"Dreamworld Trickster" - 08/04/2008 (Lucid)

"Dreamworld Trickster"
08/04/2008
(Lucid)

(I don’t remember very much of this one at all, but it was interesting.)

There was some young guy running around my old neighborhood, causing trouble. He was a “metaphysical” character and could change the dream scene as much as he wanted. I remember walking out into my garage, with a bunch of the neighborhood crew hanging around outside. This mischievous guy appears and starts “causing trouble.” (My notes just say “causing trouble.” I really don’t know or remember what I meant by that, or what the guy was actually doing.)

I ended up becoming lucid while dealing with this stranger. I believe it was watching him do the impossible that brought me to the realization I was dreaming, but I’m really not exactly sure. In any case, I got into an argument with him, and told him that he was just a DC, and I had more control over all of this than he did. I suddenly felt the world spin, and the guy had disappeared as if he melted away into the scenery, in the blink of an eye. I turned around, myself, looking for him. He was nowhere to be seen, but I noticed that there was a new addition to the group of people around me. It was a thick, black woman, and she was standing much closer to me than anyone else around us – close than I remembered having seeing someone, before. I called out that I knew that this woman was the guy, who was causing all the trouble, in a transformed state. She tried to deny it for so long, but I told myself that I could ruin the illusion and strip him off the ability to force me to see his disguise, because it was my dream. (It’s funny that I still treat him as a separate entity, even though I’m lucid. Completely unintentional, but it does make it more interesting. Haha.)

Asserting myself, I visualized the disguise failing. It was like struggling against someone in a mental arm-wrestle, because the command just didn’t want to work upon the first attempt. Finally, it was like the body of the guy just kinda “sewed itself” into the place of the woman. He was really pissed that I ruined his illusion. I don’t remember anything after that.

(My notes also say something about being back in my old house and our cats trying to get some food that was on the counter, but that’s pretty much all I remember about that, anyway.)

"Advanced Lucid Task Completed" - 01/09/2007 (Lucid)

"Advanced Lucid Task Completed!"

01/09/2007

Dream #4

(Lucid)

This dream was about a keg party I’d gone to, last weekend. The house belonged to a guy that I’d just met, that night, and the party was out in the backyard. They had a homemade skateboard half-pipe, out there, and everyone was just kinda hanging out, around it, getting drunk.

I don’t remember much about the dream, before becoming lucid. However, I think it was just a recognition of being this being at the same party I’d already been to, a few days earlier, that made me realize I was dreaming. Immediately, I disassociated myself with everything that was going on in the dream and tried to think of what it was I wanted to do, when I became lucid. I’d completely forgotten about looking for the old, blind, Kung Fu master (to get revenge on him for kicking my ass in a previous lucid) and the first thing that popped into my head was the Dream Views Lucid Tasks of the Month. The Advanced Task  - to 'bring a snowman to life' - was the only one I could remember, at the time (but, seeing as how I was at a party, it would have been the perfect time to ask if there were any lucid dreamers around, which would have completed the Basic Task).

Anyway, I was looking around this snow-less backyard and thinking 'Great. How the f'ck am I supposed to build a snowman with weather like this? Do I make it snow? Do I just manifest the snowman? Do I just manifest enough snow to Make the snowman?' I figured that just manifesting a complete snowman would be kinda lame, so I figured I’d make one from scratch. At first, I tried just making the round sections of snow appear, one at a time. I held up my fingers and tried a little wizardry, but I couldn’t get anything to appear, no matter how hard I tried. So then, I figured making it snow might do the trick, but that didn’t prove to be much easier. I started concentrating on visualizing a snow-covered scene. I was thinking about everything that I could associate with snow, convinced that, the more realistic that I could visualize it, the more solid it would all be and wouldn’t just be a fleeting concept of snow.

I was thinking off everything snow related, Christmas decorations, sleds, everything. Even before the snow, there were huge Christmas ornaments - like Lawn Santas and sh!t - just appearing all over the backyard. But I just Could NOT make it snow! I even stopped once to look at my hands and solidify the dream. I kept trying again, though, and finally got a hazy bit of snow to just layer the ground. It didn’t even fall from the sky, it just appeared. Then, telekinetically, I started rolling some snow and sticks around with my mind. Finally, I made the snowman, but it was partially hidden in the shadows behind the half-pipe. I walked over to it and, since the only light in the backyard was coming from the half-pipe, the area behind it was almost pitch black. I could barely even see the snowman, but I was able to manifest a carrot or something for the nose (can’t remember exactly what I used, but it was orange). However, I don’t think I took the time to put eyes or a mouth on it. Next, I was thinking about how to go about bringing it to life. Before this time, I’d never brought something to life in LD, so I tried to make it as simple as possible. I simply decided that this snowman was now 'alive' and then I just stood there, looking at the shadowy white figure and waiting for something to happen.

All of a sudden, this snowman springs to life and just starts straight-up assaulting me with snowballs! It was like the snowballs were just appearing in the snowman’s hands as the previous ones left, and they were coming at me like machine-gun fire. (This seemed completely random at first but, now that I look back on it, I’m reminded of that movie Jack Frost, where Michael Keaton becomes a snowman and starts machine-gunning all these snowballs at some kids. It was like that but a lot more brutal.) It was so bad that, even though I was lucid, I had to run off to one side and duck and dodge all these snowballs because I was getting completely overwhelmed.

Somewhere around here, though, the dream lost all solidity and faded away.

"Lone Wolves" - 09/22/2006

”Lone Wolves”
9/22/2006

(Had another dose of B-6 and another wild one last night. I can only remember the overall theme of this one, though, not really too many of the details. I wish I could, though, because it had a pretty incredible story-line.)

A(n unfamiliar) girl and I were in love with each other. We lived in either a snow-covered forest, or high in the mountains (or the forest on a mountain?) or something. I don’t remember if I was there to witness it, but I was aware that she had been attacked by a huge wolf/creature that had been lurking in the woods. I believe it attacked her while I was with her, but I just was not able to save her. (That part of the dream is a blur.) Whatever the case, she just went missing, after the attack, for a really long time.

Time passed (skipped ahead) and, after succumbing to the reality that she had died, I ended up in another relationship, having never lost feelings for the previous one. Her memory was still very heavy on my mind, even as I was going forward with this new girl. I’d given the new girl numerous warnings about the thing(s) that obviously lived out in the woods, but I don’t know if I ever brought up the whole ordeal about what happened to the girl before her. Every now and then, we’d be out and around the house, remaining on high alert whenever it was night time.

The huge wolf creature then began to appear, night after night, and it would send us running for our lives. We would hear it howl, from a distance, and then it would immediately appear nearby, stalking toward us like small, helpless game. My girl would scream in terror, while she ran toward the house, and I would do whatever I could to stay between her and the wolf as I ran on her heels, fleeing the beast. We would get inside and barricade the door, and the wolf/beast would start pounding and clawing at it, giving off the most desperate and piercing howls as it tried with all its might to get to inside our home.

This went on for a couple of nights in a row, and, each time, the wolf eventually gave up and took off into the woods by dawn. The last time this occurred, all I remember is the wolf finally breaking through the door and charging us – me, specifically. I’m sure I put up a fight, but I don’t remember any of it. I do, however, know that I was eventually overpowered, because I wound up being knocked unconscious.

After that, I remember a short, hazy sequence of running through the woods, at night, with this wolf/creature...as its ally. I don't recall any of the details of this part, at all. It was more just the 'sensation' of what happened.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a cave, more or less naked, and sprawled out in the snow next to an iced-over pool of water. I tried to remember how the hell I got there but only vaguely remembered traveling to, and into, this cave that now had a big slab of rock covering the entryway and sunlight seeping in from [somewhere]. Then, I suddenly remembered that the wolf/creature had been in there with me, that previous night. I looked around the cave for the beast, and there, in the snow not far away from me, was another figure. However, it wasn’t a massive, fur-covered man/wolf. It was a human. A female human.

As she woke up, I could tell that it was the woman that I’d lost all that time ago. We got to talking and she explained how she was merely turned by the first creature, not killed. All of the subsequent 'attacks', after I’d brought the new girl to my place in the mountains, weren’t really attacks by the original beast. It was this, same girl, who was simply wanting to be close to me. For some reason, she’d only been able to come down out of this cave at night as a werewolf, not as her human self in the daytime. I don’t know the reason why, though. She told me how she was conscious through many of her transformations and all the howling we’d heard her doing, as a wolf, were the solemn cries of a broken heart, not that of a raging killer. I believe she told me that she’d turned me because it was just too hard living without me, being what she was. She probably didn’t come down as a human because that would have meant having to try to explain what she was, and being treated by me like a filthy monster. So, she did the only thing she could do, living with the torment she was carrying, and turned me into what she was, hoping that I would understand. I had become a werewolf the night that she broke in and abducted me (in much the same manner that she was taken from me) and I’m pretty sure that it was in being a wolf that I remember that hazy scene of running through the woods with her.

She was desperate that I understood. I did,and I was happy to be back with her, whatever the cost.

More time passed, and there was a later scene where I’d come down out of the woods, in the daytime, as a human, and ventured into civilization. I was determined to not just disappear from the newer girl, that I’d been taken from, without letting her know something about what had happened. I caught back up to her in a small, nearby, town. She was in a store parking lot and had a guy with her. It was actually a fellow DreamViews Member: 'SKA'. She’d started a relationship with him, while I was gone, just like I’d once done with her.

I remember that her reaction to seeing that I was still alive, and my trying to explain where I’d been (though I don’t think I told her the 'complete' truth), was kinda like “Yeah, yeah. Oh, well. I’ve moved on,” which didn’t upset me, at all, seeing as how I had already ended up with who I'd truly loved, in the first place.

(Original Artwork, based on dream.)

"A Slayer in the Making" - 02/19/2009

"A Slayer in the Making"
02/19/2009 

Dream #3  

 (A bit of a long one, but such an awesome dream.)

I was at a party, in a expansive mansion, and the majority of the people who inhabited the mansion seemed to be German. There was this petite, really pretty brunette there, who had her eye on me. (It wasn’t until I woke up and recalled the girl’s face that I actually realized it was my friend and fellow Dream Views member - M - but portraying a different character than herself, in the dream. She had video chatted with me, last night, and was obviously still fresh in my mind.) Most of the hosts of the party were really drunk and rowdy. M and I talked for a little while, and it soon became obvious that we were pretty infatuated with each other. She eventually told me that she was in some kind of trouble and needed her dad to give her $22,000, but that she could not ask him for it. She asked me to do it for her. I was reluctant at first, but I finally agreed. 

We went downstairs, and I talked to her dad, finally making my way to asking for the money. Without much persuasion, he wrote out a check for me to give to his daughter. She was standing off to one side, and I saw her motion with her hands and mouth for me to ask him for $55,000 instead, seeing that he was giving out the money. I didn’t feel comfortable with this, though, after having just been handed the initial 22 grand, and I took the check, thanked him on behalf of his daughter and walked away. There was a short conversation with M and some other lady, where the other lady was shocked that the father would just give me $2,200, and I kept having to remind her that it was $22,000, not $2,200. 

Later, back upstairs, I was in a large room, inside the house, which looked a lot like a classroom; it even had a green chalkboard and an overhead projector. There was a small room connected to this one, where many of the German inhabitants were just getting completely wasted drunk. In this tiny room was a bed and a bathtub. I figured that many of those in this group were either gay or bisexual, because they were all guys, and some of them were sleeping naked in a bed together, while others were taking a drunken bath with each other (though there was no actual, sexual activity going on). But some of them were so sloppy drunk, that they were just throwing up, right where they were. I was walking through this scene with a sort of stunned astonishment, when I heard a bunch of snickering coming from near the bathtub area. A group of them were looking at me, and one of them was offering me a piece of candy. At first, I respectfully declined, but he kept insisting…and I could hear the stifled snickering continuing from his friends. Finally, I reluctantly agreed but, after taking the candy, which looked crushed and spoiled, I put two and two together - the state of the candy and the snickering - and figured that they were about to try to play some prank on me. I, then, simply said “Nah. Actually, I've changed my mind," threw the suspicious candy in the trash and walked out of the room.

I walked through the other, classroom-type area – which had about a dozen, long tables in it – and went through another door. This led me outside, onto a balcony. It was just passing dawn, and I could see that the mansion sat right next to a forest. As I was on this balcony, getting some air, a hidden panel creaked open, a few feet away from me, and I looked over to see M peeking out from the opening. She beckoned me closer with one hand, and I walked over to the small door, ducking inside and into a small compartment in the wall with her. She wore a tiny black dress with her hair down, and this compartment had pictures and pillows strewn around it, as if it were a little hideaway. 

We spent some time talking, and she told me a story about her past, having been brought over to America (from somewhere?), and about some of the trouble she’d had in her family. She said that this small room was where she went when she wanted to get away from it all. After talking to her for some time, I leaned in and kissed her lips. It was obviously unexpected, and she pulled away apprehensively. She, then, immediately apologized and said that she was simply startled. Still showing a bit of apprehension, she leaned in toward me and kissed me with all the passion that she felt she missed on the first one. After we made out for a while, she took off her top. She had these strange marks on her body, which ran over her shoulders and down her arms – almost like scars, but in perfect patterns. I ran my fingers along her body and ended up kneeling behind her, kneading a massage into her bare back and sides with my fingertips, my hands rubbing forward and just along the sides of her breasts, before bringing them down and around to her back again. Suddenly, she appeared startled and looked toward the secret door. She whispered that “somebody is listening to us...” and I immediately stopped what I was doing, fixing on the door, as well. 

The door quickly flew open, and a pair of arms thrust inside the space, grabbing me by my legs and pulling me out of the compartment and in through the large double doors that led back into the classroom area. The classroom was now filled with people…and they all looked very pissed at me. 

They were all, now, dressed in medieval garb, and some of the men were wearing full armor and weapons. The story came out that they were all vampires (so how they came out to grab me from the secret space on the balcony, in the daytime, is beyond me), and that I had unforgivably offended them by being so intimate with M - 'one of their own' - being that I was a mere human. The men in this room were really intimidating, looking like barbarians in their warriors' dress. Even the women had a sort of look as if they wanted to rip my face off. Obviously, it was a given that I had to die for committing this most-serious of crimes against their coven. 

Before I could do anything about it, the entire room launched a full-on attack at me. There were easily 20 to 25 vampires in this room, and they converged on me like vultures on a fresh carcass. I knew I had to defend myself, or I was going to get torn apart, right here and now. Instantly, my perception of time slowed. I saw all of these bodies streaming in toward me, many of whom had blades of all shapes and sizes. With no other choice, I went on the offensive, as well, but even though everything was in slow motion, I was able to move and react just a fraction of a second faster than the horde of vampires, though my awareness seemed to stay in real time. It was as if my body moved at ½ real time, and the vampires moved at 1/3. Needless to say, this gave me one hell of an advantage. 

The majority of this battle remained in this state of 'bullet-time'. The first guy came in toward me and had a long blade attached to his forearm, which looked as if it replaced a severed hand. Able to move faster than he, I dodged his attack and broke his arm in a way I don’t remember, ripping the bladed prosthetic from his wrist and wielding it in my hands like a sword. From there, I continued to fight my way through the room, dodging attacks by ducking and spinning – all at but a fraction of real time – and going straight for deathblows. At the ratio of the speed we were fighting, this entire room full of vamps was completely outmatched. I was running and jumping all over the place, maneuvering around this horde just a little bit faster than they could chase me. At one point, I even did a wall-run across the chalkboard, to get around a few of my attackers. 

The ease at which I cut through these vamps was amazing. It was to the point where one of them would lunge at me (still in slow motion) and I would sidestep him. Then, while he was flying slowly passed me, I would make three quick slices across his form, effectively cutting his body into three sections as he soared through the air, then I’d move on to the next attacker. As easy as this may seem, there was still an entire room full of vamps descending upon me, so I had to keep moving. Everything was a matter of dodging, parrying, and unloading a series of slashes upon whoever was closest to me. I attempted for blows that I was sure would kill vamps, such as cutting off their heads or stabbing them through the heart, but I couldn’t always be as accurate as I wished. So, if I missed a clean cut across a neck, I would hack away at their heads until there was nothing left – essentially cutting a head into about 4 sections in a quick combination, before evading another vamp’s attacks. (I'm surprised that the time dilation didn't make me realize I was dreaming!) 

I ended up coming to a table where many of the female vamps had been sitting, and they were (still, at a speed just barely slower than my own) lunging at me with fangs bared. I almost hate to say how easy it was to take them out. A quick series of slashes cut through their heads and torsos, slicing them into sections. It was right around here that things returned to normal speed. In a macabre twist of pattern, the female vampires – those of which still had portions of their heads intact, began huddling over each other, crying about their coming deaths, trying to lick and suck at each others’ gaping wounds as if doing so would prolong their demise. (Easily one of the strangest, most fucked up images I’ve ever had in dream…ever.. I mean, when I say they were “missing parts of their heads” I mean they looked like the demons in Constantine. One of them I even split down the middle, so it was two sides of a head trying to lick the wounds from another vampiress. And there were three of them huddled together, doing the same thing to each other. Not an image I’ll easily forget. An important thing to mention, though, was that during this entire battle, I don’t remember any flowing blood. I saw severed limbs and the bone and tissue within, but no liquid.) My attention fell back upon the rest of the fight, but now things were in real time. I began to feel that the blade I was using – which had no handle, only the cupped piece that fitted onto the vamp’s forearm, was beginning to get cumbersome to hold. I slowly weaved myself toward a vamp with a full sword, killed him, and took it from him, trading my blade for it. 

There was one particular vamp who I found particularly intimidating. He actually reminded me of Lucian from Underworld – except he was a vamp instead of a Lycan. He had dual blades like Lucian, and when I saw him bearing down on me, I actually ran the other way. Lol. I could hear one of the other vamps in the fray taunting me, saying “Yeah, you'd better run!” This guy just expelled ‘Bad Ass’, all around him, and I felt it best to take out the grunts first. At one point, I lost sight of the Lucian-like vamp, fighting off another one. What I didn’t know was that 'Lucian' had sneaked up behind me. When I noticed him, I slung a kick back in his direction, parrying the initial vamp’s blade with my own, but 'Lucian' grabbed my oncoming foot, slammed it down on a nearby table, and drove a stake of his own down through my lower leg. I screamed in pain and drew my leg back, but continued fighting as ferociously as I could with the injury. 

The dream began fading as the fight continued, until it finally dissolved and I awoke.

"Pest Control" - 03/26/2007 (Lucid)

"Pest Control"
03/26/2007

(Lucid)

I know that this dream was pretty long and that there was something pretty adventurous going on, but it's all forgotten. It had something to do with running through a mixture of my old neighborhood and downtown DeLand, if I’m not mistaken. 

The only thing that really stands out, in my memory, is when I’d gone into a friend’s garage to get something. I had a flashlight in my hand and there were all these little black bugs crawling around in the garage. What I was looking for was in an overturned box on the floor. As soon as I touched the box, this flood of bugs came streaming out of it, toward me – so many that they started covering the ground to a degree where you couldn’t see the floor between them. Their numbers reminded me of the hordes of flesh-eating scarabs on The Mummy, but these were much smaller. Still, I started backing up, toward the door, and I think it was now closed behind me, because I was feeling boxed in, and the surge was coming closer. 

Suddenly, having not really realized I was dreaming, yet, I forcefully willed the bugs to stop. It was as if, without being lucid, my desire for them to leave me alone suddenly caused them to halt, just a few inches from my feet. 

It was then that I realized I was dreaming. A bit fascinated by this, I began to exert control over the swarm of bugs, moving them left to right, forward and backward, across the floor. They moved in their eerily organized formation – a few of them leading, with the rest of the mass following, all around the ground, acting like a real community of bugs under my influence. It was pretty creepy, but incredible. 

Unfortunately, as soon as I stopped playing with the bugs, and walked out of the garage, my alarm went off and woke me up.

"Fatal Attraction" 04/24/2007 (Lucid)

"Fatal Attraction"
04/24/2007
(Lucid)

(Another vivid B6 dream.)

I was in a mansion, standing just at the door to my room, looking out into the hall. I could tell there were a lot of people roaming around this mansion, and it had the atmosphere of a college dorm or frat house. It was obviously late in the night, and the hallway lights were out. From one of the rooms in the hallway, a girl (that looked a lot like a friend of mine, now that I think about it) in a green belly-shirt and black pants comes out, closing the door behind her. She saw me, smiled, and started walking my way, seductively. I could tell that she was coming from another guy's room, but I really didn't care. From the way we were eyeballing each other, I could tell that we were going to be getting to know each other very quickly.

Before I knew it, we were on my bed, making out, and damn was it good. It was definitely one of the best make-out sessions I think I've ever had, whether in a dream or in waking life. I could smell her hair and she was small, but slightly thick, and her skin felt so good. One thing was quickly leading to another and just as she was about to make her way south, my perspective changed to the outside of the mansion.

There was a wingless, dark, stone gargoyle on the roof that was near a huge clock. The clock struck a certain hour and bells started tolling. With it, the gargoyle statue started to move, and the outside of the entire mansion began changing in appearance. The flawless facade of the mansion took on an old, condemned look - solid stone walls replaced with rotting wooden boards and broken windows. Also, an attic door (something like the one in the movie House on Haunted Hill, which my friend and I had been talking about, over the weekend) opened up behind the gargoyle. The gargoyle then turned, slowly, and walked in through the opening. This (approx) 10 foot beast was now in the mansion.

My perspective switched back to first-person and, right on cue with the tolling of the bells, the girl starts acting really creepy. She was getting this evil little tone to her pillow-talk. I can't remember what all she was saying, though. I do know that it ended up with her pulling two bloody, human organs from [somewhere?] and dropping them down on me, laughing wickedly. She implied that they were taken out of the guy in the previous room, after she'd had her way with him, and that I was next. She then leaned down over me and forcefully tried to kiss me. As she was doing this, her mouth started oozing blood that I can only assume was not her own.

I threw her off of me and made a break for the door, terrified into into a shred of awareness at this supernatural transformation the entire situation had taken. I think I was beginning to realize I was dreaming (but to a small enough extent to say I wasn't yet lucid) and headed straight for a wall, in the hallway. Overwriting doubt, I lunged at the wall and crashed straight through it, effortlessly. I then crashed through wall after wall, until I was outside.

Outside, it was now day time. I was (still) running my ass off and there happened to be a train station right outside the mansion. I was trying to make the train and could see it just beginning to pull away, as I got closer. Also coming closer to lucidity, and suspending doubt, I jumped at the train and drove my fingers into its steel side like Wolverine's claws, hanging onto the side of the train as it sped up, away from the station. I then crawled, sideways, along the face of the train and then up to the roof of the car. While atop the train, I finally came to what I believe was my first true realization that I was actually dreaming. Having been on all fours, I was no longer worried about falling off the train, and stood up, surfer-style. It was all completely immersive. I could feel the wind whipping by me, and the subtle movements of the train, beneath my feet.
I don't know if I heard her voice or what, but something made me turn around, and I saw the girl from the room crawling up on top of the train, behind me. She was talking a lot of shit, that I can't remember, but I basically told her that I knew this was all just a dream, and that she posed no threat to me.

I then turned back around, ignored her, and just enjoyed riding on top of the speeding train.

That's all I remember.

(Can't help but wonder what would have happened with that gargoyle...)

"A Break in Time" - 06/26/2006

"A Break in Time"
06/26/2006

(Damn, what a horrible experience.)

I can't quite remember how this dream started off. If I remember correctly, I was a cop, and my partner and I were casing what I think was a nightclub, in a really rough side of town. We were looking for someone that had been on the run for a while and was considered extremely dangerous. Sooner or later, he was found and arrested. He looked a lot like that guy Brian Nichols that shot that judge in the courtroom, not long ago.

Anyway, later that night, we were on the road, driving with this guy in the back seat, headed to turn him in at the station. With no warning, whatsoever, this guy manages to somehow slip out of his cuffs and reach into the front seat. He grabs my partner's gun, puts it to the back of his head and blasts the inside all over the dashboard. My partner was the one driving so, if I remember correctly, the car ended up crashing on the side of the road. I don't quite recall, because I was focused on the maniac who was surely about to turn his attention to me.

I turned around in my seat and started trying to fend him off, from the awkward position, with my night stick. I think I lost my night stick in the struggle, and I remember that, sooner or later, this guy had the upper-hand and was trying to either hit me with the stick, or with the pistol. He got in one good swing on me and struck me in the upper, left arm. I could feel the bone crack and excruciating pain. I don't remember exactly what happened at this point, but all I recall is a feeling of having been defeated. I tried reasoning with the man to persuade him not to kill me, too, but nothing I said had any effect.

He said a few last words to me, and then lunged in my direction. I can't remember if it was the gun or the night stick that struck me in the temple, but everything suddenly went black.

I woke up in my old neighborhood. Groggily, I rolled out of bed and immediately grabbed my arm. It was aching like crazy, obviously broken. I think my head was wrapped with a bandage that crossed my temple or something. All I specifically recall is that my head was pounding. I also had a limp, and I began to remember all of the events of the crash/attack that I'd been through.

Wondering how long I'd been out, I checked the date on my cellphone. It said "May 05, 2007."

"2007?!??!"

I found my folks somewhere in the house (my dad was there and alive, though he died in 2005) and they were both happy to see me up and about. I said to them something about "you mean to tell me I've been in some kind of coma for an entire year?!?" They both said that that was correct, and they reminded me of my partner's fate, when I asked.

Sooner or later I limped outside to get some air. I was holding my shattered (still, somehow, after a year?) left arm in close to me, cradling it with my other hand. I let go just long enough to pull my cellphone out again. I tried calling Tony, who's had the same phone number since we were both about 15. I got no answer. Instead there was a strange tone, as if this were no longer his number.

Just as I hung up, William, who still lives in my old neighborhood to this day, comes driving up in an old beat up truck with his son in the back. He was happy to see that I was up, also. We started talking about what happened, and how long I was out. The conversation lasted for a long time, it felt.

Right in the middle of talking, I actually woke up.

(I was in total disbelief that what had happened was all a dream. Everything felt so real, and it was one of the most convincing dreams I'd had in a long time. It felt like living in a parallel universe and then suddenly being sucked back into the original one. I spent a little while just laying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, moving my arm back and forth (which was aching. Maybe I slept on it, and the pain worked its way into the dream narrative?) and just laughing at myself and how I had so completely accepted that dream as my reality.

Oh well, anyway....glad to be back in the here and now!)