipped with these whip-like tendrils and they were just pretty f***ing nasty creatures. We ended up getting into an insane battle, with these things on this mountain. This penguin was just zipping all around us, and owning these bug-monsters like some sort of superhero.

Sometime during the mayhem, I remember hearing weird, disembodied laughter. I looked up at the sky and the moon was a giant smiley-face that was laughing, and it melted and fallen out of the sky, as soon as I looked up at it. The laughter continued, though, and I was wondering just where in the hell it was coming from, because it sounded so familiar. My perspective then changed, and my view was suddenly scaling the side of a building, getting closer and closer to the origin of the maniacal laughter. When it reached the top, I was staring into the face of the Joker (from Batman: The Animated Series) and he was just cracking up, watching us fight these bugs, from the rooftop.

I don't remember anything else.

"When the Moon Comes Out" - 05/09/2019

"When the Moon Comes Out"

05/09/2019

I was with my best friend, T, in a school gymnasium. Apparently, we were being sent on some mission, where we would be transported through time and space, for a major battle. This would be a time-dilated experience, so, even if we took days to get the job done, only seconds would have passed, to everyone around us, by the time we got back home. A crowd watched, while we walked up into the bleachers, donning armored suits and taking our choice of weaponry from a scattered pile near the top. I remember assembling and disassembling various gun parts, in order to customize my loadout, and we both walked back down to the floor, carrying beefy, dual rifles, with all kinds of accessories on them. I don't remember much of the actual trip through space/time, but I recall that it had to do with some sort of ritual that had to be performed by the people who were sending us on the journey.

The next thing I knew, I was "waking up," in an all-white bedroom - either in a crouched position, or sitting in a chair. I don't remember which, but I got the feeling of "coming to," in a position of rest. Looking around this unfamiliar setting - unarmed, as it seems my armor and weapons had disappeared - I tried to get my bearings and remembered having been sent on this other-worldly mission. A strange sensation of "not-quite-lucid" washed over me, as I felt a very surreal nature to this place. It felt very cerebral, almost dream-like, in sense that I felt any anxiety I might feel may actually manifest into a bad situation, here. Despite the fact that I was surrounded by pearl-white decor, with daylight beaming in through the windows, there was an unsettling stillness about this house. Trying to push the tension out of my mind, I began exploring my way through the deathly-silent house, eventually making it to a back door.

Outside, it was a completely different scene. There were plenty of people, milling around. Children ran about the yard, as if there was some family get-together going on. After some walking, I was approached by three, burly, Latino men who, for some reason, decided to start shit with me. I don't remember many details of the fight which ensued, but I know that it still had that 'almost-lucid' feel to it. I had them supernaturally outclassed, leaving two of them writhing around in the grass, in paint, with the other one backing away from me and asking for mercy. He actually asked if I would stick with them and help be their "bodyguard," so to speak, whenever they ran into trouble. Lol. I simply declined.

Shortly afterward, I could see that people were beginning to disperse from the area, in a fashion that immediately implied that they were seeking shelter. The doors and windows of neighboring houses were being closed and shuttered. I noticed that the atmosphere was growing increasingly overcast, and a very distinctly ominous wind was beginning to swell. Even the tough guys I'd encountered were scrambling away, and I could hear them mentioning something about "what happens when the moon comes out." Suddenly, the revelation hit me that I may not know what was going on, but I should probably seek some kind of shelter, myself.

I ran to the nearest building, which, I believe, started out as just another house. Once inside, though, it morphed into a run-down slum of an apartment building. The hallways were dark and cluttered, with peeling walls and holes in every other surface. People were still shutting and shuttering their doors, so I decided to just keep searching until I could find a suitable place for myself, rather than attempting to deal with any of these strangers. Before long, I was stopped by a woman who stepped out from the shadows of a doorway - a white woman, a few years older than me, with somewhat frizzled hair and a hardened look to her. She seemed familiar, and I soon recognized her as who I believed to be one of the faces in the crowd, back in the gymnasium I had been in before making the jump through space/time.

Hurriedly, she told me to follow her and started leading me up one of the winding stairwells of this apartment building, explaining to me about the "monsters," that flood this town, after dark. As we traversed to the higher levels of the building, I could see that the weather was quickly deteriorating, outside. The wind was now howling loudly, and night was falling ridiculously fast. I remember asking more questions about these monster attacks, and - though I don't recall what one, specific question was - I recall her answering me, very dismissively, with: "Well, it doesn't really matter, because nobody else here is likely to survive the night, but us."

At one point, she motioned for me to crouch and be quiet. I immediately complied, and she pointed up to a huge hole in the wall, rounding off the next flight of stairs. Through the hole, I could see the lights of a helicopter, ascending just outside of the building. It had a cargo palette suspended beneath it and, as the palette rose into view, I could see a large, bulky object resting upon it - definitely some kind of monster. It was either sleeping or sedated, with a body about the size of a rhino, and a face like a cephalopod (squid-like), with tentacles hanging from its snout. It was clear that there was a human faction releasing or aiding these monsters, and this woman knew all about it.

Eventually, we made it to one of the higher floors, and she showed me her hideout, which had heavy, metal barricade shutters. We spent the rest of the dream riding out the night in the safe house, but I don't remember else.

"No Disassemble Johnny 5!!" - 09/22/2007

"No Disassemble Johnny 5!!"

09/22/2007

This one started in a school. I was sitting in a desk with a bunch of others that were surrounding a projector. The teacher was going over something and we were all supposed to be taking notes. I don't remember very much about this part, but I know that, at some time, I got out of my desk and was actually laying down on the floor, taking notes, instead of being in my chair. E.T. and M.R. (two female ex-coworkers, that are too old for school) were some of my classmates. It was a holiday and there was a big "holiday function" going on, in the auditorium. Afterward, during the night, we all went out to eat at a place that reminded me of Denny's.

I really don't know how he got tied into all of this but, for some reason, the robot Johnny 5 (from the movie Short Circuit) was a friend of mine, and he was in the restaurant with us. Some big "Kill Johnny 5" scenario broke out where even some of the restaurant workers were out to destroy him. One of the restaurant workers even had a laser like J5's, that he was shooting up the whole place with, trying to get the robot. We were able to get him safely out of the restaurant, and into M.R.'s car. There was a short segment that I remember where J5 and I were laughing and joking around in the backseat and we were showing ourselves to be such good friends that M.R. and E.T. were like "Awwww."

We drove to the apartment of the girl from the Short Circuit movie (which looked like the apt complex I lived in, in Georgia). As we were pulling up, we saw a backhoe working in a ditch on the side of the neighborhood. J5 said something like "That's him," implying that he had a mechanical arch-nemesis. We drove by the backhoe as discretely as we could while J5 explained that the backhoe was some sort of alien technology that could shape-shift like the Transformers. Once we got in the apartment, my perspective switched from first- to third-person.

In third-person, I saw the backhoe move to another position in the neighborhood and do this crazy section-by-section transformation, and turn into another type of "tractor." The next day came (still in third-person) and I watched the foreman of the construction project start investigating the incorrect digging of the ditch the backhoe was attending to. Then, out of nowhere, the (newly transformed) backhoe, which was now more like a fork-lift, slam into the foreman from behind and push him into some sort of compacting machine. The guy's arm got trapped in the machine and I saw him get dragged into the works and shredded by the machine (which looked completely fake, as if it was a b-movie effect). Afterward, the "forklift" manifested this humanoid for a driver (kind of like the Decepticon's from the movie had the holographic drivers/pilots), and assume the identity of the foreman.

The next morning (back in first person), the holographic person came to our apartment door, which was on the second floor, and demanded to see J5. J5 had actually asked us to shut down his system, so he couldn't be detected by the other machine, and we told the holographic guy that J5 wasn't with us (I really won't take the time to fully describe the guy's persona, but he was a really animated psychopath - kinda looking like Sylar from Heroes, with a personality like a psychotic Jim Carrey). The guy finally went away, but then, knowing that we were lying, he got back in his "transformer" and started tearing apart the neighborhood. He used the machine to stack up a bunch of crates and shoot them, with some weird catapult mechanism, toward the train tracks that were not far from us (this, I saw in third person). Finally, he launched a huge rubber tire onto the tracks. Some guy came along, just as a train was coming, and tried to remove the tire from the tracks and the "Decepticon" (for lack of a better word) tricked the guy into staying on the tracks for too long, and the guy got hit by the train. Still as a disembodied entity, my perspective followed the holographic guy as he walked back to the machine, after revelling in his handi-work. I began to actually talk to him (though I was really no more than a "camera" following him) and asked him about how it felt to be a killer, somewhat interviewing him. He said he "loved his work."

My perspective switched back to first-person, and we were up inside the apartment. I seemed to have some recollection of what I'd seen as a disembodied entity, because I was suddenly telling everyone with me that "We need to get out of here" because this guy was about to go apeshit. The girl we'd come to seek refuge with said that she wasn't packed and ready, and that we could leave without her, and she'd catch up with her. I said something like "No, we need to leave now! I don't care if you run out with your pj's on. We have to go!" No sooner had I said this, than my perspective switched back to 3rd person, and I saw a bunch of chains attached to the same conveyor-belt machine that had chopped up the foreman. The chains were strung up to our apartment. They started pulling and completely ripped the staircase and front face of our apartment off.

Shortly after, back in first person, we heard a piano playing downstairs. What was once a second-story apartment was now a two-story sort of townhouse. We walked down an inside staircase (which wasn't there when we got there) and to the first floor of her apartment. She now had a bunch of family members down there, and there was a piano playing by itself. I knew something was definitely wrong, and we all stood around trying to find out what was going on. There was a round young boy that was standing near me. The front door, which was directly behind me, blew open, and I rushed to close it. For some reason, I looked back at the kid. I somehow knew that there was something not right with this kid, and put him in an arm lock. He went from a false panic to a maniacal laughter, and I (again, somehow) knew that the holographic man had transformed into the kid. Holding him, I asked what happened to the real kid that was related to the girl we were hiding with. The "boy" said something like "Him? Oh, I chopped him up and put him in the piano" motioning over to the piano that was playing itself, and he continued laughing. The kid was suddenly gone and, looking outside, I saw that he had materialized back into the crazy holographic guy. Through the window, he made one final demand for us to give up J5, so he could destroy him. We refused, and he was like "Ok, fine," and walked off. My perspective switched yet again and saw the guy standing over a detonator. He said something fanatical that ended with the words "TNT!" (don't remember what he said, though), and hit the detonator. A huge chain reaction of explosions started that implied he'd wired the entire complex with explosions and was about to take it all down, including our apartment. We could feel the ground shaking as the explosions went off, and they were getting increasingly closer. I didn't get to see what happened though, because, during the explosions, I woke up.