# Sleep and Dreams > Dream Journals > Dream Journal Archive >  >  Things To Run Away From Really Fast!

## Samael

...or *Samael's Dream Journal*.

I believe I've already established myself as a somewhat flaky individual who spends far too much time looking for wiki articles to link to, so let's jump straight in, shall we?

I love to discuss my dreams, and tear them apart to reveal their innards. This is all in fun, so please go ahead and leave a comment.

I briefly considered colour coding before realizing that I had no idea how nightmares would overlap with normal, semi-lucid, and lucid states. Most of my dreams are semi-lucid anyway. Almost all of my nightmares are. A typical scene:

"I'm dreaming; you can't hurt me."
"Yooouuu reeeeally thiiiink sooooo?"
"...you're creepy as fuck, you realize that?"

What follows is usually an epic battle to the death.

In its place, I have the *Scariness Meter*. Ratings go from 1 (flowers and rainbows and kittens) to 10 (I run out of the house and spend the rest of the night in a 24-hour fast food restaurant drinking terrible hot cocoa).

*Edit: Dreams are now non-lucidsemilucidlucid*





> The Lunar God: Usually appears as an old man, doesn't seem to like me much. Tried to kill me at least once, may have accepted a truce. (00A, 19, 29, 34)
> 
> Johanna: Because I can't keep Mia Wasikowska and Jayne Wisener straight. Resembles both actresses, tends to appear as a friend and ally and occasional enemy. (19, 21, 49, 58)
> 
> Elaine: First showed up in June 2009. (4, 34)







> Lucifer: started off as the actual fallen-angel ruler of hell. Has since evolved into an entirely different character: a personification of certain aspects I admire in the story. (00B, 4, 19, 31, 35, 43, 44, 54, 62)







> Angel (31, 59)
> Batgirl/Barbara Gordon (33, 35)
> Batman/Bruce Wayne (26, 63)
> Buffy (31)
> Carlton Lassiter (2)
> Castiel (33)
> Dean Winchester (5, 8, 35, 39, 52)
> Harry Potter (8, 50)
> Jack O'Neill (35)
> ...







> Eliza Dushku (44)
> Jensen Ackles (27)
> Johnny Depp (22, 36)
> Misha Collins (48, 57, 62)
> Robert Downey Jr. (36)







> Ben: My brother. Bad driver. (9, 29, 32, 44, 59)
> Mom: Occasionally has superpowers. (9, 44, 59)
> Dad: Self-explanatory. (9, 59)







> Quickton: Nickname for the town I'm living in.
> Ixburg: Nickname for my hometown.
> Others: Halifax, Vancouver, Squamish.







> *Bright Blue Energy* (49, 59, 62)
> *Orange Lighting* (19, 27, 41)
> My Own Neutral/Dark Energy (44, 62)
> Zombies (43, 60)







> Walms, trying to find (46, 47, 51, 55, 60, 61)
> Walms, actual appearances (47)
> Loaf (63)
> MoSH (63)
> Serenity (63, 65)



*Things to Run Away From Really Fast:*

#00A: First Appearances. I need to get away, because something horrible is about to happen. First appearance of The Lunar God. 9.

#00B: Bureaucratic Hell. My name is Lucifer, and I'm _busy_. 3.

#1. The Other Mother. I talk to my mom about dream interpretation, but she turns out to be the monster from Coraline. 6.

#2. Doomed Underwater Research Stations. As Shawn Spencer, I argue with Lassiter about how to escape from a flooding underwater station. 3.

#3. High School Classmates Near Water. We're supposed to be swimming, but most of the group is just standing on the shore, crowded together in a circle. 2.

#4. The Narrator. The devil, Sam, curses Sleeping Beauty with infinite will, which backfires when she's faced with a runaway princess several years later. 2.

#5. Bad Fanfiction. As Dean Winchester, I try to find Sam Winchester, only to be thwarted by The Trickster in an alternate dimension. 2.

#6. Mental Institutions with Lax Security. A little girl tries to save her fellow patients, but may actually be the one committing the murders. 2.

#7. Allegiant Little Kids. I hang out with the Nostalgia Chick at my high school; kids throw rocks. 1.

#8. Pissed Off Teachers. As Harry Potter, I participate in a dueling tournament, repeatedly humiliating Snape. Fleur is impressed. 2. 

#9. Family Vacations. My dad drives us through a potential horror movie. 2.

#10. Homicidal Robots. As Jubilee (X-Men), I sabotage the Sentinels in a shopping mall. 2.

#11. Third Person Narration. I have an extensive resume: spy, tomb raider, babysitter... 2.

#12. Voices Trying To Limit Your Dream Control. Water grounds my dream-powers and I almost make it to the moon. 2.

#13. Dream-Style Karate Tournaments. I almost forget my kata as I _shift_ through one ridiculous costume after another. 3.5.

#14. Restaurants With Poor Customer Service. Also, Missiles. People fire me; people fire _at_ me. 2.

#15. Hey, but I thought I was supposed to be the - Apparently, there's more than one devil. 2.

#16. Mortality. I'm a spectator to a previous life, in which I fatally wound my wife trying to protect her. 8.

#17. The Ninja Maid. I pose as maid service, and later blackmail an ambassador into an alliance. 2.

#18. Gravity Hack. I drift up a mountain and talk to a minotaur. 1.

#19. Alternate Perspective Disorientation. I'm the devil, I'm a driver, I'm an old lady, and Alice, and I'm talking to the Lunar God. 3.

#20. This is Your Church on Twitter. The best way to escape the clutches of the Catholic Church? Add a twitter feed to their webpage. 3.

#21. Nitwit Protagonists. My dream-avatar would like to solve the murder of her friend, who might not actually be dead yet. 3.

#22. Bible Camp. I go back in time and try not to get exorcized. I also meet Johnny Depp. Kind of. 2.

#23. Nitwit Protagonists Take 2. My protagonists bury the eggs of the monster they just destroyed. 3.

#24. Really Mad Hostages. I've been kidnapped. I attack him with a box-cutter. 3.

#25. Amestrian Conspiracies. I track down Edward Elric to warn him about a massive government conspiracy. Again. 2.

#26. Teletubbies are attacking the earth. 2.

#27. Skinwalkers. I'm a shapeshifter helping the police investigate my own disappearance. 2.

#28. Dude, Where's My Car? I remember my license plate number. 1.

#29. LG's Got a Gun. The Lunar God drops in and threatens to kill me. 4.5. 

#30. City-Fusions. I'm driven through Quickton-Halifax by a crazy person, and we try to find a vegetarian restaurant. 1.

#31. Buffy, When You're Quite Possibly Evil Maybe. I get a bucket of holy water dumped on me. 2.

#32. Unconscious Desire to Move. Again. Now. Family Reunion, a plot to save "the farm". Random lucidity. 1.

#33. Familiar Places. BC tries to steal my digital photos and Castiel wants to go to Halifax. 1.

#34. Failed Interrogations. Why does the Lunar God want to kill me? 3.

#35. A Pirate's Life. You're trying to sell the combined forces of SG-1 and _Lucifer_ into slavery? You should know better. 3.

#36. Demon Barbers, Malfunctioning Portals. Sweeney Todd chases me and I end up on an asteroid. 3.

#37. Murder Mysteries. Main character did it. 2.

#38. Witch Trials. I have to try _really hard_ to not set this DC on fire. 2.

#39. Misogynists, Scientists, Doctors, Little Girls, Monsters, and Faeries. I run away from _everything in the title._ 2.

#40. Dream Games. We keep breaking the water balloons. 1.

#41. Bees. I run away from them and start jumping down stairwells. 3.

#42. Girlfriends, Dead People. I hang out with a dream-girlfriend and explore a spooky little town. 2.

#43. The Devil You Know. The devil helps out the survivors of the apocalypse. I get shot in the head. 2.

#44. I Am Legend. I kill people. In an alternate dimension, my brother is captured by vampires and my mom has superpowers. 5.

#45. Silence in the Library. The Compendium of All Human Knowledge needs a new Librarian. 2.

#46. Walmart. I try to find Walms in the parking lot. 1.

#47. Dream Goals. Three stories is too far to fall, and I give a pink rose to a pretty girl. 2.

#48. Soylent Green. A man is fed, alive and screaming, into a meat grinder. His son watches impassively. 3.5.

#49. Ghost Ship. I fight a boss battle using *bright blue energy*. Also, humanity isn't doing so well, post-apocalypse. 3.

#50. Oh, There Goes Gravity. An elementary school, Harry Potter, and PARKOUR! 2.

#51. Puddles. "Derek" thinks my teleportation abilities are lacking. 2.

#52. Lady Gaga. RUN AWAY! 2.

#53. Nail Polish. Do you have an appointment? 2.

#54. Riddles. I confuse "sleep-deprivation induced hallucinations" with "dreams". N/A.

#55. A CAT! Fragmented dreams include vampires, Star Wars, the Twin Towers, and random cat appearances. 3.

#56. Climbing Classes. Buildering on high school buildings. 1.

#57. Q&A. Unprofessional actor is unprofessional. 2.

#58. The Heist. Johanna and I attempt to rob an art gallery, and are thwarted when a little kid kills our catgirl. 3.

#59. The Hunt. Angel and I are tracked down by the Wild Hunt, led by the *Faerie Queen Mab*. 3.5

#60. Zombieland. Telekinesis + Zombies = Fun. 3.

#61. Penguins. I realize that being chased by mutant penguins isn't nearly as scary as I think it is. 3.

#62. Stray Little Devils. I try to avoid the minions/allies of another Lucifer. 2.

#63. College.I run into Loaf at an art school, and I manage to shapeshift for the first time. 2.

#64. Time Management. Six. Million. Pokemon. 2.

#65. Choosing Sides. Two southern men argue about the American Civil War. 2.

#66. The Last Unicorn. I'm an ex-unicorn version of Alice in Wonderland fleeing evil, brightly coloured birds.

#67. Girls. Sex dreams followed by aimless wanderings through broken cities.

#68. Welcome to the Jungle. Serenity's crew docks on a jungle planet. As Jayne, I have zany adventures. 3. 

#69. Something Blue. I confront a monster, something I see as pure darkness trying to infect me. Unfortunately for it, I have the same power. 6.

#70. Spiral Staircases. I calmly jump into a thirty-story fall, down the center of a spiral staircase. 5.

#71. The Job Site. I run through a construction site and use dark-side force powers on an innocent guard. 2. 

#72. Corporate Sabotage. Superpowered clones try to escape from their captors. I bring backup. Lots and lots of backup. 2.

#73. Fighting Fire. I fly around happily, and fight a witch who's trying to burn down a bulletin board. 2.

To be continued...

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## Samael

Dream summaries, to be continued...

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## Samael

*Things To Run Away From Really Fast #1: The Other Mother*

Cast of Characters:
Samael (me)
A Cynical Young Man Surrounded by Crazies
The Other Mother
A Cat

It's been a long night. I'm standing in a creepy, unfinished basement and a group of college student survivalists have been spouting horror movie cliches at every opportunity. 

"You can't touch the jelly sandwich," the de-facto leader explains. "It keeps all the other food good. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," I say cheerily. _I'm stealing from Spongebob Squarepants' logic._ "Makes sense."

"No," he says, with a long-suffering sigh, "It really, really doesn't." He wanders away, morosely, muttering about crazy people. I briefly consider being a character that this guy is dreaming.

I go looking for food. I sit in the kitchen with my mom, even if she is upset about the potted plant sitting in the corner that looks like a tiger lily and is apparently called a "papyrus". At this point, I begin to tell her about the metaphors and symbolism in our current environment.

"The jellybean sandwich in the storage room is, apparently, there to keep all the other food from going bad, and the 'papyrus' is there because... you have really bad taste in fonts in real life."

"In real life?"

"Well, obviously this is a dream."

"You think so?"

"If it's not, tell me where these objects," I gesture at the flower, "Are located in your real house. Everything keeps shifting here."

The woman sitting across the table from me looks down, fighting to keep a grin off her face. She starts to laugh, and then to cackle madly. _Shift._ I'm standing near the door and she faces me from a few feet away. Her empty eye sockets are stuffed with bandages.

"Let me guess," I say, "You're my Other Mother."

She doesn't reply, but steps toward me. I wind back my left hand for a punch, but I'm moving _so slowly_. 

The woman is moving in real time, and she takes another step, relaxed and confident. The punch doesn't connect. As she reaches for my throat, I desperately dig my fingers into her eye-sockets. There are _teeth_. 

Everything is going black, facial features are twisting, and the only thing I can distinguish anymore is _pain_.

_Shift_.

I'm sitting on a deck, petting a stray cat that's wandered into the yard. Can I wake up now?

_Shift_.

"That rice is leftover from last night. And it's in front," Oma says helpfully, as I rummage through her fridge. I blink.

"Really?" I say, holding the plastic container. "You want me to eat this? Specifically?" I poke at the overabundance of soy sauce with a spoon. "I'm still dreaming, aren't I?"

...

Also, I did not touch the damn sandwich.

_The Other Mother. Scare Factor: 6._

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #2: Doomed Underwater Research Stations*

Cast of Characters:
Shawn Spencer (me)
Carlton Lassiter
A Female Member of the Medical Crew
The Victim

The underwater station might as well be in the vacuum of space. Our oxygen generators are broken, environmental systems are failing, and lights are flickering their hearts out. At least nothing's sprung a leak. Yet.

Lassiter and I are running at a full sprint down the narrow hallway, but our progress comes to a grinding halt when we reach a fork in the tunnel. Left or right? A flash of an image: I recall the unofficial layout of the station from a map I may or may not have wrangled from a drunk first mate.

"I'm sensing left!" I shout over the ambient noise of the dying station.

"How would you know that?"

"Really, Lassie, after all this time, don't ya trust me?"

A beat.

"If you're leading us the wrong way, Spencer, I will kill you myself."

When we get to the escape pods - because of course we're going the right way, don't insult me - there's a woman near us, kneeling over an unconscious woman with long, curly blonde hair. I don't recognize either of them, but I get the feeling that the unconscious woman might die if we don't get her out of here soon.

The woman - the conscious one, we'll call her Joy - spots us and points at me, "You, in the t-shirt, I need some help here. Help me lift her into the escape pod."

I hurry over to their side, and pull the unconscious blonde's left arm over my shoulders. Joy takes the right side and three - two - one - lift! Lassiter hovers over Joy's shoulder (not literally, I feel compelled to point out) in case we need help. More help.

The "escape pods" are basically miniature submarines scattered throughout the station, designed for a one-way trip to the surface. They're also very small.

Sparks are shooting everywhere, but I'm focused on the escape pod. "Hang on a minute," I say to Joy.

The door to the pod is open, possibly jammed that way. And there's something wrong with the controls. The autopilot, maybe?

"There's no way we're going to make it to the surface in that." I say.

"Are there any escape pods left?" asks Lassiter.

Flash. Two escape pods to the northwest, through a section that would be venting poison gas into the hallway right about now. That's the quickest route. I shake my head. "We can't make it."

Joy looks at me, considering. "Not with the two of us, you mean," she nods at her friend.

Lassiter and I, and Joy, even, could make it to the remaining shuttles. There's no way we could make it while dragging an unconscious woman with us. And we're not leaving her behind; we're the heroes in this story!

"We're going to have to make it work."

Somehow, we do.

When we surface in the pod, and climb out, we're not greeted by sunlight, but what looks like a conference room with a pool. Several men in suits are staring at us expectantly. From my position, balanced on top of the pod, I hone in on the man who's in charge of this whole fiasco. He's smiling. I sigh.

"I have to go down there again, don't I?"

This time, it _has_ sprung a leak.

_Doomed Research Stations. Scare Factor: 3._

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #3: High School Classmates Near Water*

Cast of Characters:
Samael (me)
Large Group of People I Knew in High School Combined With Random DCs
Person Whose Name I Saw Mentioned (Jay)

I'm one person in a large group of people who have collectively decided to go swimming. When we appear at the swimming hole [that never really existed] outside of my hometown, most people stand around, looking suspiciously at the water. A guy who I remember being a grade younger than I was [whose name I saw in a journal entry yesterday] jumps straight in to the south side of the pool.

I'm wearing a red lifeguard t-shirt, and one other lifeguard and myself are inspecting the north side of the pool. Some days you can swim in it, other days it's really just a puddle of stinking mud. Like today. I lose my balance when the edge of the crowd jostles me. A few titters, and I exchange words with one of the bystanders.

Obviously, I'll be swimming in the clean side of the pool then, if only to clean off.

The clean side has Jay using the natural rock formations on the other side as diving boards and such. I don't pay mutch attention to him. Rolling my eyes at the group that collectively won't even get in the pool, I jump into the clean water and eye the rock formations on the other side. From where I was standing, there was no way to walk across like Jay did, so I need to do some rock climbing to get to the impromptu diving board.

I'm in my element when I get to the other side and pull myself out of the water. It's been a while since I got to do this [because it's very flat and boring where I'm living now]. There are plenty of easy handholds in the rock, and I work my way to the left, where I'll be able to climb up to the ledge.

_High School Classmates Near Water. Scare Factor: 7 because I hated high school 2 for normality, with a point for the fun of rock climbing and annoyance of public humiliation._

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #4: The Narrator*

March 12, 2010

Cast of Characters:
Damian, the thief
Sam, the devil
The Princess

Damian is a semi-immortal thief from the "real world". While evading his current batch of pursuers, he is granted a wish from the devil, who introduces herself as Sam. After sending Damian home, for a price, She proceeds to wreak havoc at the christening of the princess, by giving her the gift of infinite will. This backfires spectacularly, when Sam (the devil) is drawn into the plight of a teenaged runaway several years later.

I think it could make a very interesting series of short stories. 

Also, I was three separate characters during the course of this dream. I've been Damian, Sam, and The Reader of the story at various points, while reading emotions off of everyone else present. It was all very third person omniscient. Also, not the first time I've been the devil.

Can you tell that I'm not religious at all? Protip: Satan is the good guy.

_The Narrator. Scare Factor: 2. Omniscience is so much fun._

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## Keitorin

Hi there! I just read your entries and really like the format as well as the content. Just thought I'd drop in and say that before I go to bed!  ::yawn::

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## macron12388

Hi! It seems you and I have a lot in common: not liking to "color code" our dreams, the scary meter, the NATURE of our dreams, mine often take on a tiwstde mennar sa wllewee!!32!!> ::D:  But I am fraeked out easily, and still am. But one thing that has changed is my mood towards these existancials, wether they be real or imaginary, One night I got sick and tired of being scared, I felt a burning sense of anger deep in my stomach. I am pretty sure in a dream this happened, I went epic rage on this creepy doll that had a scrwed up face and kept poping out from vines near my house(in a dream). My advice: if you find those nightmares making hideous faces at you(and I meant $h1t screwed up faces, like enough to make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, and give you chills for weeks) make a face back, let out your fear in anger!!! D:<!!!!! I mean rage!!!! in your dream!!!!!GGGGGGGGGGGRGRGRGRGRGGGGGGRAAAAAAAAAAAAA  AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Realese your hatred at them!!!!!!Make yourself THEIR nightmare!!! The nightmares  chasing you? Down a twisted road in infinite darkness? DONT RUN!!!!RUnning fuels the predators vise!!!! STAnd!!! NO matter how sscared you are!!! I was scared $h1tle$$$ the first time I did it. YOu are scared, but show them what you will do. Stop running!! CHASE THEM!!!!! Show them true fear!!! Cya!  :smiley:

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## Samael

> Hi there! I just read your entries and really like the format as well as the content. Just thought I'd drop in and say that before I go to bed!



Hey, thanks! It seemed like it'd be a fun thing to play with, and so far it has been.





> Make yourself THEIR nightmare!!! The nightmares  chasing you? Down a twisted road in infinite darkness? DONT RUN!!!!RUnning fuels the predators vise!!!! STAnd!!! NO matter how sscared you are!!! I was scared $h1tle$$$ the first time I did it. YOu are scared, but show them what you will do. Stop running!! CHASE THEM!!!!! Show them true fear!!! Cya!



SHOW THEM TRUE FEAR. Haha, that's awesome. Yeah, the best dreams are the ones wherein you're the scariest person in the room. Which they are, for the most part.

Stop running? Are you kidding?  :wink2:  Running is hella fun, and I usually realize at some level that I'm just a part of a story.

Oddly, when I'm having a genuine nightmare, I won't be able to react at all. I don't actually consider most of these dreams (running through a flooding ship, being chased through a maze, being trapped in a space station during a zombie outbreak that I _may_ have directly caused) to be nightmares, because I can run, and fight, and keep playing out the story. It's when the personification of death decides to stalk slooowly toward me down the stairs of my childhood home after I've heard a scream from upstairs and I can't move my feet or fight or anything... then I start to get freaked out, even when I know I'm dreaming.

I'd say that one was a 9 or so on the scary meter. And yes, I did run outside, and find somewhere I could sit in bright light and drink hot chocolate until the sun comes up.

---

March 13, 2010

Yes, these dreams occurred one after the other.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #5: Bad Fanfiction*

Um, spoilers for _Supernatural_ 5x08.

Cast of Characters:
Dean Winchester (me)
Bobby Singer
Others

I think I can state at this point that I am having a bad day. My brother, Sam, has a tendency to randomly disappear and come home possessed, but usually these trips don't involve extra-dimensional portals. Goddamnit.

Also, I can't find my jacket.

"So, you're _absolutely_ sure we'll be able to get back."

"For the last time, boy," Bobby says, glaring at me for asking the same question several times, "This plan is foolproof."

"Right. Foolproof." I look from the frayed rope looped around my waist, tied to a wooden post on Bobby's porch, to the bright and swirly portal leading to God knows where. "Bobby, I don't doubt your excellent research capabilities, but is this really going to work?"

"Do you want to find Sam or not?"

This pretty much ends all discussion on the matter, and I find myself stepping through the ominous swirly lights...

...and into a bar.

The first thing I notice is that guy from the fan convention drinking at the bar. The second thing I notice: he's wearing my jacket. One bar fight later -

(and I have to figure out how to steal a jacket off of someone who's wearing it. In the chaos, I figure it'll be easy enough just to will it into my hands rather than work on the physical mechanics of how you would get a jacket off of someone in a fight)

- I have my jacket back. Oddly, it seems a little big for me.

Sam's on the other side of the room, talking to someone who I don't actually pay any attention to. I march over there, "Excuse us," and drag Sam a few feet away. 

"Okay, we have got to get out of here."

Sam just looks amused.

We continue walking over to where the portal is - I can see it, swirly pink and blue lights and all - and I walk through it. _Ow_. I walk straight into the wall behind it.

"Oh," says Sam, looking thoughtful, "Looks like you can't get me through this way."

I'm out of time; if I don't leave now I'll be trapped in this dimension as well. Away from the apocalypse and all, but still.

A flicker. Sam's face seems overlaid by something. Another face, one that I recognize.

I rush at him, stopped after a couple of feet, held fast to the portal.

"Where's Sam?" I growl.

The fake Sam just smiles and walks away, waving.

"Gabriel!" I shout after him, "GABRIEL!" Everything fades out, and suddenly I'm standing back on Bobby's porch. 

"So, how did that go?" asks Bobby.

He gets no response.

"Oh well, we'll try again later."

I stand dumbly on the porch as he walks away for a few moments, before -

_That's not Bobby._
_
Son of a bitch._ Where the hell is a wooden stake angel-killing knife archangel's sword when you need one?

_Bad Fanfiction. Scare Factor: 2/10. Fun for the writer, torture for the reader. And the Trickster's not too bad... as long as he's not killing you several dozen times over._


*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #6: Mental Institutions With Lax Security*

Cast of Characters:
A Pre-Teen Girl in a White Nightgown (me)
A Near Catatonic Five-Year-Old
Security

Bare feet touch to the cold linoleum one after the other, as I creep up the back stairs to the second floor. Everything is white and open and contained, but the dark creeps along with me, and the world is cast in a cold, blue pallor. 

The door opens before me, my feet touch scratchy carpet as I step into the bedroom. My nightgown whispers faintly in an absent breeze as I twist, taking in the contents of the room. It seems almost normal, a bed to the left of the door, foot facing me. There are stuffed animals everywhere, strewn across the room like they've been played with. They haven't been.

There's a window above the bed, and I can see the balconies a floor above the lobby.

I hear water running.

A half-open door lets light stream into the rest of the room, and I open it, squinting against the harsh yellow of the light, of the tiles, of the linoleum. 

The tap is running cold water into the bathtub, and I can see my brother there, hands curled around his knees -

_There have been rumours, faked suicides and murder_

- the first thing I do is turn his wrists over to look for injuries. I sigh in relief when I see that he's fine, and I move to turn off the water.

I freeze. I can feel something, in the walls.

"_Boom_." I whisper. The boy looks up at me for the first time. I pull him up from the tub, grab a towel from above the toilet, wrap it around his shoulders.

"Go to bed." I say. "Stay there."

He walks toward his bed without another look back.

I press one hand to the ceramic tile in the shower (_shh, calm_), use the other hand to turn off the water and remove the drain from the tub, drenching my sleeves as I do. _Tick, tick, tick_ but it won't hurt him if he stays in bed, and I need to make my escape.

I leave the room, taking stairs directly from the bathroom to the basement, to my own room, trekking barefoot over thin blue carpet to a room that resembles an office. I see my bed, empty, though the covers are strewn about.

"Hey," says a voice from behind me. I turn around, look up, hope that he won't notice the fact that my clothes are drenched from the water. He doesn't. "We were wondering where you've been all night."

I smile, and the guard moves on to continue his rounds, completely unconcerned about the little girl who was committed here long before he ever got the job.

After all, I never did mention who the murderer was.

_Well meaning though I might have been._

_Mental Institutions With Lax Security. Scare Factor: 2/10 for worrying over the girl's brother. I was never concerned for my own safety._

_I wonder when that bomb is set to explode?_

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## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #7: Allegiant Little Kids*

Cast of Characters:
Ixburg (fake name, real hometown)
A Short-Haired Blond/Blonde (me)
The Nostalgia Chick (Lindsay)
Various Friends/Bar Patrons
A Teacher With an Afro
Little Kids

I'm browsing the forums here, thinking about dreams. Then there's something about the library here. Which reminds me, I need to return an overdue book.

I walk into a bar, where, apparently, Lindsay is bartending. I order a drink, and end up sitting down with her and a few friends while they eat supper. We talk about the Charlie Brown Christmas special, and discuss parts of it that probably didn't exist in real life. You know that one girl, who really didn't want to go to the Brown's house for Christmas Dinner but would rather have gone to New York for a Broadway show? Yeah? Why couldn't she have done that? That would have been cool.

There's four or five of us, and we start walking. Shift. We're in a playground. I look around, trying to place it.

"Aw, man." I say, "We're in Ixburg! Quick, someone think of somewhere nicer."

A couple people glance back at me, bemused. I give up and strike up a conversation with one of the girls, who has red-brown hair, a ponytail, and glasses. I try to ask her name, but she says it so fast I can't understand it. I ask again and try to repeat it back to her. One of the other girls laughs and tells her to stop teasing me.

We're still standing outside the school at this oint, and a teacher comes out to yell at hus. "Ixburg sucks!" I shout, assuming there's a game going on right now.

Little kids come out and throw rocks at us. We take shelter in a non-existant frame of a shed just outside school grounds.

"So," I say to Lindsay, "Next time, _you_ pick the setting."

_Allegiant Little Kids. Scare Factor: 1/10 for banality._

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #8: Pissed Off Teachers

or

People to Deliberately Annoy Even More than You Already Have Just By Existing: Pissed Off Teachers*

I'm taking a course that requires all the participants to stay together in a hotel room for some reason. We pool all our food together to come up with a really weird breakfast. A can of brown beans are involved. Which are vegetarian.

_Shift_.

I'm staying in a hotel in a city where one of my friends from high school - Miranda - lives. I spot her, and we hang out for a while. One of those drivable carts and a supermarket are involved.

_Shift_

This is a duel between an approximately 20-year-old Harry Potter and one Professor Severus Snape. I smirk. This is going to be fun. I'm approaching the tournament as if it's a video game, wearing down my opponents with a barrage of spells, exhausting them. Then I'll disarm them with an _expelliarmus_. 

"_Expelliarmus_!" I shout, aiming at Snape.

He shields easily, smirking at my incompetence. There's going to be a lot of smirking going on in this match. 

"_Sectumsempra_!" I call out before he has a chance to get a spell off. A scythe of dark energy slices toward him. There, that one wasn't so easy to block.

I'm going to have trouble remembering spells for this dream, I realize.

We circle each other, I mostly dodging the spells that he sends at me. Until he's standing with his back to a seemingly bottomless pit, facing me warily.

Bad, bad move.

I shout two random words to cover what I'm doing, *forcing* a wave of kinetic energy towards Snape, who is *pushed* off the edge, and if that's from the wrong movie, I'm sure no one will ever notice. The boundary spells will catch him. Probably.

(I'm proven right when he's yelling, a few minutes later, that he will triumph in the end, and will beat me in one of the upper levels of the tournament. At least he's confident that I'll get that far.)

New match.

A kid - a young Crabbe from the movies, I think - is attempting to creep silently through a poorly-lit arena, stirring up dust as he goes. I think he has an allergy, because suddenly he has to sneeze, and he can't help it - he sneezes, the sound echoing loudly through the darkness. My third person POV catches the horrified look on his face as it zooms back to another room, where Snape is creeping along more successfully. Snape hears the sneeze, turns quickly to where the sound is coming from and moves hurriedly toward the other room, ready to sneak up behind Crabbe and take him by surprise -

_Expelliarmus_.

Snape's wand is sent flying out of his hand by my spell, and I catch it out of the air. I smile brightly and wave, and Snape is positively fuming while he's pulled out of the game.

Crabbe is expecting me, though, and our disarming spells are shouted at exactly the same time, resulting in a brief wave of energy that has both of us stumbling back. I recover first, and launch myself at him, scrambling for the wand. I catch it by the tip, and pull it with me as I roll past him, but the wand is about as strong as tumbleweed, and doesn't even make a decent snap as it breaks cleanly in half.

The kid is staring at his remaining half in horrified fascination.

"Ouch," I wince sympathetically, "And this is the world where no other wand is going to work for you as well as the first one." Crabbe looks crestfallen. "Oh well. I win, right?"

I guess the answer is yes, because the next thing I'm aware of is stumbling through a bar after a round of celebratory shots. I sit down at a table.

"May we join you?"

I'm reintroduced to Fleur Delacour, who I met a few years ago, as well as a pretty brunette with curly hair whose name I don't remember. I flirt shamelessly with both of them, and we have what I'm sure is an incredibly deep and nuanced conversation.

I'm still in the bar when I realize, abruptly, that I'm dreaming, for no real reason whatsoever. It's not so much that everything comes into focus, but that my awareness expands exponentially, and for those few seconds, I feel fucking awesome. I'm exploring the boundaries of the dream, looking for possibilities.

Then the brunette invites me to dinner, and I decide that here is fine.

We're sitting together on a couch, eating what I'm certain are some very expensive appetizers. She mentions that they'll be leaving to China shortly, for a business meeting, but we'll have to meet up again.

_Shift_.

I'm in a theatre, watching a movie along with, I think, my family. Water is pouring from a shower-head on the ceiling for some reason. I'm sure there was a very good reason for that, having to do with the toddler who has latched onto me as a babysitter.

_Shift_.

I'm in Halifax. Yay, I love Halifax! I'm along with my younger-than-they-are-in-real-life cousins and my brother. We decide that the most efficient way to get back to our hotel with all our luggage is to take a kayak back there. 

...

So we rent a kayak from MEC, and paddle across the harbour with it. The geography has changed immensely, and I don't seem to be deathly afraid of the water.

Seriously, you don't want to go anywhere near the Halifax harbour water.

But I am concerned when it splashes all over my backpack, which holds my laptop, which is still on. I open it up, pop the battery out, and don't bother to wonder where all of my cousins are.

We get back to the hotel, where everything gets a little fuzzy. I think I'm either Sam or Dean Winchester at one point, having an argument with whichever one of the brothers I'm not.

But I have to return the kayak, so I bring it back to the dock, and then I'm at the hotel, but I realize I have to bring it to the store, so I convince someone who looks a lot like Alan Rickman into bringing it back to the store for us, please.

And then I spend the rest of the dream wandering around Halifax and making up parks that don't exist.

_Pissed Off Teachers. Scare Factor: 2/10, but only for the first two dreams that were really feverish and hallucinatory._

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #9: Family Vacations*

Cast of Characters:
Samael (me)
My Family
Girl at the Check Out Counter

Alone. Bus trip. Ferry ride.

I've found myself on a road trip with my brother, mom, and dad, in our old Ford Truck. It's rather cramped. I have my laptop-sized bookbag with me, and it's stuffed in with me in the back seat.

I hassle my dad to stop at the Husky/Tim Horton's along the road, and am surprised when he relents. I go inside and say "Hi" to the person at the counter. For some reason, I'm surprised I don't recognize her. I have to step in behind the counter a bit to get a look at the donuts and bagels, and I happily choose one with purple icing and rainbow sprinkles. I count through my pocket chane; I've already used my debit card (and I recall swiping an identical one before realizing it wasn't mine). I ask what my total comes to. I have to ask a few times, because I can't understand her and the number above the register keeps changing. Also, I only have about 75 cents. 

Finally, she tells me that the price is 9 cents plus tax, so I should just give her a dime. I thank her and take my brown paper bag, heading to the car.

"Sorry I took so long," I say, knowing full well we won't be stopping for a while now. I open my bag to find three donuts and a pack of gushers. Weird. I start in on the gushers, deciding that junk food is the point of a road trip anyway and it's hard to find vegetarian stuff at all fast food restaurants. 

We're trying to figure out how to get out of town, because one of the main roads switches over regularly and we seem to be cut off at the moment. Several-point turn to get out of a dead-end. People playing in the water in the ditch ("A good way to get hepatitis," my dad notes). Asking for directions at some kind of a hunting lodge.

We drive out of town, but the road seems less like a road and more something you'd do to wreck vehicles on GTA. Driving through parkades or something. Graffiti. Stairs.

_Family Vacations. Scare Meter: 2. Boring as long as you miss the horror movie casting._

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #10: Homicidal Robots. Mutant-icidal Robots?*

Cast of Characters:
Samael (me)
Jubilee (me)
Sentinels
Young Samael (me)
Super-Powered Kid

I'm at school in Halifax. Now I'm going to school in a mall in Halifax. I have some studio space near the entrance of the mall. It's like a stand at a farmer's market, all open. As usual, I work by spreading all of my stuff over every surface, even infringing on the space of other vendors. Temporarily, I promise.

Now I'm going to class in the mall, but I need a specific kind of button for a project, and I can't find them. Big buttons that you'd find on a velvet jacket? Someone mentioned I should try Buttons R' Us or something, on the second floor. I think I have a vague idea of where it should be, so I'll try it out. I take the stairs, but it's all confusing and I don't know where everything is.

And then I spot the robots. At first, I think they're statues, but they're moving around, each of them patrolling a little corner of their own. They seem to be placed at major exits and intersections in the mall. This... could be a problem.

_I'm young, maybe ten years old. I'm in a church, sitting in the back row and threading a leather string through the covers of the bibles/hymn books stacked in piles beside me. The other people are being led in the lord's prayer, but I can always say I didn't know it. I'm so engrossed in my work that I don't notice that the service is over and the priest is standing nearby. My friend who dragged me here is sitting beside me, and her mother is in one of the aisles, looking on disapprovingly. And this feels like deja-vu._

_It's a surprise when I realize that the priest isn't mad. He's curious, more like, wondering what I've been doing. At one point, I show him that I can lift the books without touching them. Up, up, up, and they fall to the floor. He isn't angry. He tells me that I'm having trouble holding them steady, right? To hold them in one place, I need to harness the potential energy that they have while being held up. They're at rest; they just need to stay that way. I try again, this time doing as he says, and it works beautifully._

I'm somewhat aware that I look like Jubilee. I'm back in the mall, surrounded by Sentinels. I still need to get to class, but somehow that seems like less of a priority at the moment.

At one point, the sentinels are on high alert, and I hear a transmission over the radio, telling all mutants to either get out of the mall, or find refuge in one of the stores (apparently a safe-zone). Not everyone can hear the announcement, I realize. I've been using the stairways that don't seem to be guarded. I spot a Subway nearby.

On the way, I notice that a bunch of the buttons I've been looking for have spilled across the hallway. I decide that picking them up would attract attention, because this is somehow a trap. I discretely _pull_ several buttons from the floor and place them in the pocket of my long jacket, before realizing that this could have been a trap as well, and I probably won't be able to use the buttons for my project.

I make my way to the Subway, even if I'm not hungry, and realize that I don't have enough cash (only change from the last dream), and I'll have to use my debit card. (Wait, I might have a ten.) I stay in the Subway after ordering, until I get bored and annoyed and decide to take out one of the Sentinels on my own.

I manage to separate and corner one away from the rest, outside. It tells me it has a picture of me in its memory, and I'll be hunted now anyway. I realize that's true, so I tell it that I've been wearing a mask the whole time. And now I have been.

Fire's supposed to work well against them for some reason, but my pyrokinesis is on the fritz (read: weak). I'm joined by a boy of about ten who fancies himself a superhero, and helps me cause damage to the thing. It's not fighting back much. I lift the Sentinel about ten meters into the air and let it crash back to the ground. The boy and I then use our limited fire-powers to melt the Sentinel's internal systems and then go investigate it's car.

We find something surprising, and decide it would be a great idea to _go back into the mall_ and pretend to be a part of an anti-mutant demonstration UNTIL THE TIME IS RIGHT TO STRIKE!
_
Homicidal Robots, Mutant-icidal Robots? Scare Factor: 2._

----------


## Samael

Things to Run Away From Really Fast #11: Third Person Narration

Game. Tree. Spy. Babysitting.

It feels like I might be playing a video game. There are two characters: the main character is following a mentor archtype through a forest filled with ruins and caves leading deep below the surface. I'm not sure if I'm the mentor or the MC; I might be both. We're searching for a series of gemstones or charms, consulting witches on the way. On some level, I know the MC won't go for the mentor's final goal. It's far too diabolical.

There are something like four dimensional levels of this tree, and we're exploring them all. I recall at least two characters (though I'm sure there were more): the theoretical expert, and the practical one. Again, I think I'm both characters. Somehow, climbing the tree leads to different dimensional gateways, though I don't remember where they were all located. Dimensions below the surface still had branches and a fall that would probably kill you. I remember that TE is very well protected via anchors and harnesses and carabiners, presumably because the various dimensions can be so disorienting. I remember being the TE, and being left on one of the explored levels, then being the PE and actually exploring a deeper one. When we get to the final level, we find another gateway. We go back to the surface to recoup.

Spying is involved. A guy of about my age may have information that our organization desperately needs. Me and another female friend get ourselves invited to... watch movies or something in a group. We're sitting in a basement on a bunch of couches. Then everything is flooding. I stay behind to grab all of my things that are scattered below the water (seems to be my swimming stuff and a coil-bound notebook containing instructions). An older man, maybe the other guy's dad, is back for me, scolding me for not evacuating and leaving my stuff behind - is it really worth my life? Considering how incriminating that notebook is, it very well could be.

I think I'm found out later, anyway.

"If we're babysitting tonight, why are we here in the morning?" Apparently the parents don't actually need us until 9PM. I resolve to put the brats to bed VERY early, and enjoy the party in the meantime.

Third Person Narration. Scare Factor: 2. It's annoying for dream recall.

----------


## Samael

_Go to the moon_ was kind of my madness mantra last night. Attempted to remember that I wanted to do this.



*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #12: Voices Trying To Limit Your Dream-Control*

I'm in the basement of a building my grandparents used to own. It's been extensively remodeled since. I try to apply the actual blueprints to the dreamscape, but it's too confusing. I hear newborn kittens. I see a few heads of bread-mice scattered around. The mice here are made of bread. I pick up a half-eaten copy of one of Neil Gaiman's books, and decide that this is all his fault somehow.

_Shift_.

I'm in a love story, switching between two of the three main characters' points of view. I leave down the stream with the guy who's not me? This is confusing.

_Shift._

I'm in a forest, hearing a Voice that gives me instructions. I'm happily running through, surrounded by green, green grass and trees, when I come to a stream. I jump straight over it, but land awkwardly on the other side, not having gone as far as I thought I would.

_Water saps your power away_, The Voice explains, _That makes rivers difficult to cross_.

I'm frustrated, because dreams should be doing whatever I tell them to, but the dream-logic makes sense for now. I consider another, wider, river nearby.

I'm near where the forest was, but now I'm surrounded by stone: banisters and stairways and what could make for some very fun parkour sequences. I glide up onto the banister, ready to jump, when I suddenly realize that because this is a dream, I really can go anywhere.

_Go to the moon._ 

Oh, yeah, I was gonna try to do that tonight. I hop off the banister, landing easily on the stone floor. I hold a hand out as I had visualized, feeling through the dream-fabric. I feel and hear a buzzing, and watch in amazement as the dream within stone building abruptly disintegrates, leaving only the night sky. I look down, fully aware that _I made it_ and _I'm on the moon_ and -

Too much surprise.

I'm lying face down on the bed, just like when I last went to sleep. Everything is dark and I keep my eyes shut, trying for another shot at the dream. I feel plastic beneath my hands*, but I aim to kneel down and feel the moon rocks that must be at my feet.

_Shift._

"How the hell are we going to stop that thing?"

"I'll take care of it."

"How?"

"I'll take care of it."

I'm using a fellow officer as bait, but I don't have any strong feelings on the matter. The monster is approaching from down the hallway, turning a corner toward me. It spots me, and I retreat into the room, leaving the door open behind me. I'm standing just around a corner, out of sight from the door. The monster steps into the room, and spots the injured officer lying on the bed. I remind myself that _this is a dream_ and I will be able to do this.

The monster rounds the corner, snarling, and I grab it by the scruff of the neck and somewhere along the back (it might have been wearing clothes) and I throw it - hard - toward the window. It goes flying as if it weighed a pound, crashing either through the mirrored door of the closet and the wall behind it. It didn't _land_ as if it weighed a pound.

I'm outside, on the red, ceramic tile rooftops, no longer worried about the monster. I consider taking another shot at getting to the moon. I hold up another hand, trying to feel the dream fabric. I little bit of deep blue bleeds through where my hand is. I put up the other hand, trying to force myself through. It doesn't work. New method.

I'm standing at the edge of a rooftop, unable to see into the abyss that lies before me. I jump, only concerned that this might make me wake up. I land. Without looking, I can tell I'm still in the same dream-scape, so I jump again.

This time I fall and fall and fall, visualizing the black tower that Nomad described. I land, easily, and I can tell that I am, in fact, on the top of a black tower. When I open my eyes, though, I consider that this might not have been the one I was looking for. This one is only three or four stories high, and it's surrounded by brick buildings on all sides. A watchtower. I sigh.

I hop down onto the dirt and paving stones, and look around at the DCs in the area. There's a cute blonde with long, wavy hair, chatting with some friends at the edge of the courtyard. I consider that I might be half in the moon-dream somehow and these might be real people, but I dismiss the thought as unlikely and walk toward the girls.

I step through her friends, smiling at the blonde girl and holding out a hand. She takes it, and I spin her around and kiss her. Oddly, I have the sudden ability to smell and taste (morning breath) and I quickly block it out. And suddenly I'm playing a game of the Sims, and there are a bunch of options on the screen. Now I'm talking to family members on the other side of the courtyard and looking for the girl so I can actually talk to her?

_Voices Trying to Limit Your Dream-Control. Scare Factor: 2. Though the bread-mice were somehow creepy._

*So very much a false awakening.

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #13: Dream-Style Karate Tournaments*

This dream took place over the course of several days, with time-skips between unimportant parts.

A woman shows me a new kata.

I'm on a farm, apparently visiting my Oma. She gives us (myself and a girl) a ride into town. I make fun of her car.

We arrive at the tournament, which takes place in my hometown. The girl (I have the feeling I knew her) and I are going to perform some kind of strange team kata that's some kind of dance, and the one we're doing has a male and a female character. I'm playing the male character even though I'm female in the dream.

It's about 10AM, and our part doesn't come around until around 1PM. I'm not dressed yet and I can't find my sword. I might have to ask my Oma (whose car I made fun of) for a ride home to look for it.

My mom brings my sword, but I'm still not dressed. It's into the afternoon now. I peek out of the dressing rooms to check that they're not calling for us. 

For some reason, I'm not wearing my karate uniform, but something more like a dress robes. There's a red dress long... robe-like thing made of a kind of satin-like material, and an outer set of long black robes that look more like my gi than anything I've seen yet in this dream.


Oh, yeah, definitely. That is totally what I meant.

I'm standing beside my partner for the team kata (who looks a bit like a geisha), wondering about the feminist implications of this performance. I mean, one of us doesn't actually _do_ anything.

Oh, yeah, you do that fan kata.



Wait, we actually both have a kata to do.

This is followed by several minutes of panic, within which I realize I've forgotten my kata.

Then we're standing in front of the judges, and I'm going through the motions of my sword kata, which I've known for a very long time.

You know, my partner hasn't said _anything_ this entire time.

_Shift._

I'm at a boarding school with my high school classmates, or I'm finishing off a karate class. We're all actually at a dream-changed version of a parish hall in my hometown.

"Line up!" Calls Sensei B, one of my old instructors.

My high school classmates mill about (quickly) in confusion, most of them not having been in karate. In the chaos, I'm trying to figure out which line I should be in, with my... red belt.

I'm a green belt, right?

I'm standing in line when I realize that my already ridiculous costume has been substituted for a sheer lingerie-style robe.

I think Sensei B is making fun of me.

_Dream-Style Karate Tournaments. Scare Factor: 3.5. Would prefer to avoid._

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #14: Restaurants With Poor Customer Service. Also: Missiles.*

Non-lucid.

Briefly, I'm Shawn Spencer from _Psych_. I check my backpack for water. I have a little over two bottles left. It's around 4PM. I decide to do the 3KM hike instead of the 5KM hike; I'll probably be back by 6PM and I'll get to the first peak of the Chief. The route is a combination of my running route here and the real hike in Squamish. I don't have a map with me, but I know the trail well enough.

Similar location, female form. I'm talking to either my Oma or my Aunt Audrey. They keep switching. I'm watching the fire. There's something flammable (fireworks, ammunition?) in one of the wooden containers being licked at by the flames.

I'm in a restaurant of a hotel with my mom and great grandma. Our tables are switched. I have a copy of a menu in my hand, and two spoons because I was holding one from the other table.

I'm (working) in an office building. I keep speaking to bosses higher-up. I think one of them looks familiar (might be Jameson from Spider-man movies).

I'm an American sniper in America and I'm being shot at. I'm with several other snipers at the top of a very tall tower surrounded by water surrounded by a city which might be San Francisco. I'm standing up, but I'm quickly pulled down by another man when I become aware of being in someone else's sights. A missile heads toward us on a crazy, spiralling course. It explodes over our heads.

Patrick and Spongebob's houses are split in half and combined with Squidward in the middle, freaking out. Flashback to Patrick and Squidward trying to play a practical joke on Spongebob. A stone statuette of a face embedded in rock.

_Restaurants With Poor Customer Service. Also: Missiles. Scare Factor: 2._

----------


## Samael

I didn't get much sleep last night. Non-lucid like whoa.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #15: Hey, but I thought I was supposed to be the -*

Using characters from _Fox and the Hound_. I think the hunter is my father. I'm walking around our property, noticing that some areas are places you _really_ shouldn't be hunting around.

Henry Spencer from Psych takes over the role of father. He's giving me a lift via boat to some point on the lake. Promises me lessons in something or other. I'm writing out a list/schedule for training.

The devil is sabatoging our bet by making my workouts easier. I notice every once in a while that the machines are on an easier setting than they're supposed to be.

_Hey, but I thought I was supposed to be the - Scare Factor: 2._

----------


## Samael

Fragments only. Yay, cold medication.

I think I heard a variation on "I think I'll miss you less and less, as every day goes by." Also, wandering around a college campus, which is what I did yesterday.

There was something else, but it's trickled out of my ears over the last five minutes.

----------


## Samael

I was going through some old dream journals and thought I'd type up a couple for reference. The first dream occurred shortly after I heard that my family had been in a minor car accident. Everyone was fine. Well, except for the wildlife involved.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #16: Mortality*
_
August 2009_

I'm rock climbing at the local crag (but in a different city) when I get the call. Mom hands the phone off to a grief counsellor or something. She tells me that my dad has passed away, but do I want to see my huge birthday cake? Hey, do I want to have the phone held up to the body's ear so I can talk to him? I'm watching the head get cut off of the body, presumably having to do with cremation. I close my eyes, nauseous.

Scrambling down a steep trail now, made of granite and overgrown with tree roots. I'm thrown into what seems like a very vivid memory on top of the dream I'm in. I'm a black man in South Africa, and I'm brandishing a knife, trying to fend off two men who attacked my wife.


Except with roots.

_My dream-ego, still looking on from the first dream, hopes that I'm not going to hurt anyone._

My strike goes wide, and I injure my wife instead, watching with horror as her blood spills to the red ground. She's dead so, so quickly. Our local equivalent of a doctor appears, and she tries to slice my wife's body down from the roots that are binding her, thinking she might still be able to save her. She won't. Our son! Our son us still here. I take him and run.
_
Mortality. Scare Factor: 8. I remember chalking up this one as "The Nightmare of 2009"._

I didn't remember the dream until I read about it though. It's not quite so scary when I remember "Dad's fine; I saw him yesterday."

Within the dream, the dream-within-the-dream was a memory of a previous life. It was so vivid, I practically felt the same way when I woke up.

----------


## Samael

I have the feeling that I ran into a recurring character last night, a woman I suspect might be my dream guide. I'm leaning toward a name along the lines of Elaine/Lane/Lana, and I think I used Elaine while I was talking to her. I don't remember what was said.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #17: The Ninja Maid*

The people taking a first aid course become evil vampires and Quickton (nickname for the city I'm living in) becomes Sunnydale.

I'm arguing with a character from Naruto (which is odd, since I don't watch it). I think it might be Sasuke. We spot an ambassador for something and make a bet that I can't catch him.

The man is being driven either by a car or a coach, but it's black either way. I follow from the rooftops and then from within buildings, tracking my progress mentally while I can't see the car. 

I take a shortcut, arrivin at his home before he does, coming across hostiles as soon as I do. Before I even realize that I've reacted, there are bodies on the floor. I inspect them, coming to the realization that these people were here to _kill_ the ambassador. I just saved his life - this is an in.

Half a dozen people walk happily through the back door, as I wait around a corner for my entrance. Hm. Too many. Presumably the ambassador's wife and family. The bodies disappear with the lack of a thought, and I step out of my hiding place, all smiles.

_Well, I'm the maid, of course!_ I tell them, playing on my gender, charm, and general blondeness. Who wouldn't trust a sweet, unarmed woman? (I tuck the knife/gun in the waistband of my jeans.) _You mean you didn't order maid service?_ I say to the wife. _Oh, dear,_ I say, _the company must have made a mistake. Perhaps you can help me with the directions?_

I take out a couple pieces of paper with scribbles on them, making up street addresses as I go.

An opportunity to talk to the ambassador arrives, and I take it. It's time to reveal my true purpose. I propose an alliance of sorts, leaning on his gratitude for saving the lives of his family. We have a common enemy after all. Blackmail is also involved.
_
The Ninja Maid. Scare Factor: 2._

----------


## Samael

I think I used to have better dream control than I do now. More frequent lucidity, as well.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #18: Gravity Hack*

_September 2007_

Why walk when you can fly? I have an impression of stone steps and pathways. They cling to the steep, grassy hilltop, jutting out into the wet, grey sky. The pathway seems to be large enough for only one person, but the pair of us climb the steps side by side.

I am looking ahead of us as the path ends at an alcove made of stone and concrete, similar to the one that used to be behind our apartment building in Ixburg, but it doesn't smell like mushrooms. If there is a smell, it's sharp, soft, clean. The smell of rain or of mountain air. On either side of the alcove, a trail begins, forking out from the steps. There the trail barely clings to the steep slope.

I can feel everything around me, imagining the texture of a surface as my eyes glance over it. The pebbles in the pathway, the grass and moss... everything tingles with the prospect of rain.

I let go of the ground, and drift upwards slowly until I am floating about a foot above the path. I am being pulled upward and pushed downward, and I hold on to the feeling. _This is effortless.
_
Like a ghost - a painfully, ecstatically alive ghost - I drift alongside my companion. We discuss this phenomenon. I can still feel the ground, the sky, the grass. I simply didn't want to walk anymore, I explain.

The breeze doesn't occur to me. I am not bothered by rippling air currents. All that exists is the humming force which keeps me suspended in my dreamworld.
_
Gravity Hack. Scare Factor: 1. I wonder who my guide was in that dream. I think he was part-animal in the mythological sense, somewhat similar to a minotaur. Except more friendly._

----------


## Samael

I really haven't been lucid much since I've joined DV. Odd.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #19: Alternate Perspective Disorientation*

I'm in an afterlife version of downtown Quickton, wandering is separately from a group of people. There are at least four people here, but only one that I'm dealing with directly. I'm my female Lucifer character, and a female character is my main focus. I am, quite benevolently, her guide.

I look at the United Church. Cross streets on crosswalks. Generally being a smartass. There's a slight orange filter over everything. 

Driving with the group, trying to retrieve something. The ground turns to water. Trying to swim out with buckets. There's a girl with long, blonde curly hair and her boyfriend there, trying to stay afloat with the bucket they're carrying together. Quite a bit of leather between them.

I'm myself, near an approximation of Quickton's high school. There's a lot of concrete. I'm dropping off something for my brother, Ben. I'm driving away down a dirt road when my car stalls, and won't start again. I put it in neutral and coast it down a dip in the road, out of the way. I get out of the car, take a shortcut through someone's house, nervous that the owner might catch me. Back yard, hallway, kitchen. Enter from the west, leave through the south. I have been here before.

I'm an old woman sitting in the third or fourth car of a train. I have the car all to myself. It's cozy, and I'm sipping tea. Bored now. I climb out of a window on the side of the car and haul myself onto the roof. Jump over the other two cars, after curiously investigating the occupants, and greet the driver in the engine. She's looking off to the side, staring at something out of a window. I demand to know what she's looking at, because it might be important. She points, and I guess she's talking about my car.


Ninja Grandma!

I jump from the train without waiting for it to stop and walk through the dark green grass to the orange-lit streets. Traffic is backed up, though people are surprisingly patient. I walk to the very front of the traffic jam, and climb into my car.

I'm a little girl, Alice, and I'm being forced to drive the car by my father/uncle/evil stepfather. I keep adjusting the seat so I can see properly. Driving down a highway, then down a hill under a tunnel in a city.

Wandering through a grand manor full of rich red and orange hues to find my character sitting on the balcony. She looks extremely depressed, but it might actually be a spell. The other characters are concerned.

We're in a cute little house on a hill, all pastels and green grass. I'm either the male or the female main character. Both are magic-users/witches/wizards. The family is almost identical to the Dursleys. Petunia has immaculately permed hair, Dudley looks like Harry, and so does Vernon, really. Except older. I'm aware that Vernon has been making deals with a minor demon/god who, in his true form, looks suspiciously like the Cheschire Cat. 

A conversation with the family ends with us being locked in the cellar. I'm a Mia Wasikowska version of Alice, unrelated to the Dursleys. I doubt I've ever met them before. Harry and I plot our escape.



Later, I'm trapped at the kitchen table with Petunia and raspberry jam. Petunia's put on a veneer of politeness (while Harry is still in the cellar), using teatime as an excuse for an interrogation. Petunia doesn't think it's fair that our people keep secrets from her and her family* when the Dursleys are very obviously involved and in danger. Dudley lets us know from the door that Vernon is coming up the hill.

Vernon isn't alone. He steps into the house, perfectly blank in every way. An old man in a bowler hat walks calmly up the trail. He's a dead ringer for the man from a previous nightmare. Or God.



Petunia rushes to Vernon, asking what's wrong as Vernon stands motionlessly as a doll. I keep my attention on the man in the bowler hat, and nod slowly.

"The _Lunar God_," I say.

The man laughs and says yes, that's him, and Vernon's been dealing with him for quite some time.

He's given up control to you, I say quietly. For everything.

Well of course, but he didn't tell Vernon that beforehand. That would be a poor way to attract followers.

And then I wake up.

_Alternate Perspective Disorientation. Scare Factor: 3._

I always wake up when I meet that character.

*She has a point.

ETA: 100th post!

----------


## Samael

Edit: Old DC list. Replaced with index in the first post.

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #20: This is Your Church on Twitter*

I meet Willow Rosenburg in yet another universe where Buffy (me) never arrived in Sunnydale. She's actually alive in this one, and seems to be a successful something going to school somewhere.

Cue shenanigans. Running through a mall after a bad guy, considering a shirt on a mannequin. Then there's a car chase through Ixburg.

We've been captured by someone relatively benevolent. I'm not Buffy, but another superhero. I go to sleep, and am treated to a fast-forward view of myself tossing and turning.

I wake up when I realize that there's an old man staring at me creepily, and I find that I'm somewhat glad I'm playing a male character. Probably. My dream-self looks like Nicki Aycox right now, but everyone sees me as a guy? Yeah, I've done this before in a dream. Some interesting conversations happen. Kind of like on the forums here, actually.

Anyway, I'm sitting in the kitchen of the farmhouse, plotting my escape and working on the projects I've been assigned. Willow's here, too. I think they want me to illustrate a comic book, and the people they're working with want me to design a website for them, the Catholic Church in Ixburg. I endeavor to cause their brains to liquefy and dribble out their ears, and decide to add a twitter feed to their homepage.

_This is Your Church on Twitter. Scare Factor: 3 for the creepy old guy._

----------


## Samael

Remember the no colour-coding rule? I lied. Lucidity.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #21: Nitwit Protagonists*

Alice and I are having grand adventures in a very big store that, oddly, doesn't change at all throughout the dream. Well, maybe a bit.

A young Draco Malfoy is trying to get me in trouble during class for using a fixative over my charcoal drawing. Prove it, Draco. They like me better than you here.

Horseback riding. I touch my friend on the shoulder and am surprised when a sudden movement causes her to be knocked to the ground. She hits her head on the ground / a rock, hard. After dismounting, my character quickly decides that Alice is dead and she should try to figure out who the murderer is. She gives a Sherlock-style monologue to the two evil stepsisters nearby, also on horseback, about figuring out the murder. In the background, from a third person POV, I'm screaming at my character, "_Why don't you start CPR, already_?!"

_Nitwit Protagonists. Scare Factor: 3. Grr._

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #22: Bible Camp.*

I'm standing in one of the cabins at a bible camp I used to attend. There are two girls in the room, and the first asks if I'll be staying here. I'm a bit confused, so I say that's possible, as I move my stuff across the room to an empty bed. This is an empty bed, right?

"What year is it?" I ask.

Without even blinking, the first girl replies, "1995". I do some quick calculations and realize that I'm pretty sure I didn't go to bible camp until '96 or '97. Briefly, my dream-self is my present-me, though no one other than me notices. I concentrate on shrinking myself to a point where I'll fit the story.

The first girl wants to make me feel better, so she hands me a 1995 issue of _Climbing_, still in plastic. I'm pretty excited, so I thank her and take the package, tearing it open. I ask if I can use the poster insert for the week, to hang on the wall. (Note: my real bedroom walls are plastered with climbing posters, art, postcards, and maps.) I notice that I've ripped the cover up the spine a bit, so I look for some tape to fix it.

Girl #1 asks me not to tell on her for using the word "hell".  ::roll:: 

I look around my suitcase and find a spiral bound notebook small enough to fit in the pocket of my cargo pants. The front pages are already filled with dream journal entries prefixed by the "~" I use in my written journal. I grab a pen, too. Might as well start on the kid genius routine to get a few writings published early.

Girl #2 is reading a book when the counsellor walks in, a girl with black curly hair who, huh, would actually be younger than me in real life. Weird. She praises the little girl with long blonde hair, who just looks more and more annoyed as she's praised and showered with gold stars and cabin points.

Hey, I remember that. In grade three. With the book on volcanoes. Hm.

Girl #1 immediately scoops up a book and pretends she was reading the whole time. The cabin counsellor looks at me expectantly. 

"Eh heh, no." I say flatly, "I just finished reading _The Great Gatsby_; I'm going outside."

I wander away, looking for something to do. None of my contingency plans for time travel to bible camp go farther than "try not to get exorcised". 

I sit on a swing and recognize a few relatives from an inlawish side of the family that doesn't actually exist yet. As I probably haven't met them, I resolve to swing on swings. And ask people what they would do if they got to relive their respective childhoods. Other than die of boredom.

Whatever it was that I decided to do, it got me in trouble, all right. There's a boy from the swing set crying in the kitchen we've been left in, repeatedly saying, "I'm going to _hell_!" I try to reassure him by saying that there's no such thing as hell; it's just a story. I stop short of saying "There's also no God, Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus," because that would just be mean. Oddly, the boy doesn't seem to have calmed down at all. So I ignore him.

From what they tell me, I'm half-sure they're going to get me to do their accounting for them. It turns out that the Mad Hatter intervened and I get to serve my time in the kitchen developing new flavours of candy. Mad Hatter, Willy Wonka, either way, I get to hang out with Johnny Depp.

Lucid moments while I'm waking up, or they wake me up. Dream scenes fade, swirling away into a brown-black nothing, while I hold on to the feeling of whatever I'm touching at the moment.

_Bible Camp. Scare Factor: 2, oddly enough._

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #23: Nitwit Protagonists Take 2*

Perspective switches like whoa.

Mad Scientists in Halifax. There's a pool ready for some Olympic event, and there are a lot of people crowded throughout the room, but no one in the pool.

***

Sex dream with a random dream-guy.

***

I'm travelling through a Middle Eastern country by car. Two families are in the car together, neither is mine, and the characters who are sitting in the 5-person capacity car keep rotating out on me. We/They are passing farms on either side, scattered across the hilly prairie like they are, well, on the prairies. The hills are practically mountainous, they're so steep, and the grid road has been built up a lot so that it doesn't have to follow such a treacherous path. I see people wandering the hills on camels, and wonder if I'm driving through a stereotype. Miranda's driving. I collaborate with a girl in the backseat, trying to find a way to make bread on the road. Just... because.

We/They are walking into a tourist trap.

"McDonald's!" I cry with faux glee. They really are everywhere, goddamnit.

The group heads to a sign that says bathrooms, and also has baths. We've been on the road for a while, and would really appreciate a chance to get clean. These are public baths, divided by gender. The group crowds around the front desk, looking at the signs on the desk for how much it would cost them to use the baths.


Somehow, _this_ represents prices.

One of the girls catches up just as the rest of the group goes in. She doesn't have enough money? So she/I go(es) into one of the unisex bathrooms that are supposed to be private. Some random freaky guy shows up and she/I kick(s) his ass in a fight and then she takes off. Then I'm collectively the entire group of girls trying to figure out what happened and making up the story as they go.

Someone who looks like Cordelia Chase shows up and starts insulting everyone who works at the front desk no matter what their nationality is. DC behind the desk shifts into four different people.

I might be in an episode of a made-up season of Digimon, except there are no Digimon. There is an attempt to peer and squint at my handwriting, before I give up and just make shit up a group of characters that are replaced by new people when the original characters are taken out of the game die. A girl named Risa Cooper becomes the new Joy to much fanfare. She might be the girl from the previous dream.

There are two boys who seem to be best enemies. I alternate between their points of view for a while. Apparently, one of them is destined to kill the other, but neither of them wants to very much. They keep getting near to finishing the other one off, then backing off and doing it all again. They work together to defeat a monster. Then they put the eggs of the monster in the ground with the body and a bunch of fish or something. Then they bury it and decide that will hold them for a few years. Zooming back into a view of the desert.

I'm watching the episode online, and think about leaving a review via Stumbleupon along the lines of "You fucking idiots, why do you not smash things to pieces then bury everything in separate fucking places so they do not immediately have something to feed on upon hatching."

_Nitwit Protagonists Take 2. Scare Factor: 3. Reaction: WTF._

----------


## Samael

Three weeks without missing a day and suddenly something interesting happens on the weekend.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #24: Really Mad Hostages.*

A man is holding me and two other woman captive. We're being kept in the employee section of a motel in Ixburg, and though I pretty much wander around as I do in other dreams, the women who are with me are terrified. 

I'm left alone in the laundry room, which comes complete with all the stuff involved in running a motel. I idly search through needle-nosed pliers and other vaguely pointy things, before I pull a box cutter from the cleaning cart on the west wall. I use the pliers to pry the safety-features from the knife. I hear footsteps. The man walks into the room.

I have him pinned to the wall with a knife to his throat before he can blink. I can feel the savage grin splitting my face as I call to one of the other women. Lucy - long, curly brown hair - is standing down the hallway, looking nervous. I tell the man not to move; I won't hesitate to cut him open. 

"You wouldn't _dare_."

"Oh, I really, _really_ would."

Lucy hands me the phone in lieu of phoning 911 herself. I'm wondering if she can still speak. 

"They're not going to believe you," says the man. "They're going to think you did this."

I ignore him.

"Amy speaking."

Confused, I ask, "Um, this is 911?"

"Yes."

"Wait, _Amy_?"

"Sam? Is that you?"

I break myself out of my reverie. "Amy, I need police -" I glance at Lucy, "and an ambulance at the Ixburg Inn." I briefly explain the situation.

"Phone number?" Remembrances of the first aid course I took.

I list off the phone number for the motel, as I remember it.

The man laughs. "It's been a while since you've lived here, hasn't it? We changed the phone number!"

"_I gave them the address!_"

The man may or may not have lived to stand trial.

_Really Mad Hostages. Scare Factor: 3._

Actually, I'm pretty sure he did live, considering he was following me through a museum later on. Any tips for dealing with in-dream stalkers? Anyone?

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #25: Amestrian Conspiracies Involving Your Protagonist.*

Overlooking a dirt street from the rooftops. A man is talking to a thief-girl he saw on the street. She bolts, and he makes no move to catch her. The girl swings her way onto the rooftops, moving directly past my hiding place. I'm immediately in pursuit. She panics, makes her way to a pillar jutting from the roof, hoping for a reprieve. It should be impossible to climb, but I use my momentum to move upwards and find handholds where there are none.

I may not be an alchemist, but I have my own talents.

I face off against the girl on top of an eight foot circle of concrete.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I say, "I just need to know what he told you."

The girl lashes out at me, shrieking. I dodge her easily. She strikes again, goes wide, and loses her footing - I grab onto her tattered cloak, and her momentum pulls me with her from the top of the tower. I'm holding onto the edge with one hand, but if I want to keep the girl from falling, I have to let go.

I let go of the wall entirely, touching only with my feet. I'm holding the girl in my arms and am standing at a ninety degree angle to the wall. There's a moment of breathless surprise from the girl in my arms before I jump -

We land easily on the roof below the tower.

I have a quick conversation with the dazed pickpocket, who takes off after giving me the information I need. I don't follow.

"Elric!" I shout to the street. The man from before, with long, dark hair and glasses, looks up at me, quietly amused. I drop down to the dirt road in order to interrogate him more quietly. Alphonse doesn't back down. "I need to talk to your brother."

The conversation goes nowhere, and I find myself tailing the younger Elric brother from the rooftops. I stay low, watching the reactions of the AS2-style city guards so I don't have to keep him in my direct line of sight.

I follow him to a building with glass double-doors, and I drop down onto the street. I walk toward the guard. I think about giving him a three-digit code for "I'm following that guy; don't get in my way," but I'm bad with numbers while I'm dreaming. I nod at the DC, willing him to pass on the message. It worked. As I walk down the hallway, I'm aware of the DC passing it on to the other guards in the area.

Alphonse is reporting to someone in an office with a glass wall. I can't keep the woman from seeing me, but Alphonse has his back to me, and I walk past the office as if I belong there, into an L-shaped corridor. As I round the corner I have a brief 3rd person glimpse of myself wearing Assassin's White. I stand at the edge of the glass wall, behind curtains, trying to hear what's being said.

((Note: Deliberate perspective leaps could be useful while spying. Try to induce these deliberately.))

The meeting is over and I quickly move down the hallway into an unexplored room. As I open the door, I realize that this is Edward Elric's study. I notice the cot jammed into the far corner. Or bedroom. Black blankets are piled around the room and I briefly consider hiding under a pile as Alphonse opens the door. Only, that would be undignified.

No, it's time for a two-sided interrogation. This should be fun.

_Amestrian Conspiracies Involving Your Protagonist. Scare Factor: 2._

----------


## Samael

Yesterday:

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #26: Teletubbies*

There's a tall building reaching to the sky in a giant spiral. It has something to do with Bruce Wayne, I think I met him, I don't know. I'm exploring the huge building when I happen onto a route outside. I've found a viewpoint from Assassin's Creed. For some reason, I need the eagle, so I sneak up to it and catch it! I'm holding onto the eagle as I jump, knowing that I'm about to fly up into the sky!

I fall. And fall, and fall, and fall, and (viewpoints are very high up, you know) fall. I twist around to protect the bird I'm holding in my hands, and land on my side without much of an impact. Aside from turning into a very small owl, the bird is fine. I'm glad, but I'm also very disappointed at the lack of flying.

***

I'm in a space station, trying to sabotage a robot, because it is evil. I pop the robot's cassette tape from a wall, and move over to a desk. Or a checkout. I think I'm resisting the change from space station to convenience store.

Two female DCs are freaking out on me (one is my fictional boss on the project), wondering what the hell I'm doing with that tape because it could ruin the whole project. They're not getting in my way, so I ignore them. I pop the tape into a recording device and record the ambient noise. I briefly consider reprogramming the robot by manipulating the sounds being recorded.

***

Teletubbies are attacking the earth.



They're flying in from outer space and attacking us. I zoom into the tall cylinder building from a previous dream and start fighting teletubbies.

_Teletubbies. Scare Factor: 2. Reaction: Kill them._

----------


## Samael

Obviously, I've been watching too much _Supernatural_.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #27: Skinwalkers.*

I've somehow been entered into a race that involves hopping on one foot and a flutter-board. I argue that 5K is a long way to hop on one foot.


idek.

I'm crowded into the entrance of a bar. I think these are people that my brother knows. I notice that one guy is acting suspicious, so I follow him outside and onto the roof. I find him threatening another man with a knife.


You know that little voice people have that tells them to quit when they're ahead? You don't have one! 

"Hey!" I call, stepping out of the shadows. Both men turn to look at me, one still brandishing his knife.

"Hey, calm down," I say, hoping that I don't sound patronizing, "There's no need for that, right? Put the knife down, and we can talk."

We circle each other, and I'm moving closer with every step to the side. The third man moves away, more or less forgotten. The man with the knife focuses all his attention on me. He's not going to listen.

I step in without warning, grab the wrist holding the knife and _twist_. He doesn't drop the knife, but I have a hand on it, and suddenly I can see all the outcomes of the fight at once, blood spraying everywhere. Mostly his.

I'm sitting back in the bar with a group of people that I know. I'm invisible part of the time, so I play with the DCs a bit, asking them what they're seeing as they look at me. One replies that she can see the skull of my grandmother's rotting corpse, covered in maggots. I decide that this game isn't fun anymore.

The police are all over the bar, trying to figure out what happened. The patrons are willfully ignoring them. I'm glad that I'm wearing black, because at least you can't see the bloodstains. I look down at my grey shirt, covered in blood. No, I was wearing black the whole time, I convince the dream. I get back into the story by willing myself into a different form. I decide to shift into a guy, because that's an unlikely disguise. Hey, I can be Jensen Ackles!


Yay! I'm him a lot. Why?

I consider changing eye/hair color so I don't look like an actor, but I decide that he doesn't actually exist in this universe and go talk to the cops. Because it's... fun, or something.

There's a female detective on the roof, speculating about what happened. I see these speculations in flashbacks. _The girl (me) made a grab for the knife,_ she says,_ and cut her attacker, injuring him. Then he killed her, and disposed of the body somewhere._


Not nearly this cool.

I'm somewhat insulted, actually, but it helps me put the pieces together. I must have won the fight. Since the man with the knife is missing, I probably accidentally killed him and disposed of the body somewhere. Wow, do they have it backwards.

Nobody wonders where the third man went. 

They're talking about fingerprints, so I decide this would be a good time to change mine. I will the change, and zoom back into watching an onscreen sequence of the patterns changing.

_Skinwalkers are the bad guys, right?_ I wonder on the irony of shifting into Dean Winchester as a shapeshifter. Am I evil right now? Maaaybe.

I converse with the suspicious detective who probably suspects me for something. I swing around the wire fences on the rooftops for a bit, before coming back to the ground where the detective is waiting on a park bench. Apparently we had a long, in-depth conversation that I can't remember, because she actually trusts me a bit now. Yay, we're friends. Or possible love-interests. Hm.

The detective is wondering if I'll be okay to get home by myself, being as it's after dark in a city infested by the supernatural. I assure her that I'll be fine (being as I'm one of the supernatural monsters everyone seems to be afraid of). I check the area, zooming out to the east, where I'm headed. Dark alleys lit by an orange glow. I zoom out to the west, only to find a pack of Dark Jedi closing in on us, jumping around as NPCs do in Jedi Academy. I spot a couple of green and blue lightsabers among all the red, mostly carried by those wielding dual lightsabers.

"We should go," I say, still tracking the pack remotely. "We should go _now_." I'm more concerned about the detective than myself. I heal fast.

We walk eastwards away from the group, hoping that we won't bait them if we don't run away.

They catch up to us. Immediately, I draw dual sabers in red and blue, slashing down the first two Dark Jedi to reach us. I take down another, still standing protectively in front of the detective. I rush out past a female Dark Jedi, striking her in the back before she can turn. Finally, there are two left. I face the leader and send one of my sabers flying at his remaining minion. She's down. I rush the leader with a flurry of strikes.

No effect.

I pause in my offensive. "Okay," I tell him, "That was at least three direct strikes to your neck, minimum. You should be dead." He just grins.

A blow to the arm, and I have him disarmed. I grab him by the hair and slash across his neck. "Are. You. Dead. Yet?" I ask the disembodied head. That would be a yes.

Also, fail for lack of gore.

I'm covered in blood, so I figure now is a good time for a tactical retreat. We make it to the Best Western where I've made a reservation. I figure we have a half hour to shower and make ourselves presentable (read: not covered in blood) before the antagonists start to come after us.

"I'd offer 'ladies first'", but I'm the one who looks like a walking horror movie right now."

Unfortunately, I'm really bad with numbers when I'm dreaming, so we end up wandering the halls looking for the hotel room. Which is on the third floor. No, the first. No, the second. Wait, are we in a hostel?

_Skinwalkers. Scare Factor: 2. Reaction: Violence is fun._

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #28: Dude, Where's My Car?*

I'm wandering around a casino parking lot, looking for my car. Two other people are there, one of whom I met at a first aid course a couple weeks ago. The other one might be my friend Miranda. I think I spot my car, but it turns out it belongs to Mel, the first aid girl. It looks remarkably similar to my car until I realize that the plates don't match. My plates are --- ---, I remember with perfect clarity. Also, she parked rather crazily, and apparently I consider myself the better driver. We then find my dad's car close by. Maybe I drove this one? No.

Making out with a girl in a bathroom.

Having a conversation on another forum about whether I can be considered bisexual if I'm pansexual. Um... yes.
_
Dude, Where's My Car? Scare Factor: 1. Reaction: There goes a dream-sign._

----------


## Samael

Accidentally submitted this before I was finished writing. What the hell?

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #29: LG's Got a Gun.*

I'm drinking. A lot. At a bar. I'm wondering if it's Saturday night and I missed the meetup with Vicki. I see Matt and Jen from High School on the other side of the bar, and debate over whether I want to talk to them. I've been drinking things like rum and coke all night, and now I've moved onto Pinot Gris. I guess. It tastes like champagne.

I'm in the backyard of the Ixburg Inn, having been ordered to clean up the scaffolding houses by my dad. I notice movement in another yard, a brief dark flash. I watch the roof of a nearby building for another sign of it. There's a dirtbiker up there. My mom and I watch him ramp from that roof an impossible distance over the highway. He lands badly, but that was supposed to happen. He's fine.

At a fair, I argue with Gus about something. I'm Shawn Spencer, and my dad (Henry) is around, too. The fair has a layout suspiciously similar to the backyard I was just in.

As myself, I put the truck in park, turn off the ignition, and raise my hands slowly. I'm turning toward the man in the passenger seat, who is happily delivering his Hannibal Lecture while pointing a gun at me. It's a revolver, I notice.



He explains to me that the time I was born can be flipped backwards to show the time it is right now. "You see," he says to me, "This time is the _antithesis_ of your birth."

"Yes, that's very poetic."

I'm ordered out of the truck. I keep my hands up as I follow his orders, stepping onto the green grass in the backyard of my house. I know that there are kids inside the house, quite possibly my cousins. At this point in the dream, though, I think they might be mine.

I try to bargain with the man, but I know that he's going to kill me. If I resist, he says he'll kill everyone inside, but I can't be sure that he won't do that anyway. We circle each other over the grass. The man tells me that these bullets were specially made for me. 

Don't I feel special.

The gun wavers for a moment, and I take my chance. I lash out with a kick to his wrist, then grab for the gun. I pick it up and aim at my tormentor. He raises his hands and grins, daring me to do it.

I can't. I empty the revolver of the gold bullets. They spill to the ground, and I scramble for the six of them. I stumble backward as the man laughs. I step inside, latching the glass patio door behind me.

"Go downstairs," I order my cousins. "Get one of the adults to call 911. *Ask for police!*" I shout at their retreating backs. I move through the house, locking and bolting the other two doors shut.

"So..." says my uncle, "We're safe as long as we don't go outside."

I consider the patio door, how easily the man could get in. "We're safe." I lie.

"Wait," I say after a beat, "_Has anyone called 911?_"

I curse and grab for the nearest black portable phone. I dial three numbers. "Hello, I need police at -" Silence on the other end. I glance at the display and read 901. Great. I'm wandering down the stairs at this point, redialling the number repeatedly to no effect. I see a flash of the man, laughing. I consider that he might have cut the phone lines.

"*Does anyone have a cell phone?*" I shout into the basement, frustrated and panicking. I begin redialling numbers on a blackberry no one gave me. 090. 901. 109. 119. My frustration reaches a peak -

And I realize that this is always what happens in dreams. I look up the stairs to the side door, reasoning that I fell asleep in my bedroom and there's no way I could actually be here. I walk up the stairs, touching things (the bannister, the wall), feeling the texture in order to solidify the dream. I'm worried about waking up. I unlock the door, open it. When I step outside, it's dark, and there's a layer of snow on the damp ground.

I move toward the street, making footprints as I go. I look up to the night sky, which is clear and filled with stars.

"Go to the moon," I whisper aloud. "Go to the moon."

I stretch a hand out in front of me, willing a portal to open, for something to happen. A pulse radiates outward from my hand, blurring everything briefly and circling behind me. I can still see the stars. The dream dissolves.

I'm in some kind of afterlife realm, filled with ribbons and people and flying. I'm attached to the colour yellow, which I hate. I try flying, but can only achieve a delayed falling effect.

_LG's Got a Gun. Scare Facter: 4.5. Reaction: Lucidity!_

I did the faux-math LG was trying to tell me about. Apparently I'm supposed to die next week. Saturday-ish.

----------


## Samael

I had all these grand plans for lucidity, but when you're relying on DILDs, plans don't always work out so well.

I have a plan to call LG to talk to him, using the gold bullets that he left with my dream-self in "LG's Got a Gun". McAnally's is a fictional bar in Chicago that magical beings often use for meetings because it's considered neutral ground. I hope to meet with him there because it's a relatively safe place.

Also "the Lunar God" character might be interfering with my travel to the moon.

Dream stories are _fun_.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #30: City-Fusions*

I'm walking around a version of the grocery store in Ixburg which I've seen before. Produce by the entrance to the southwest, ceiling-high shelving running east-west all through the store like a warehouse. I'm looking for strawberries.

Still in the grocery store, I'm now a different character. I'm an employee and also some kid genius version of myself from an alternate timeline that I can't recall the gender of. I help someone with a difficult problem. They try to complement me, but I tell them, "Hey, I just work in a grocery store."

I don't and never have in real life.

Now I'm in a strange mix of Halifax and Quickton, where the rivers cross through the city, forcing roads to follow bridges and riverbanks. It's topsy-turvy, and hilly, and it's a bright, sunny day.

Various members of my family, including aunts and uncles, are waiting on the patio section of a restaurant, looking at menus and hoping someone will get around to serving us eventually. I'm looking at the menu, unable to find anything that's vegetarian, but the menu itself is really hard to decipher. A waitress shows up to say we're supposed to be ordering right now, but they're _really_ busy, so is it all right if we just wait a bit?

My mom, another woman (possibly Sandra, my mom's friend), and myself go to check out another restaurant. When we get there, we notice that our other group hasn't been served yet, either. It's a lose/lose situation, I guess.

Sandra is driving. We cross a bridge and are headed downward on a slight slope when, from the passenger seat, I notice a truck heading toward us has suddenly flipped into the air without warning. "Whoa." is the collective consensus. Sandra hasn't slowed down and I call her on it. The truck is still flipping, and it's starting to roll into our lane. As we get closer, the truck flips up into the air again, and we zoom safely underneath.



"_Nice_ timing!" I say to Sandra.

I'm still in the Halifax/Quickton hybrid, zooming across the city at a bird's eye view. I think about karate classes once a week, and the fact that I keep moving from city to city, changing up disciplines and instructors. _I'm a martial artist,_ I think to myself, _I need to take my training into my own hands._ A flash of me running down a dirt trail.

_City-Fusions. Scare Factor: 1. Reaction: I think my subconscious is trying to tell me something._

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #31: Buffy, When You're Quite Possibly Evil, Maybe.*

I am, once again, my female Lucifer character, where I introduce myself to people as Sam. I'm following a version of the character in which I'm sent from place to place through dimensional portals. I open the portals myself, but I have no idea where they lead to when I step through. I don't remember most of this dream, which is a shame, because it was fun. I think.

I've secured myself an invite into the apartment. I don't need it; it's just polite. I open up the window and step inside and -

_splash_

- find myself doused in holy water. It has no effect, of course. 

Buffy is very suspicious of me, for good reason, I suppose. I'm not actually an antagonist to her and Angel, though. This time.

_Buffy, When You're Quite Possibly Evil, Maybe. Scare Factor: 2. Reaction: I really wish I could remember more of this._  :Sad: 

Edited for redundancy.

----------


## Samael

Has anyone else noticed how being (really, really, really) drunk can feel like dreaming? RC, RC, RC. Anyway, the following dreams are so fragmented I have no idea where each one ends or the order in which they occurred.
*
Things To Run Away From Really Fast #32: Unconscious Desires to Move to a New City. Again. Now.*

I'm checking out a gym in the new city I've apparently moved to. It's based in a university/college/high school, and membership is affordable.

A group of (mostly female) students are being led around by their female teacher. Some of the girls need to use the bathroom, so the group is collectively looking for one. They're in subway tunnels now, and the teacher is talking to a bouncer outside some kind of establishment, who won't let them in because they're women or minors or both.

I'm talking to my brother, Ben, at some kind of family gathering on a farm, when he starts quoting The Spoony One verbatim while we're talking about a game. Movie. Book. IDEK. Anyway, I call him on it, but he has no idea what I'm talking about. My cousin Reg, who's the same age as my brother, says he got to see a screening of that once. _They're online videos_, I tell him. _What the hell._

We're trying to watch The Daily Show, but Ben tells me that we can't watch the episode because it's only on the US version of the site. I explain to him how you can use an add-on for Firefox to - ahem. Never mind.

Running up the stairs at the farm.

Someone explains to me that the farm is in danger and we have this plot going on to save it. Jill rolls her eyes and tells me to run because I'll never hear the end of it.

"I'm dreaming." I realize at some point. I blink in surprise. "How am I lucid?" I wasn't planning on having any lucid dreams tonight.

I'm going for a quick meal in Tim Hortons, trying to decipher the menu and remember what I can eat. I really want some chicken noodle soup, but I can't eat it since I'm vegetarian. I could get a bagel, but I don't really want a bagel. When I step outside again, I continue with my dream. Apparently I'm a student in some Squamish/Halifax hybrid. There are mountains in the not-so-far-away distance, and one in particular is relevant to the plot. So are the houses I'm biking towards.
_
Unconscious Desires to Move to a New City. Again. Now. Scare Factor: 1._

I'm debating on whether to count this under monthly lucid dream totals. On the one hand, most definitely lucid. On the other, very short, with little to no influence exerted on the dream. That I can remember, anyway.

----------


## scottyo

> Has anyone else noticed how being (really, really, really) drunk can feel like dreaming? RC, RC, RC.



that's what I said just two nights ago! i was only buzzed and we were watching a movie and I told my buddy "I'm watching this movie but it feels like im actually not." he understood me luckily because he's a dreamer here too. anyways very interesting style of DJ. i skimmed through some of the dreams and they're very interesting.

----------


## Samael

> "I'm watching this movie but it feels like im actually not." he understood me luckily because he's a dreamer here too.



Haha, I may have mumbled something to that effect the other night, but the people with me were most definitely not deliberate dreamers. Right over their heads. Of course, it's entirely possible that I was just making no sense whatsoever.





> anyways very interesting style of DJ. i skimmed through some of the dreams and they're very interesting.



Thanks! I'm having fun with it.  :smiley:

----------


## Samael

I woke up not remembering any of my dreams. Fortunately, I had enough time to reflect on the one thing I did remember: doing laundry. Because it's laundry day.

Also, I had a bunch of dreams in imaginary places that I can remember from other dreams. I think.
*
Things to Run Away From Really Fast #33: Familiar Places*

I take out the one item of clothing in the washing machine that was, apparently, very important to wash separately. I throw in the rest of the clothes, consider using oxyclean, and wash on hot. When I go upstairs, I'm in my old apartment in Ixburg. The dishwasher is in front of the sink, so apparently I'm doing dishes as well.

***

I enter the building through the only set of doors that are open. Apparently it's not the entrance I'm supposed to use, though. I talk to a middle-aged woman with short red hair, who tells me off and gives me directions. I head past the stairs and onto a set of escalators. Presumably, these will take me to the elevators. I need to use the elevator because this is a really _tall_ building that I've dreamed about before. Something about an orchestra.

***

I'm dreaming about university classes. A photo of me working on the project outside. There's a rack of clothing in the background, sitting just outside of the open door of a store. High quality clothes, a lot of black. All very feminine, though. I think I need to talk to my professor about something related to the project.

***

We're going on an impromptu trip, just because. Also, a national/provincial park in BC (which was also in another dream, which involved running and rock climbing) demands that we return the photos we took there. I tell my mom to make copies and send them, but to keep the originals. I'll take down the ones that I (did not) post to my online dream journal. The photos look remarkably similar to the ones I took in Squamish.


You will never take my pictures away. I will not allow it.

We were planning to go north to go skiing, but Castiel wants to go east because he's never been. We think we might not have time to get anywhere interesting on this road trip, but we go anyway. (I think we split into two groups. One goes west, one goes east.)

We're in Halifax. I'm thrilled, pointing out all of the imaginary landmarks that I see. My mom is driving through a strange version of downtown Halifax where all of the buildings are even closer together and the streets lead into each other in ways that they don't in real life. Also, running on the rooftops in dream!Halifax would be delightful.

There's a detour to my old apartment. We stop in to see my building manager. My mom wants to talk to him about something specific, but I'm just there to say hi, I guess. He now has a fancy glass office where the elevators used to be. He's talking on the phone right now, so I distract myself while we wait.

I overhear my mom talking about/pointing at camping equipment. I ask if we're going camping because that would be awesome but what are we going to use because we packed really light? I have a bookbag worth of clothes that might actually be carried in Amelia Pond's suitcase from the Eleventh Hour. Which is small.

I walk in to a huge tent that apparently has some of my old stuff in it. I don't recognize any of it, but rationalize that something mundane and forgettable, like the broom in the corner, could very well be mine.

When I walk out of the tent, my high school classmates are sitting on the lawn, drinking. Someone pours me a rum and coke. Matt regales me with a "when I was a bartender" story and teases me about the hangover I had yesterday. I'm a bit defensive, saying that I did pretty well for someone who rarely drinks.

I walk into an apartment on the first floor, waving to my old classmates as I go. I press along the wall near the thermostat, and a second room opens. I guess that this is a bedroom I left here. I set down my mini-suitcase, somewhat glad that I still have (outdoorsy) clothes here. Oh, and apparently I'm Batgirl.

***

This dream occurs frame by frame, manga style. Most of it is even in black and white. Ed is singing into a tape recorder about alchemy. There may even be text balloons. A caption says that alchemists are obsessed, and don't think of anything other than alchemy, ever. Alphonse wanders through, still armor, and wants to know what the hell is going on. Ed happily explains that he's recording a tape for their recently discovered grandmother. Alphonse is understandably disturbed.
_
Familiar Places. Scare Factor: 1. Reaction: I'm sure I've seen those places before._

----------


## scottyo

frick I had my first freaky dream in a long time last night. first one since joining DV and I think me reading your scary dreams provoked them. not to make you feel bad, just thought you'd think it was interesting.

----------


## Samael

That's too bad, scottyo.  :Sad:  I hope they were at least fun, adventure filled freaky dreams, though that might be overly optimistic, huh?

I guess I'll get to read about it at the end of the week, yeah? We can bounce nightmares back and forth.  ::disconcerted::

----------


## Samael

Non-lucidSemi-LucidLucid

I concocted a plan to confront LG, utilizing the golden bullets he left me. This is the plan:





> Note: this is not a dream.
> 
> I'm standing by the Bar in McAnally's, the pub in Dresdenverse Chicago. The building is established neutral ground, and the place is specifically designed to break up magical energies. Its design is broken up into odd nooks and crannies perfect for a dream walk.
> 
> I order two beer from Mac and take them, handing Mac a twenty with my right hand as I hold the other two in my left. I thank him and make my way to a nearby table. I set down the beers.
> 
> I reach into the right pocket of my jeans, where I put the golden bullets LG had threatened me with. I place them on the table in front of me and look up at the ceiling while sipping on my beer. It tastes like I imagine butterbeer would: rich and sweet. Inexplicable.
> 
> "You really expect me to drink this?"
> ...



This is the result.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #34: Failed Interrogations*

I'm with the Joker in an armoured truck in a scene eerily reminiscent of _Fight Club_. Now, what could that mean?  ::shock:: 


You're just a freak, like me!

I'm following two characters and a potential horror movie from a third person point of view. At one point, I accidentally possess one of the characters and take some time off from the plot to... dye my hair. So yeah.

Same location. I'm waiting for my karate class to start. I check my watch, and it's 6:90PM. I guess I'm late. No, wait, this is a dream sign. I look around, confused, because this doesn't really feel like a dream. I pay more attention to my surroundings, and realize that it actually is a dream. I stop to savour the amazing feeling of being lucid.

"I'm dreaming," I say, and I start to repeat it to myself as I move around the dream-world. I'm not feeling very well, so I go to grab something from the fridge (in a place I've never been). I'm craving rasberries. When I open the fridge door, I find clear Yop yogurt containers filled with frozen rasberries. I eat a few.

I'm moving toward the exit when Ben stops me and wants me to listen to a song. It's rap music. I'm not interested, and there was something I wanted to do tonight, so I'm busy. A brief wrestling match with my brother ensues, but I shake him off and run to the exit. A steel staircase leads to a latched window.

I will the window to be open. I crawl out and latch it behind me. 

I remember that I wanted to go to McAnally's to meet with the Lunar God character. I stretch a hand out in front of me and will the dream to dissolve. I close my eyes briefly, but when I open them, the green grass and concrete and sun are still there. Energy continues to swirl around me. I close my eyes again, and _push_ through the dream-fabric. 

When I open my eyes again, I can't see anything. Everything is dark, though coloured energy swirls through the space to break up the monotony. There seems to be a slight tear in the dream, so I move toward it (zooming closer, not walking). I drop to my knees and feel for the wooden door that I'm sure should be there. I imagine the texture, feel for iron handles of the closed door. I visualize the grain of the wood that should be there, the glass that is set into it.

"Open the door," says Mac, rolling his eyes. "We keep them open while we're open."

I stand up and dust myself off, looking at the four pointed star mounted on the door, just above my eye level. Did I create that?


The dream star was more ornate.

I shake off the strange feeling and move to the bar beside the door. This isn't anything like I'd imagined the place to be. The wood is darker, glossier, and everything is more streamlined than I'd expected.

"Two beer." I say to Mac. I dig through my pockets for the twenty that should be there, but I only find a bunch of change in my right pocket, where the bullets should be. Loonies, toonies, quarters. I apologize for paying in change, and I give him the $20 pile of change, minus the six loonies I need for LG. I consider that since we're in Chicago, I should have given him American money. I let my hand hover over the pile of change, and will it into American bills. The money flickers and I see paper. I'm not sure if it worked.

Mac waves me off, and I grab the beer and my loonies, setting them both down on a round wooden table near the bar.

"Aw, you don't need to do that," says a voice, "You already paid for drinks."

"These aren't coins," I say, turning to look at what I think is the Lunar God. He's younger than any incarnation I've seen before. He grins in understanding and takes a seat.

I take a sip of the beer. It tastes like Pilsner.

There's a third person at the table, whom I never acknowledge. Her (?) presence seems shadowy, dark, barely there. I think it's Elaine.

A girl comes up to LG and asks if it's okay if she leaves with someone.

"_Yes._" says one of us, before LG can comment. We kind of need to talk to him.

Unfortunately, LG's very presence seems to destabilize all dreams, and I can't remember a damn thing after that. Including whether I still have the bullets.

_Failed Interrogations. Scare Factor: 3. Reaction: I need a new plan._

----------


## scottyo

> I guess I'll get to read about it at the end of the week, yeah? We can bounce nightmares back and forth.



yeah i guess you figured out that i post at the end of the week all at once.

----------


## Samael

Well, it makes sense. Better to post on a schedule you can keep up. I think the last day I actually posted was Tuesday...

----------


## Samael

Mostly fragments these last few days. I haven't been sleeping well.

Also, I've dyed my hair dark brown. Dreams seem to take a while to catch up on these things.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #35: A Pirate's Life.*

Below deck, on this particular pirate ship, there is a structure made with cooked spaghetti. We're sitting around it in a circle, making fun of Dean Winchester as he tries to add noodles to the structure, Jenga-style. He loses balance and half the structure collapses around him. The group laughs uproariously, and it's the next guy's turn.

I'm standing on deck, looking out over the water. Apparently we're being sold into slavery. Those of us in this very special group are making some very necessary escape plans.

"Have you ever been to [Modern Tortuga Expy]?" Asks Jack O'Neill from beside me.

I'm a short-haired blonde, badass and immortal, and I've been everywhere, man. "I'm familiar with the area," I say, and pause, considering. "I hope they've forgotten about me."

Now that we're on shore, we can put those plans into motion. We just need to make some tiny adjustments to fit the current situation. I'm standing next to our packed-together bunk-beds with O'Neill. All we need to do is lure one of the guards close enough...

A jaffa guard approaches us, demanding to know why we're breaking curfew. 

I look at O'Neill, shrug. "No time like the present."

We escape.

_Shift._

I wander the same environment in my real life persona, trying to remember where I parked, and if it was in a tow-away zone. Several days have passed.

_Shift._

I decide to go to one city or another. Calgary? I'm driving badly, wondering belatedly why I'm cutting so many people off. I end up walking into a store that I'm apparently the manager of. I watch someone in another store across the mallway play the guitar. I pull out an electric guitar from my stuff, even though I cannot play the guitar.

_Shift._

I'm in Quickton, riding a bicycle and absently wondering why there are so many hills. I talk to a DC, a woman I apparently don't like very much, and retroactively acquire memories of whatever it is she's talking about.

_Shift._

I'm on a farm for _yet another_ family reunion. I'm pushing a steak around on my plate, mildly discomfited to realize that I've already been eating it. I decide to finish it anyway and ignore anything the anti-vegetarians around me decide to say. There's a woman with long, dark hair sitting beside me. She seems uncomfortable with all the religious proselytizing going on. I assure her that most of the godless heathens in the family (myself included) have already eaten.

_Shift._

Playing with a dog.

_Shift._

I'm to play the bad guy in some game. I adopt an atrocious English accent and hope the one English woman running around somewhere won't be too offended.

_Shift._

I'm a female lawyer with an English accent, long dark hair, and a crisp grey pantsuit. I'm also very good at what I do. Also, evil.

_Shift._

I'm jumping through impossible puzzles suspended over darkness. I'm communicating with someone via radio. I drop the rope. I jump down a couple levels, only to find it all tangled up. I'm presently annoyed by all that is paranormal, so I use a magic trick to cause the rope to "magically" raise itself to the next level. It involves wire.

_Shift._

I'm standing in front of a magic shop.

_Shift._

I'm in a mall. As Barbara Gordon, I talk to a cannibalistic hyena man. I'm replacing my right arm with something, and the hyena man tells me that they've ripped my arm off (before I jumped into the character) to make me more appetizing. I leave.

_A Pirate's Life. Scare Factor: 3._

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #36: Demon Barbers, Malfunctioning Portals.*

Two characters are around my old apartment in Ixburg. They look like Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr.. I play with story lines and wonder what's about to happen. Then I'm running over rooftops and away from Sweeney Todd.

I'm on the roof and he's on the ground. I double back quickly, jumping down and landing a flying kick to his head. Then I turn around and keep running.

I'm in a playground, on top of one of the structures. There's a man with me. He has the head of an eagle, and wings. He tells me that something is out of alignment within me, that my back hurts because of it. I see tattoos dancing across skin as he presses into the pressure points on my back. I see his wings spread out above, and ask if I can touch them. He tells me not to.

I decide I liked the old tower better, even if it was less accessible. I crawl in through the window and realize that someone is lying on the floor. I ask him if he has a pulse. He says that he doesn't.

I fall into an ocean of black water. I swim to the surface, take a breath. I'm treading water for only a moment before I'm pulled under again. Everything is fuzzy, but I keep breathing, and I realize that I'm dreaming. I swim to the bottom, covered in dark grey silt, and maybe a shipwreck or two. I concentrate on dissolving the dream or opening a portal or maybe both

I'm balanced precariously on the dark surface, which is riddled with craters. Briefly, I believe that I've made it to the moon, but I see the crescent moon on the horizon. I think that I'm on an asteroid between the Earth and the moon. I walk over the crest of the asteroid (10m in diametre), and look out at the moon. I'm perched at the top of a crater. I'm pressed against the ceiling, and everything is going dark.

I'm in Ixburg. My parent's house is next to my oma's house as part of a duplex. The door is unlocked. I talk to my oma and am invited in. We make room for the group of Katimavik kids that are in town. 

Outside fighting against some kind of non-human enemy. My character isn't supposed to have superpowers, but I do anyway. I see myself flying from a third person POV.

_Demon Barbers, Malfunctioning Portals. Scare Factor: 3._

P.S. Obviously, I'm still alive. So much for prophecy.

----------


## Samael

This dream was confusing.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #37: Murder Mysteries*

I'm walking along a path by the river in Quickton. There are a large number of orangutan/dog/otter hybrids about, and the locals have been warned to stay away from them. One that looks like a great dane approaches me and jumps up, trying to lick at my face. I laugh.
_
Shift._

I practically fall out of the truck when we reach the police station. "It's okay", says Kate Beckett, "You're safe here."

My POV switches to Beckett, who's trying to solve the mystery of the invisible animalistic murderer. I'm now interacting with myself ("Sam") as the character Kate Beckett. I note that we don't have much ammo.

An Asian woman stumbles toward the safety of the police station. Already, she's bleeding from numerous slashes to her torso, which look almost like claw marks. The monster must have followed us here.

Sam mysteriously disappears, and we assume the worst.

I interrogate people who are the collective head of an international company. Someone sabotages the elevator, almost killing one of them.

They upgrade security.

The elevator is sabotaged _again_. I almost catch the culprit, but I have to stay in order to save the people inside. I catch the chain of the machine used for sabotage, and pull it up to a floor where they'll be able to get out.

The Chairman of the company is killed. The CEO chooses to reveal his identity.

The murderer decides to talk to me. It's Sam, complete with all my lucid superpowers. Apparently, I was the murderer all along. I'm watching myself give a villainous monologue. From a third person perspective apart from Beckett's character, I'm very surprised.

_Murder Mysteries. Scare Factor: 2. Reaction: Did not see that coming._

I'm working on a short-story adaptation of this dream, minus the identity confusion. It was actually a lot of fun.

----------


## RomanSoldier

I find it quite interesting that you dreamt from someone else's perspective. I think I will make it a goal of mine, though I am not sure how well it would work considering I already dream in 3rd person.  Cool dream still though!

----------


## Samael

@RomanSoldier: It was an odd experience, to say the least. Apparently my dream-avatar had a mind of its own.

Non-LucidSemi-LucidLucid

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #38: Witch Trials*

I hop on a bus with a duffel bag and a backpack, headed out to Halifax. I arrive at the hostel. There's a book sale in one of the rooms. I gravitate toward the back corner and recognize the cover for a Sherlock Holmes collection. I open it up, pleasantly surprised to find the book full of illustrations. I head over to another corner by the windows and flip through a few children's books for reference. The illustrations in every book are watercolour and ink or acrylic and ink. They have a grainy, spooky tone to them and some of the watercolour scenes are brilliant. I pick out a few and head to cash.

"You've got two books there?"

I glance down at the pile in my arms. "More than that," I say.

She rolls her eyes. "I'm charging you for five, then. Your total is $4.25."

I hand her a five dollar bill and get three quarters back. Looking at the pile again, I realize that there's actually six books, but one is only a few torn out pages. Fair enough, I decide. I head back to my room to pack.

I'm looking at a shelf full of food and wondering when I found the time to buy all of this. I pack it away (bread goes squish) along with the books. It's a perfect fit, but I'm going to be annoyed travelling with all this luggage.

Chel, a girl who was a grade above me in high school, arrives as I'm leaving. We have an excited conversation involving the odds of meeting up on the other side of the country.

I decide to stop in Quickton before heading to Vancouver. For a break in a long goddamn bus ride, if nothing else. The bus station by the Westin is suddenly a part of Ixburg.

***

In Quickton, grocery shopping. Sprained left leg, hobbling along, wondering where my crutches went. I limp along on my left ankle after I get tired of hopping. It hurts, but it could be worse. I talk to my late grandma.

***

Still in Quickton, I'm on trial as a witch. The woman accusing me is a made up character who, apparently, went to high school with me. I spend most of the trial resisting the urge to burn her alive via dream-powers. Apparently that wouldn't help my case much.

I'm defending myself; no lawyers allowed. I catch the woman in the middle of a lie and ruthlessly pounce on it, drawing out answers that prove she wasn't where she said she was. Something about flowers that are yellow and in a pot. Daisies, probably.

I'm not sure if my argument's had any effect on the jury yet, so when the Judge asks me about the green lightsaber they have in custody, I immediately reply, "My lightsabers aren't green." I consider summoning my dual sabers to the courtroom, but again, supernatural powers are not what anyone needs to see right now.

I go into a tangent, wondering what my colour actually _is_. Purple is tempting, and I've always been partial to red _and_ blue, but orange is pretty close and I'm not genuinely Sith-like (far too dogmatic for me). I don't really like orange much, though. I swing a couple orange sabers around in the hallway just to try them out.

I'm sitting back in my box with my arch-nemesis a couple places down, wondering if the trial can adjourn for the day. It's almost five and I'm bored.

We all go home for the night. I've been released into the custody of my parents, so I'm walking into a bigger version of their house, kicking off my shoes as I go. I'm picking up a piece of paper that might be an assassination contract a la Assassin's Creed. Unfortunately, without some serious creativity, I won't be able to collect on it. I'm supposed to stay here, after all...

_Witch Trials. Scare Factor: 2. Reaction: I think I was completely guilty of everything I was accused of._

----------


## Samael

Non-LucidSemi-LucidLucid

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #39: Misogynists, Scientists, Doctors, Little Girls, Monsters, and Faeries*

I'm in the local theatre with a group of girls. Apparently we're about to play out _The Handmaid's Tale_, and as I'm not a fan of that particular dystopia, I'd rather not. As soon as everyone's asleep, I wake up another girl and start running.

In retrospect, it would have been smarter to leave her behind.

We're fleeing down a gold-gilded hallway toward a mirror I plan to use as an escape. (The mirror really exists in my parents' house.) I see a shadow run through the mirror and I attempt to follow, but I smack against it and push on the glass. I give up quickly; there's someone hot on our heels.

We run into an empty-of-furniture bedroom, and begin to literally climb the walls looking for a way out. The closet is an escape route. I turn around to look at my fellow escapee. She's wearing the dream-avatar I was just using, complete with wild orange hair. I'm a brunette now.

There's a third girl in the room with us.

_shift_

I'm in a high-tech facility, a space station, and I'm alone. I pickpocket an Asian woman's key card as I bump into her, and slip through a guarded door. The guard on the other side of the door, and asks for ID as I come through. I hand him the card. I strike at him. I take him down quickly, before he has a chance to call for backup.

My presence has raised alarms. They don't know where I am, but I'm being chased. I need to move quickly.

There's a control panel in the next room. It's triangular, with an assortment of round buttons that don't make any sense. Since I'm dreaming, only intent is important, and it doesn't matter which buttons I push. I focus on my goal, pressing buttons at random.

This dream is exciting, so I don't abandon it. I head for the nearest set of double doors leading to a staircase.

I find a scientist/doctor who's actually on my side. I'm sequestered in her office, and nobody will know that I'm here for a while yet. She takes a sample of my skin cells and runs a test. Surprisingly, the results indicate that I'm completely human.

"Where's a scalpel?" I mutter. I take an x-acto knife off of the nearest counter and push the blade into my palm. Blood pools into my hand.

"Now look," I say to the doctor. I brush the blood away from the cut, showing completely intact skin below.

I'm trying to stay in-character as someone with a healing-factor. I move over to the sink, washing the quickly congealing blood down the drain. My logic is that you can do all sorts of nasty things to someone if you have their blood.

I'm in the cafeteria. I'm looking for a free-run sequence. I run up the wall to an upper balcony, pulling myself up into the rafters and flinging myself forward without losing momentum. I'm trying to go up and up and

_shift_

Sam and Dean Winchester are saving people and hunting things. I'm playing as Dean while trying not to get Sam W. mixed up with my username. A man needs help rescuing his daughter and his pregnant wife from the evil scientists several Levels down. We take the elevator from Level 7 down to one of the sub levels.

The rescue is successful, but unfortunately, both of the children are evil. We eventually convince the five-year-old not to kill us all, and she decides to be a force for good. It reminded me of the daughter of the Basanos in the _Sandman_ spinoff, _Lucifer_.*



*Super-powerful being rapes its host, host becomes pregnant, tries for a magical abortion, unborn daughter tries to kill everyone, and God's granddaughter erases everyone's memory so they can live normal, happy lives.

John Winchester pops out of nowhere in order to tell his sons something important. Dean doesn't want to hear it, I really don't care, and Sam W.'s starting to wonder if his brother has dissociative identity disorder. Somehow, this devolves into a man-hug as I flip back and forth from a male character to a female one. No one else seems to notice.

_shift_

My character (a child) is trapped playing out endless scenarios for a... troll... or something. I'm crawling through the mud under a two-foot high bridge, eying the puddle to the centre warily. I'm pretty sure there's alligators down there, and when I think I see (sense) movement, I panic and make for dry land.

And suddenly, I'm in control instead of the child-character.

Fed up with such repetitive terror, I immediately make a break for it when I'm out in the open. I run past ramshackle machinery and jump into a red truck parked near the muddy road. As I start up the truck, ignoring the shrieking of the little goblin by the bridge, I notice it's a standard. Whatever, I drive a motorbike, I can make it work. 

I put the truck into gear and drive off down the road. Now it can fit one person, and there's no cab.

Down the road, I find faeries. I'm their guest. One reminds me of Miranda, even though she looks nothing like her. This woman has long, curly brown hair, and is most definitely not Vietnamese. She looks a lot like Liv Tyler, actually.

Fae!Miranda gives me a gift. I accept it, and go off on a mental tangent about the birthday gifts Ron and Hermione may or may not have received. Also, the fact that Miranda and I still haven't gotten together to exchange Christmas '09 gifts.

I want to give a gift of my own. I pull out a box and hand it to the woman. We're part of a group now, sitting around a table. Fae!Miranda opens the box and pulls out a shimmery fabric that seems almost invisible. I explain that the fabric is a magic silk that will enhance - something. Maybe it has defensive powers, or turns the wearer invisible. I don't remember. It was awesome, though. I was wearing some, even.

The silk changes to match the green of the faerie's dress, and flows into her curly hair.

A boy across from me is angry. I receive an image of a black gown - apparently Fae!Miranda's suitor was about to give her a dress. I can feel his jealousy brimming over from across the table. 

_Misogynists, Scientists, Doctors, Little Girls, Monsters, and Faeries. Scare Factor: 2. Reaction: one of these days, giving powerful gifts to potential antagonists is going to come back and bite me._

Oh, and Photobucket's down.

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #40: Dream Games*

I'm looking out over a seaside city, viewing it from the cliffs above it. In dream, I decide this is Medicine Hat, AB. Which makes no sense. Groups are moving into formations of rows and columns along the ground. Zooming in, I can see marks on the ground showing the spots for certain group members to go.

I step into place.

There are hopscotch-style chalk lines on the ground. An oval makes up the centre ring, divided in the middle. Another, bigger oval goes around it, again with the dividing line in the centre. There are four members of each team, one in the middle and three on the outside. They play something like volleyball with two sets of balls - they have to stay inside the lines and can't land on the ground.

I'm in the middle. We're alternately playing with bouncy balls, tennis balls, water balloons, and bell peppers. The outer group has another set going. Theirs are just smaller than volleyball size. I have to work to ignore the outer set and keep focused on the water balloons and vegetables. 

We keep smashing up our water balloons and peppers, so we have to keep tracking more down as the outer team keeps playing. I'm not very good at this game.
_
Dream Games. Scare Factor: 1. Reaction: Bored._

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #41: Bees*

Image of a blonde woman. She looks like Ripley Grace from _Avatar_.

_shift_

Two groups are transported to a dark and scary place, lit up with a lot of orange. The cobblestone streets are coming loose in places, and stone structures are crumbling.

The group that arrives ahead of us are poachers. There are four or five of them and three or four of us. We appear practically on top of them, which is Not A Good Thing, because we're rivals/enemies/nemeses of each other.

We start to spot tiny little insects, looking like the drops of water in the first scene of _Avatar_ (guess what movie I finally saw last week). They're bees. Honey-bees, to be precise. The bear-man in the other group freaks out and runs down a stone flight of steps, batting at the bees as he goes. I get the feeling that he's heading toward the hive.


Run, you fools! They're trying to kill you!

The bear-man in our group (symmetry, I suppose) suggests that we run. Quietly. In the other direction.

_shift_

I'm in the apartment in Ixburg. I'm still trying to get away from the bees, but at this point I know I'm dreaming. The goal of the dream is to get to another floor, either up or down, and the stairs would be too easy. I move away from the door, toward the master bedroom, remembering my attempts to reach an attic through a closet in a previous dream (#49: Misogynists, Scientists, Doctors, Little Girls, Monsters, and Faeries). 


Still gonna kill you.

There's a second exit from the apartment, leading down a hallway we used for storage. I pause as I move to pass it, and decide this would be a good time to practice "Open A Door, Create A Portal". I don't really want to leave this dream, for, say, the moon, but I decide to open it up for practice anyway. I concentrate on what I'd see if I made it to the moon (the image has a moon in the sky, oops) and push the door open.

The hallway has become a steep flight of steps leading two floors down. I'm thrilled, because regardless of my intent, this is exactly what I wanted. I fling myself down the stairs, not worried about the landing, because I'm well aware that there won't be any impact. At this point, I'm quickly moving through the building by skipping the stairs entirely. I peer down each level and jump as far as I can. At one point, I take care to concentrate entirely on the feeling of falling - as if the bottom is dropping out of my stomach. It's horrifying - and absolutely brilliant.

I think back to something I said yesterday, that my falling dreams usually end with me bouncing off the ground. That's not quite accurate, I decide. It's more like I've jumped a foot into the air and landed toe, ball, heel.


Or maybe it was like this!

Nope, totally grounded.

The actual building this dream is based on has four floors, including the basement. I must have extended this by several stories, as I lost track of the time that I played on the stairs. Finally, I reach the basement.

I look around and down the hallway, marvelling over how real all this feels. I feel more awake right now than I usually do while I'm conscious.

There are railings criss-crossing throughout the basement. I remember the April dreaming task (last chance!). Stand on your head, right? I go to a place where the railings meet at a 90 degree angle. I grip the railings, and pull myself up into a handstand.

I can feel the burn in my arms. Balancing isn't a problem, but I have to work to support myself in that position. Letting out a huff of exultation, I lower myself gracefully to the ground, grinning all the while.


Because I can't do this in real life. Yet.

The advanced task reads "Stand on your head", literally. I concentrate on the shadows cast by the light source behind me, put my fingers over my temples and under my jaw, and gently pull away from me and downward. 

From a first person POV, I'm watching the shadows intently, seeing the shape of my head separated from my body. Suddenly, I'm brought back to the starting position. I concentrate on my reflection in a dusty mirror, and repeat the process, slowly. I see my only my silhouette. I bend my knees and try to place my head on the floor, only to find myself in a sitting position, legs bent outward, stretching toward the floor. 

I'm still in the basement. My mom is folding laundry, and there are piles of clothes all over the place. I see a pink or blue t-shirt, apparently my mom's, that reads "Slytherin Mom". I start telling her about the dream I just had.

I "wake up" in my room at my parents' house. I write down my dreams for the night. I check my alarm clock, but I'm too tired to do the RC properly. I'm annoyed by my mom, because she keeps popping into the room while I'm trying to sleep.

_shift_

I'm chatting with some people in an imaginary gay bar. A girl tells me I ought to come out more. No pun intended.

_shift_

I'm doing dishes via telekinesis. The mice from Cinderella will be disappointed that they didn't get to help, but they did the dishes in the last dream. Which means they haven't done the dishes in this dream. Which means I'll still have to do the dishes when I wake up.

I bring garbage out to the dumpster behind the shed. I'm Alice in Wonderland. After falling down the rabbit hole, I meet my character's worst enemy.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

And then I'm a scary-looking monster horse hissing at the singing monstrosity.

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #42: Girlfriends, Dead People*

I'm in a familiar place, messing with the controls on a high-tech piece of equipment (possibly the Stargate). My partner is a girl named Susan.

The building is a small house with fake-wooden paneling on the walls. There's old and worn furniture scattered throughout, mismatched and comfortable. There are a huge number of people in the house, milling about and chatting, but the atmosphere is mournful. Apparently this is a funeral or a wake.

I'm trailing beside Susan as she moves through the room talking to people. Suddenly, she half collapses, sobbing. I turn to our boss and tell him I'll take her away from the crowd. 

I tell Susan that we're going into the lounge. I support her weight as we walk into the room and I have a strong feeling of familiarity with the location. I help her over to a couch and she lies down. I go over to sit on a recliner.

When I look up, I see that Susan has come to stand beside my chair. She asks if she can sit with me. I move over, and she sits down with me. I imagine the chair laying back and the footrest coming up. Susan and I lay down together, and I drift off to sleep.

I wake up, curled on my side in the chair. Susan is gone. I get up and pad through the living room that was full of people last night. I pop into my head into the den, and ask my dad (who's watching TV) where Susan is. He says she's probably sleeping in one of the bedrooms.

I stare at all of the people in the room, whose faces I can't really see. I notice that some of the people seem to be disembodied heads under various blankets all over the room. I dismiss the phenomenon as being normal for a dream, and go to find Susan.

Susan is, in fact, sleeping in one of the bedrooms. I close the door quietly, trying not to wake her.

When I step away from the door, I decide it's time to double-check my suspicions. I do a hand RC for the first time in a dream, staring at my left hand until the fingers move separately from my will and thick red blood begins to foam over the knuckles of my ring and middle fingers.

I'm somewhat disturbed, but I decide it doesn't really matter. I look at the digital clock on a VCR, which reads 1:45 PM. I decide that the time isn't unreasonable, since it was around 11:00 AM when I last woke up, and I had time to sleep in today.* I will the time on the clock to change, and it flickers. I repeat the hand RC.

I stretch out a hand in front of me, willing open a portal to a skyscraper. Instead of a portal opening in front of me, the door across the room to my left opens with a bang, letting the bright morning sunlight stream into the room.

I step out of the house and look around. There are mountains surrounding the town. The mountain I can see between buildings is a sloping, tree covered hill, and I'm happy to be on the mountainous west coast. The buildings are probably a couple centuries old. The church I can see has a spire reaching up toward the blue sky.


St. Paul's Church, the oldest building in Halifax, NS.

I repeat the hand RC, hoping to extend the dream. The ring finger on my right hand is missing, but when I look closer, I realize it's still there. The light seems to bend around it so that it's just barely visible, like the non-existent puddles on the highway in the middle of the summer.

There's nothing resembling a skyscraper nearby, so I throw open a few doors, hoping for a portal to a bigger city. I go through one, into brighter light, but I'm still more or less in the same place.

I'm just outside of town, looking at a delapitated building. There are no doors that don't have shelving inside, so I focus on the people who are there. Selina, a girl I graduated with, and an old man who looks kinda like one of my art school professors (Mike) are the only characters who don't fade into the background. They're picking things up, working on repairs to the heritage site.



Mike and Selina greet me, and ask what I'm planning to do. Mike says that if I'm planning to go into the woods, I should avoid making deals with the beings there. They can offer a lot, so it's a hard temptation to resist - the creatures could bring back any of my relatives from the dead.

I wryly assure him that I've had a similar dream before, where someone warned me not to bring back the original Elaine. By this point, I'm well aware that anyone I try to bring to life will come back _wrong_.

Mike is wistful, saying that if they would come back right, all of us would be willing to live without our souls, and to hell with the consequences.

I remember to do another hand RC, but I'm waking up. Everything fades and when I wake up, I already have my eyes open. I do another digital-clock RC, but I'm really awake this time.

_Girlfriends, Dead People. Scare Factor: 2._

*It was around 12:45 PM when I actually woke up.

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #43: The Devil You Know*


Ariel, Samael, Rick.
The group of survivors have made it to an open courtyard surrounded by stainless steel fencing. The entrances are similar to cattle corrals, and apparently zombies aren't smart enough to get in. The horde is separated from us, but a few renegade zombies are still trying to eat us.

"Oh my god, just _shoot_ them already!" shrieks a girl with dark hair. There are probably half a dozen of us, but only two guns. A shotgun blast goes off, taking out the zombie. The man holding the gun starts reloading. The blonde woman with the other gun lays down cover fire.

One of our members is somehow a conscious zombie, fighting off other ones and getting bitten in the process. The bites don't bother him much.

A zombie no one else seems to have noticed is sneaking up on one of the youngest, unarmed, members of our group. I curse, and rush the zombie, blocking the kid from its view. The thing immediately starts in on me, and, stupidly, I let it close enough to get in a bite.

"Fuck!" I shout, calling the attention of the rest of the survivors. I grab the zombie's head and twist the neck, severing the spinal column. The zombie drops limply to the ground.

I put a hand to the side of my neck, wincing when it comes away sticky with blood. I can already feel the wound starting to close. I look up, noticing that the man with the gun is eying me speculatively, his shotgun fully loaded and pointing straight at my head.

"Rick," I say, warning in my voice. "Don't even _think_ -"

He pulls the trigger. My head explodes in a spectacular fountain of red chunks.

I come to some time later. I sit up in the grassy field, and I'm covered in my own blood. I purge the various fluids and chunks of brain matter with a thought, and stand up, cursing Rick's entire family tree as I do.

Already, there are more zombies shuffling toward me. 

They scurry away when I send a telepathic, high pitched whine toward them, scrambling what's left of their brains and causing blood to pour from their ears. The closest zombies collapse immediately, the rest stay away.

I head toward the stone building. A school, before the apocalypse hit, and by coincidence, the perfect place for a bunch of _insects_ to make their last stand.

---

The blonde woman is on edge the moment she sees me. "You're dead." she accuses, bringing her own shotgun up to fire. "Sam, I'm sorry, but -"

"You know, Ariel." I say, casually swatting the gun away, "That didn't work last time."

Ariel lowers the weapon when she hears my voice. "How the hell?"

"None of your goddamn business." I say brightly. "Now, where are the others?"

She's suspicious. "You know Rick meant well, right?"

"By shooting me in the head. I know. And I considered slaughtering every one of you without mercy," I say, willfully ignoring Ariel's horrified expression, "But the world would be so _boring_ without any humans to torment."

Ariel makes a choked sound.

"So let's call an end to your little scouting mission," I say, starting down the concrete tunnel, "And go find the others."

If I can't kill them all, I can at least look forward to the expression on Rick's face.

_The Devil You Know. Scare Factor: 2._

ETA: It was just like this, actually.

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #44: I Am Legend*

_Summary: My family stops for a midnight hike in a horror movie. I'm horribly outnumbered in a fight. In an alternate universe, my brother is captured by vampires and my mom has superpowers._

We're driving down the highway in a tan-coloured Oldsmobile. The driver seems to think the speed limit is optional, which really wouldn't bother me, only he doesn't actually have his license yet. Also, he doesn't seem to be in control of the vehicle, if the wildly oscillating steering wheel is anything to go by.

"Whoa! Whoa!" I shout from the backseat. "Oncoming train, ONCOMING TRAIN!"

"Ben, stop," says my mom from the passenger seat.

Ben reluctantly brings the car to a stop before we get to the train tracks. I breathe out a sigh of relief and glare at my brother.

"You know," says the fifteen-year-old comfortably, "Sam could totally supervise my driving -"

"NO!" My mom and I say simultaneously.

Ben slouches in his seat and gets the car moving again, now that the train's past. The car gradually speeds up, and he throws my mom a look that reads _See? I can totally drive without giving Sam a heart attack._

A copse of trees blocks the road a little bit farther along. It's night. We need to hike through the trees in order to get to the road on the other side.

We're not a few steps in before I can feel a tingling feeling up my spine. I sense a malicious intent, which lingers, as if the blood that's been spilled here has never properly washed away.

"We should hurry," I say quietly. "This isn't a good place." I should know, this is my dream after all. Vaguely, I wonder if this is going to turn into a nightmare. If it is, am I sensing evil, or creating it?

There are men sleeping, haphazardly strewn over the grass-covered ground in various garishly coloured sleeping bags. I hurry Mom and Ben along, out of the campsite through a path in the bushes. I know it the moment the men wake up.

"Go! Go! I'll meet you at the car!" I shout at my family. Somewhere between eight and a dozen men come rushing onto the path, heedless of my attempts to block them. I can't move, I can't shout, I'm completely helpless -

"KIYA!" I lace a high-pitched shout with all of my fear and anger, forcing the men's attention onto me. I move out into the middle of the clearing, still _pulling_ their attention, focusing on the present rather than the danger that faces the others. I need to be able to _move_.

"KIYA!" I shout in challenge, feeling ridiculous, catching a third-person view of myself as Eliza Dushku.

A man runs at me, using his momentum - and considerable bulk - to ready a skull-crushing punch. I sidestep. He misses. I use his momentum against him, throwing him out of the way.

It's on.

Another man rushes me. I catch him by the arm, twist, breaking it. I throw him over my shoulder and he crashes to the ground, where I aim a kick at his neck, killing him instantly.

Two come at me. I send one stumbling with a kick to the solar-plexus. He trips over the corpse and I disable the other one with a ridge-hand strike to the throat, crushing the windpipe. He collapses to the ground, gasping for air, and I'm already rushing a stunned thug, sweeping his legs out from under him. I pound three high-powered kicks into his left temple before he can blink.

A thug is picking himself up from beside his friend's corpse, looking enraged. I'm behind another one, hand across jaw, and I pull, breaking his neck. I don't see Trippy until he has a hand around my throat, lifting me until my toes barely brush over the ground. I twist, tearing - _tiger claw_ - rigid fingers across his face, ripping into flesh. His grip slackens and I turn around to meet another attack, evading arms and deftly clawing an eye out of its socket. He's out of the fight.

One of the smarter ones is readying an incantation - I'm in front of him. I grab, twist, _tear his arm off_, leave him to bleed out.

Another. I aim a kick for his groin, surprised when I hit the inner thigh. Hard. Time slows for the others, and I admonish myself for losing focus. _Concentrate on the dream._ I pull my leg in, I lash out with a side-kick to the groin. He's down. I smash his head in.

I hear a dark chuckle from across the clearing. Trippy is struggling to his feet, one hand pressed against his bleeding face. He laughs. I want to know what's so funny.

"_You_ think _we're_ monsters." He laughs again, eyes closed for a moment.

He's down before he knew what hit him. I kick him repeatedly, into the gut, into the side of his head, until he's nothing but a mangled corpse leering at me with a dead grin.

I put down the others with brutal efficiency.

I meet Ben and Mom at the car, which happens to be a Chevy Impala. Not meeting their eyes, I mention that we're going to have to wipe down the car, inside and outside. Apparently it was used to run over people while I wasn't looking. I'll have to dispose of these clothes, too. They're black, so I can't see the blood-spatter, but I just murdered a bunch of unarmed humanoids, and there was blood spraying everywhere, so -

"I'll clean the car," says my brother. 

I take a deep breath. "Yeah. We should go."

---

Some time later, I meet up with an alternate version of my mom, driving the Oldsmobile. We talk about the forest/campground, but she isn't entirely sure what I'm talking about. In her world, we kept driving right past the damned place.

I get to thinking about alternate endings...

---

They have Ben. My mom has disappeared, but they have Ben and he's a prisoner of these _things_ and I couldn't do anything to stop it.

There's a young boy, maybe ten, being carried from some kind of ceremony, half naked. I have a bad feeling about this.

I take a breath, calm my mind. I can stay out of sight for now, wait for an opportunity to rescue him. I'm practically incorporeal right now; it's not like I could do much anyway. _Although_, I think, as I watch them drag my struggling brother out of sight, _waiting could be easier said than done_.

---

Colourful round wooden tables are interspersed throughout the clearing. I couldn't see the place before I followed Ben in. My brother is sitting at one of the tables, eating the same grilled cheese sandwiches as all the other humans. On his left is the vampire he's been bound to, and on his right, a human slave, eying the former nervously.

I get a bit of insight from the slave, who, apparently, was a member of the local Resistance before he was captured. He still hasn't quite lost the suicidal tendencies.

"You realize," he says to Ben, keeping his voice low so the vampire won't notice, "That these _things_ are just using you, right? We need to fight them."

Ben snorts. "You're just saying that because they're planning to eat you."

Apparently they keep humans as cattle. Charming.

Also, Ben's been brainwashed. This could be a problem.

---

I'm watching the loading area, a gravel parking lot leading into the back doors of the complex. An Oldsmobile drives in. I move closer.

A group of three or four slaves is conversing with the driver. One of them was talking to Ben earlier. Kel, I think his name was. I recognize the leader of the group: Damon. Fanatic.

"What do you want with the Aur'i, Reader?" Damon asks, as my mom steps out of the car.

"Your masters have taken one of our own." Mom tells them coldly. "We want him back."

_Fuck me._ Readers' powers are the opposite of my own, divine while mine are hell-powered, and they're positively _toxic_ to the Aur'i (vampires). They're more of an allergy, for me.

"The boy, yes?" says Damon, "What of the girl?"

Ah, the Dushku persona. 

"Not one of ours," Mom says, "She didn't violate the Accords by attacking you."

"A pity," says Damon. "I'll pass along your message to our Masters. You may leave now."

Ignoring the slight, Mom tips her head and goes back to the car.

Damn it. I've got to get her a message before she leaves. I take off along the side of the complex.

---

"Sokka Katara _Sam_!" Ben gasps, clutching his head. I hear him, glad that he's finally broken through the mind control.
_
Lay low._

---

I break out into a full-on sprint, moving as quickly as I can around the back corner of the loading bay. When I stop, I hardly even notice that I'm not out of breath. I wave my arms at my mom, staying carefully out of the slaves' sight.

I gesture towards some scaffolding near my hiding spot, which should be hidden from any observers. My mom exits the car and heads toward the spot I indicated, and I slink along more carefully, hidden by the various construction materials along the way.

"You had to choose _this_ spot?" asks my mom, visibly shivering.

I'm surprised, but I look more closely at the wall. There's warding magic emanating from it.

I smile sheepishly. "I can't feel it like you do." I tell her, "My power meshes with the place."

"We'll talk about it later." She pulls an iron chain out and throws one end to me.

I catch it. It feels like ice-water is crawling over my skin.

Covered by the protection of the chain, I explain the situation, highlighting the layout of the compound and detailing Ben's chain to the Aur'i. I'm so caught up in the story that I don't notice the patrolling slaves have noticed us. Noticed the chain, rather, since we're invisible.

"_That_ is a forbidden magic here," says Damon, indicating the iron chain.

"Is it?" I ask, adopting a really bad light Jamaican accent. "It is looped through this equipment like a spider's web."

"The reader," hisses Damon.

"You're _Nomad_?" asks Kel, indicating a nationality.

I glance back at Mom, but she's disappeared along with the car. Good.

I have an image of dark skin and bright colours. I take the appearance of the girl in my mind's eye and let the chain fall from my hand.

I can work with this.

_I Am Legend. Scare Factor: 5._

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #45: Silence in the Library*

The dream takes place several years (decades?) into the future.

The Library is falling apart in the absence of a Librarian. The Library itself is a vast compendium of past knowledge, mostly accessible through computers. It's a surprisingly busy place, in this future, filled up with mostly young people, but it's dying.

I already know how this is going to end. I slam open the door of my house (the library is inside) and walk out. It's a well lit night, and snow is falling lightly from the sky.

"OKAY!" I shout at the sky, "I'll be your fucking Librarian!" I pause at the flicker of a curtain across the street. Most people would think I'm yelling at God or something, but I'm actually communicating with a highly advanced intelligence that has full control over... never mind.

A question forms somewhere in my mind, asking what it would be like to stay in this _one place_ for _years_, contrary to everything that I _am_ (a traveller). Stubbornly, I continue to assert that I'll do the damn job if I have to - time is fluid in this place, anyway.

I don't receive an answer.

---

I'm in a location I dreamed about last spring. It's almost identical. The local aquatic centre is fused with a rock climbing gym, which we don't have here in Quickton.

In the dream, I'm wondering why I thought we don't have any rock climbing here, since we so obviously do (we don't).


Map


Colour of the walls

_Silence in the Library. Scare Factor: 2._

I'm trying for a shared dream with Walms via the Deep Dreaming forum. We'll see if I can manage a lucid in the next few days.

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #46: Walmart*

This is not a lucid dream.

I'm parked in the local Walmart parking lot, waiting for a woman in a grey minivan to back out so I can leave. I look into the car and recognize someone from the forums, who I'd assumed was a guy. I don't remember who I thought she was, but I remember deciding she was a dreamer. She had short hair somehow braided close to her head, and dark skin. I guess she looked a bit like Naiobe from Matrix.

I think about meeting up with Walms, but I'm not lucid; I think all of this is happening in real life. I think I'm meeting him later.

There's a man lying on the pavement in the middle of the parking lot (behind my car). The manager (of Walmart) doesn't know what to do, and ambulance/police are on the way. The man might have raped someone? We decide we need to move him and I lift, hooking my hands under his arms while the (female) manager lifts his legs. We carry him into the lobby and lay him on a bench. The girlfriend is waiting, and he wakes up briefly and says something to her.

Possibly another dream entirely: Walmart bathrooms are converted to sleeping places for $15 a night. Carpeted, the toilets are gone and the stalls are wood. I exit the stall and find red lockers being brought in. I chat with the girl in charge of the program, but decide that I'd really rather leave. Unfortunately, the building's on lockdown until morning. I plot my escape.

After a false awakening I don't remember, I wake up. Probably. I'm dead tired and know I should RC. I flip open the curtain and count five fingers. Then I collapse back into bed and fall asleep.

Fragments. My dad talking about one of our cousins.
_
Walmart. Scare Factor: 1. Reaction: I think I'm catching a flu bug._

----------


## Samael

Fragments only. Ah... the wonders of cold medication. I think I might have been Dean Winchester, once again, and considering Supernatural aired last night...

ETA: I think I dreamed about being a high school student walking home through several miles of prairie. It was getting dark, and a woman told me that I needed a ride back to town, because I'd never make it, otherwise.

----------


## Samael

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #47: Dream Goals*

There's a wedding or a funeral in the family, and we (the "kids") are getting ready. I'm in a store, wondering if I dare to wear a tie. I do, deciding on a light blue dress shirt. I go over to the mirror to try it on, but I can't pull it closed over my breasts. _Damn it_, I think, annoyed, _I shouldn't have to deal with this in my own dreams._

I'm in the Ixburg apartment, doing a hand RC. Everything is slightly blurry. It's hard to move. The RC worked, and "I'm lucid," I repeat to myself, "I'm lucid, I'm lucid, I'm lucid." I look in the mirror of my bedroom door, and see a dark grey blob standing where I am. I peer to the side, and the blob doesn't move. I see myself, currently male. I have dark brown hair, longer than it is now. I'm wearing dark clothes, a black dress shirt unbuttoned over a t-shirt. No ties, apparently. Thank God. I see strange things in the background, and open the door before I get freaked out and this turns into a nightmare.

I walk out of the apartment, fighting to stay grounded as everything blurs around me. I keep RCing and muttering that I'm lucid, until I'm halfway down the stairs and looking out of an east-facing window.

The town has transformed itself once again, this time into what looks like a creepy green-tinged matte painting. The entrance to the building, which juts out into the gravel parking lot, is in ruins, and the entire field beyond is covered in water. About fifty yards away are a set of stone steps, leading up to a square stone arch. Someone is hanging from it, arms stretched into either corner, feet hanging above the ground.

At first, I think it's a woman, but the scene shifts into someone I'm pretty convinced is Walms. At this point, Walms is down from the arch, probably having escaped the bonds (or rescued someone else from them). I have to hurry if I want to catch up to him.

I look down at the uneven ground and sigh. I don't suppose this will count as a skyscraper? But no. Maybe I'll do the flower thing later. I throw myself off the building, feel my speed building -

Pause, as I consider where to land.

Full-speed, I crash into the remains of the entrance, numbly feeling my ankle bend at an impossible angle. I stand up, feeling no pain, and head east toward the blurry archway.

There's no one here, unfortunately. I sigh, and look beyond the arch. There's a whole bunch of people milling around on the lawn beyond it, so I consider trying the flower task. I pick up a flowering piece of the clover weed that runs rampant around Ixburg, and scan the area for someone my age - most of the people here are elderly.

I focus on the piece of clover in my hand and it turns into a violet. The colours shift and blur and it becomes a rageddy, fushia thing. The flower shifts into a perfect bunch of green and I concentrate, pulling a pink rose-bud from the centre.

I spot a woman my age exiting the Quickton college. She couldn't be a supermodel, but she has long, blonde hair, and something else draws me to her. I hand her the rose, smiling. "This is for you," I say, and turn away.

"Wait!" she says. She looks like she's about to say something important. "Are you _Israel_."

I don't know what she means, and I answer honestly. "I don't know." I say, and walk away.

I'm play fighting with a dog, probably a Great Dane. I realize that I'm losing lucidity, so I concentrate and RC and start saying, "I'm lucid."

Everything is blurry as I walk into a building and do a hand RC. I can see all five fingers, but they're all attached between the index and middle knuckles. I see a guard, and -

_shift_

People are talking about animals in pairs. Apparently, there are two such animals that signify love. _What about dogs,_ I want to ask snidely, but I'm not actually _there_. Jackson thinks the sign might apply to him, but O-Neill scoffs and starts making fun of him.

_shift_

FA, I scramble for my dream journal, but there's a bunch of different notebooks beside my bed and I can't find the right one. I'm lying on the bed when I realize that I'm dreaming. I _push_ into the waking world (for the first time) so I don't forget the dream.

_Dream Goals. Scare Factor: 2._

----------


## Hukif

ha, you dreamed about me too, but the settings were completely different, too bad.
And your journal is so cool! Along with your recall and detail, I like it.

----------


## Requiem

subscribing

----------


## Samael

> ha, you dreamed about me too, but the settings were completely different, too bad.
> And your journal is so cool! Along with your recall and detail, I like it.



Next time, we will totally make it work. Anyway, thanks. I was trying for something new and exciting.  :wink2: 





> subscribing



Heh, thanks.

----------------------

So, last night I had a lucid dream. Unfortunately, I don't remember anything beyond that, so it doesn't really count. Anyway, onto the non-lucids.

Also, it's snowing again. It's May, what the _fuck_?

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #48: Soylent Green*

A dream occurs on two levels of reality. In one, the cast and crew of _Supernatural_ go about their daily business of making an awesome TV show. In another, I go about my daily business of building houses. This gets confusing when suddenly I'm Misha Collins, calmly vacuuming up sawdust in the basement while a highly amusing PA briefs me on whatever they're doing next. Also, a suspended ceiling puts itself together in the writer's room and the baseboards I've been staring at for the last few days drift in and out of existence at eye-level.

_shift_

I'm in a den, or a living room, and I think this was a mall a second ago. Everything is in dark shades of brown and black. I'm sitting on a brown leather couch facing a wide-screen TV, and along the opposite wall is a set of dark-stained table and chairs. Beyond the table is another room, which is completely white. Right now, it might be a kitchen, but it's about to turn into a slaughterhouse.

I have my laptop open on the couch, though I'm not paying much attention to what I'm looking at. I move over to the table when a ten-year-old boy wants to flip through the channels on the TV, looking for his favorite cartoon. When I look back, he's pulling up a page on another laptop, which is a list of his favorite cartoons, put together by his dad. A static image of one of the characters shows up on a projector behind the couch, and I start drawing it.

It's later. A team of vigilantes/ex-minions have found out what's really going into the meat made by this factory. They/we are standing around the owner, backing him into the white room. The boy* is wearing some kind of _Kickass_-style costume like the others in the room, and is staring at his father with an incredibly detached expression.

*I wouldn't worry about the little sociopath. I get the feeling that the vigilantes are all puppets on a string to him.


Practically the Antichrist.

Two men grab the owner and force him toward the wall. He's shouting at them and struggling to get away, but when his back hits the wall, it latches onto him and forces him down a tube. I drift through the wall, and I can see the human sized plastic tunnel he's trapped in. Pistons are forcing the right side of his body, as he's alive and screaming, against the meat grinder. His right arm, part of his leg, and the edge of his scalp have been torn apart by the machine when I see his expression shift, angry but resigned, and the machine eats into his brain.

He probably wishes he'd designed the machine to kill its victims less horrifically, I muse. A straight-razor, perhaps? The machine rearranges itself on my whim, and I wonder if cutting the throat upside-down or right-side-up would be more effective.

Three women are standing in the same room, which, maybe, is supposed to be a different place entirely? They talk about the dead owner's eldest daughter, who has sworn revenge on us/them for killing her father, his right hand man, his lieutenants, the captain who exported the shipments, the cleaning lady, and possibly me, considering I'm short of a body at the moment. Also, for kidnapping her little brother, who I'm half-sure started the coup anyway.

They laugh a little and say they have to get back to camp, so they jump out of the building and land on the ice of a half-frozen river, and start speeding down it as if they're on a slide. I have to keep nudging them closer to shore so their momentum won't carry them out onto the middle of the river, which is slushy and wouldn't hold their weight.

One person crashes into the slush anyway. No one pays attention, and I have no idea if s/he gets out alive.

The women arrive at a rocky shore where a bunch of colourful tents are set up. No one brought chairs, so someone fetches pillows for the half-frozen trio to sit on, and blankets to keep them warm. I, still incorporeal, follow the guy who gets them and see a whole pile of pillows lying on the ground.

Oh, and someone's getting married.

_Soylent Green. Scare Factor: 3.5. Reaction: Lucidity, you escape me. And the meat grinder thing was pretty fucked up, too._


ETA: Oh! I know! I know! It was green, and had a giant lizard's head and sharp teeth that changed direction to spiral inwards and then fan out, and I knew I was dreaming because all of my dreams are just that fucking insane. And I remembered because of this:





> If most of your dreams are nightmares, it will probably be easier to become lucid since there is continuity between all your dreams.



I can feel it nudge up against me, feel its scales and warm breath as it bumps its nose against my shoulder, and I'm not afraid because I know this is a dream...

And that's all I remember.

----------


## Hukif

lol @ "nearly the antichrist" and aww... that dream sounded so epic! Too bad you don't remember more.

----------


## Requiem

> *Things to Run Away From Really Fast #58: Soylent Green*



I have no idea what I just read.  Maybe because I haven't read enough of your past posts.

----------


## Samael

> lol @ "nearly the antichrist" and aww... that dream sounded so epic! Too bad you don't remember more.



Heh, the picture is actually the Antichrist from a TV show that I watch. He looked like the kid from the dream.





> I have no idea what I just read.  Maybe because I haven't read enough of your past posts.



Soylent Green is made out of people. Apparently, I should have added more links to this post.

It was a sci-fi movie from 1973. The highly-rationed popular foodstuffs in a dystopian future contained algae and dead people. There was a parody in Futurama and everything.

----------


## Hidden

> "The jellybean sandwich in the storage room is, apparently, there to keep all the other food from going bad, and the 'papyrus' is there because... you have really bad taste in fonts in real life."



As a graphic design student, I can relate to this. xP





> _Damn it_, I think, annoyed, _I shouldn't have to deal with this in my own dreams._



Lol, nice.  ::lol:: 





> Soylent Green is made out of people. Apparently, I should have added more links to this post.



o.o  Chiron Beta Prime just became considerably more disturbing.

You use a lot of links, child.  Don't get me wrong, it's pretty awesome, but I also feel compelled to read through all of them...  Which would take quite a while.

----------


## Samael

> o.o  Chiron Beta Prime just became considerably more disturbing.
> 
> You use a lot of links, child.  Don't get me wrong, it's pretty awesome, but I also feel compelled to read through all of them...  Which would take quite a while.



You know we love our Soylent Green.  :wink2: 

I'm just so concerned that someone might not understand the obscure 1970s sci-fi reference that I randomly drop into the title.

-------------

Anyway. I had such grand plans for writing out this dream, but I've run out of time, the day is over, and I hate Mondays.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #49: Ghost Ship*

I'm alone on a ship - all of the crew have succumbed to... something. Another ship is attacking mine, full of spirits. I swing over onto the enemy ship and rescue a girl, who turns out to be another ghost. She's my ally in the dream.

I've had visions throughout the dream of the final battle against my enemy. I've lost every time. Now, the time is really here. My enemy taunts me, tells me that there's no way I can win, but I've seen how he won before and I know I can beat him. I meet his attack with a *wave of blue energy* that knocks him away and destabilizes the dream.

_shift_

Human survivors terrorize each other post-apocalypse, forcing their views on the weaker individuals.

A group of survivors in some post-apocalyptic world is trying to establish a prohibition on alcohol. The main character (male, short blond hair) is arguing during a town meeting. This is followed by someone accusing, "It's almost like you don't want it gone!" Well, _duh_.

The main character is female, now. Long, black hair, looks like a character from one of my stories. She's with the blonde (no longer ghost) girl from the previous dream. They're standing in a run-down shack. Then _I_ show up. My dream avatar is some kind of male mythological figure, with long white hair. A conversation takes place. She's accusing me of something. 

I laugh and say, "You're more of a Reaper than I am!"

(Unconsciously stepping back and choosing the weapons: a short, hand held scythe for the MC, a sword for the ex-ghost, and I'm somehow fighting with chains.)

I quickly knock the blonde out of the fight, sending her flying toward the wall. I block their blades with heavy metal chains on the defensive, strike barehanded on the offensive. With ghost-girl out of the fight, I renew my attack on the MC, enjoying what - to me - is a friendly sparring session.

_Ghost Ship. Scare Factor: 3._

----------


## Hidden

Awesome dream.





> I hate Mondays.



Don't we all...

----------


## Hukif

hehe, too bad they can't enjoy the sparring session as much as you do!

----------


## Samael

> Awesome dream.



Thanks.  :smiley: 





> hehe, too bad they can't enjoy the sparring session as much as you do!



We need to make our DCs lucid next!

-------------

More fannishness, sorry.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #50: Oh, There Goes Gravity*

I'm Harry Potter, in what's sort of a pre-2005 video game environment. We've shifted into a circular hall in some sort of grand manor - an inheritance from my family. I've been using it as a base, as I'm on the run from a million and one different organizations. The hall runs in a circle, and the inner doors are decorated by massive arches that jut out from the stone walls. 

I meet with my friends on the second floor, outlining a plan to get back at our opponents.

I choose Hermione from a list of avatars and I'm jumping around on the landings above the doors. 

_shift_, and I'm at my childhood elementary school, looking up at the big brick building and vaulting over dark blue fences. I know that I'm dreaming. The entranceway is one story tall, an impossible leap. I'm concerned that I won't be able to make it, as I've been having trouble defying gravity lately. However, I call up the will, and effortlessly make the jump onto the roof. When I land, I can still feel the upward momentum. I feel like I should be floating, but I have both feet on the ground.

Back to being Harry, as a child, I talk to a woman who's coming out of a house. The entrance is lit up brightly behind her, and everything is blurry. The house is where a clump of bushes should be. I talk to her, and she invites me in. I think she's Lily.

Zoom out to view a fleet of battleships approaching Earth.

_Oh, There Goes Gravity. Scare Factor: 2._

----------


## Samael

One snarky dream guide to go, please.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #51: Puddles*

I'm river rafting with a group on the backs of whales/fish/squid/leeches. The creatures swim down the river with one side of their bodies facing up, which turns from pink to silver in the sunlight. They turn over after a while, so we have to stay on top of them.

My creature is about to turn over, so I jump onto the shore and let it. I throw one smaller creature back into the river where it got caught somewhere. I watch a kid's creature turn over and throw him into the water. He comes up on the other side, laughing.

I'm back in the water, swimming on my own. I'm wearing running shoes, which really limits my swimming ability. We'll be hiking later though, so I can't go barefoot.

An enemy is on the shore, aiming something at our group. I'm swimming through fairly deep water, but I jump up and land a flying kick on the henchmen, knocking the gadget aside. There's another one farther into the forest, and I rush at him -

_shift_

I'm driving through one of the main intersections in Quickton. The stoplights facing me are blinking orange, the adjacent stoplights are blinking red. I drive through the intersection, thinking about the DC I'm trying to help / is helping me.

I'm biking down one of the pathways near my house. I wonder how I'm going to meet up with her again. On impulse, I pull out a blaster and shoot two Star Wars-esque red laser blasts into the sky. I consider that we should have used that as a signal. I shoot a couple more just to see what the range of visibility is.

The signal starts coming up elsewhere in the city. Sirens go off. _Uh oh._ I stow my blaster under my jacket (it's too long to sling across my back; the barrel pokes up under my collar) and quickly pedal home. I do have to wonder how video game characters manage this.

I end up in an oh so messed up version of my backyard. I'm setting my bike against a fence and am about to haul it over into my half of the back yard (it's a duplex), when, for no apparent reason, I realize that I'm dreaming.

I don't see a reason not to leave the bike where it is. I decide to play along with the dream and get rid of the gun, so I walk into the garden shed and hold the blaster up along the wooden wall. The wall folds out and clamps onto the gun, and when it folds back you wouldn't even know that we were stockpiling an armory. Then I stare at the inside of the shed for a moment, marvelling at the detail and how real this all seems. I can feel my body, the scratch of the jean jacket I'm wearing, my feet on the ground.

I shake myself out of it. I had plans for a lucid, right? I was going to... meet Walms. Right. Now, how am I supposed to get there?

Stepping out into the bright sunlight, I extend my right hand, intent on peeling through the layers of the dream. Something goes wrong; I can't feel them. 

"What are you doing?"

There's a guy my age standing on the lawn in the back yard. Short blond-ish hair. Let's call him Derek (I haven't used that name yet, have I?). He doesn't look much different than I do in dreams. Similar clothing, too.

"You know what?" He says, when I don't answer, "I don't care. See ya."

Derek jumps through a hole in the lawn. It's shimmery, like a puddle, but it doesn't reflect the blue sky above. It reflects a different sky with a setting or rising sun, shot through with pink.

I jump through the puddle.

I hit sand on the other side, startling Derek. "Um, hi." I say.

"I wasn't expecting you to follow me," he admits.

"Yeah, well..." I look around, taking in the view. We're standing on a beach, looking out over a sunset. "Huh. I think I have a [desktop wallpaper] like this."



We spot another puddle in the sand. "You coming?" he asks me. 

I nod.

We jump. The other side is more blue-tinged. It's still sandy, but everything is underwater.

"So, you've gotta be looking for something, right?"

I try to answer, but the words come out garbled.

Derek rolls his eyes. "You know this is a dream, right? You wouldn't have been able to follow me otherwise. You can still talk."

I take a breath, feel cool air enter my lungs. Breathe out, breathe in. I try again. "I'm looking for a guy who calls himself 'Walms'".

Derek looks at me, incredulous. "You don't even know where you're meeting him? Jesus. I could take you to a _place_, but I don't think I can help you find someone you don't even _know_."

False awakening. I feel the dream fall apart around me, and become aware of my body lying on the bed. There is bright white light everywhere, and I can still feel the remnants of the previous dream around me.

I fade back into the dream. I'm back in the dream-warped backyard, sitting on the lawn. Derek is standing beside me. I swear, if he rolls his eyes any more, they'll stick like that. I go over where I left my bike and lift it over the fence. Derek says something.

_Puddles. Scare Factor: 2. Reaction: Okay, Mr. Negativity._

----------


## Hidden

Puddles...  Neat way to travel.  This Derek guy seems pretty helpful.

----------


## Samael

> Puddles...  Neat way to travel.  This Derek guy seems pretty helpful.



Yeah, surprising for someone who doesn't seem to like me very much.

I'm not sure on the name, BTW. I just needed something to call him. It'd be funny if it was a shared dream after all; "That's not my name!"  :tongue2: 

-------------

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #52: Lady Gaga*

I'm Dean Winchester (again), and we're on a hunt. We have to go through Lady Gaga videos frame by frame. Apparently there's a reason for the scene in "Bad Romance" where she's crying.

Also, I had the song stuck on a loop in my head after waking up. Ugh.

_Lady Gaga. Scare Factor: 10!_

Okay, 2. _Scare Factor: 2._

----------


## Requiem

> Puddles...  Neat way to travel.  This Derek guy seems pretty helpful.




Yeah.  You say this guy is your dream guide, Samael?  What makes you say that?

I haven't met my guide yet but apparently it is everything I hate all wrapped into one.

----------


## Hidden

> Also, I had the song stuck on a loop in my head after waking up. Ugh.
> 
> _Lady Gaga. Scare Factor: 10!_
> 
> Okay, 2. _Scare Factor: 2._



Ahahahahahahaha, I'm so sorry. xD

----------


## Samael

> Yeah. You say this guy is your dream guide, Samael? What makes you say that?
> 
> I haven't met my guide yet but apparently it is everything I hate all wrapped into one.



I don't think he's _MY_ Dream Guide, but he seemed to act as a dream guide for this dream in particular. Does that make sense? I'm going to see if I run into him again before I really start calling him that. I just don't usually have any intelligent DCs.

Everything you hate?





> Ahahahahahahaha, I'm so sorry. xD



 :tongue2: 

-----------

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #53: Nail Polish*

_Fragments_: Snape writing a letter to Voldemort about how annoying Harry is, and how Voldemort probably should have chosen Neville as his arch-nemesis if he actually wanted to win. 

Walking through a pathway in a zoo that is filled with snakes. I name cottonmouths, rattlesnakes, and coral snakes, which I peer at carefully, trying to decide if red touches yellow. I refuse to walk down the path while barefoot, because I like snakes, but I don't particularly want to die, thanks.

Running into Vicki from boxing; apparently she lives on the top floor of what might be my apartment building. It's an open dorm, so I recognize her while walking through, and consider waking her up. Or would that be creepy? She wakes up anyway.

_End Fragments._

Alternate Squamish. I'm watching video footage from a couple years ago, when apparently the downtown was flooded with green and black clouds of swarming... things.

I'm walking through back alleys and crab-walking (crawling) over gravel, for some reason. I look over a fence and see two-police officers disappearing around a corner. Deja vu. I've been at this fence before. I think I had trouble climbing it, since the fall down one side seems so steep. I try the sequence again, jumping over multiple fences through a back yard. One is a metal railing that seems too tall, and I climb over it, disappointed at the interruption.

I get to the other side, and a woman interrupts. She asks if I have an appointment. I remember that I do. I follow the woman into the building and slip off my shoes. There are change rooms. I think I'm the main character from _#59: Ghost Ship_, Jade. I follow the person who I have an appointment with. She's a really hot girl whose strawberry-blonde hair is tied up into a ponytail. A few strands fall attractively over her face. We've met before. Apparently she's painting my nails? I'm calling her Elle.

When we walk outside, I'm wearing a spa-like fluffy housecoat. Elle has her hands on my shoulders, pushing me gently through the door. I look around, amazed. One of the mountains extends over this part of the town. The stone is made out of a glassy black rock, like obsidian or onyx. Water falls in torrents into the ocean around the peninsula, surrounding the area with a fine white mist. Behind me is an eastern style wooden building, complemented by the sleek metal and glass railings running around the deck.

I follow Elle over pathways leading back and away from the ocean. Everything is sunny and the effect is much less impressive. We go to sit down at a picnic table.

My character falls asleep on a bed inside the building.

Cut to a group of people back at the picnic table area, randomly deciding that my character is a werewolf, and she needs to die.

The real me is listening in, sitting a table away and reading a book. The book is describing everything that's happening. I have to wonder why I'm only identifying with the parts written in first person (Jade's part), rather than the parts written in third person that have Elle in them. I concentrate on reading the book and getting back into the story.

I wake up, back in the building, as Jade. I'm highly annoyed by the inevitable running that's about to occur.
_
Nail Polish. Scare Factor: 2._

I think this dream means I have a crush on my hairdresser.

----------


## Requiem

Yeah, that makes sense.

Everything I hate.  I don't understand either but I'll have to meet my dream guide and ask for a more reliable way of shapeshifting.

And _Nail Polish_...not one of your better dreams....

keep 'em coming, dawg.

----------


## Hidden

> Snape writing a letter to Voldemort about how annoying Harry is, and how Voldemort probably should have chosen Neville as his arch-nemesis if he actually wanted to win.



 ::lol:: 

Squamish?

----------


## Samael

> And Nail Polish...not one of your better dreams....



I can't believe I'm getting critiqued on the excitement levels of my unconscious state.  :Cheeky:  I agree, though. Epic/violent dreams are a lot more fun. In my defense, I haven't been sleeping well, and I think my REM dreams have suffered as a result.

And really, the nail polish was this horrible orange/red colour...





> Squamish?



I lived there for a few months last year. Why, you been?

-----

Do you ever feel like someone tried to upload a shit-ton of information into your brain? I have a migraine. Please kill me.

I couldn't sleep until I turned this into a palindrome. And then I still couldn't sleep. I can't sleep.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #54: Riddles*

I am an idea. I am a trickster, a traitor, a revolutionary. I am a singular aspect of a collaborative human mythology. 

I am an individual facade of a multifaceted human consciousness. I am a willful child, a critical voice, a fearless rebel. I am an ideal.

Who am I?


*Spoiler* for _Answer_: 



*The Devil*. Though technically, the second paragraph is *Samael*. Sorry to subject you to this, but my brain has been monologuing at me for the last five hours. And all of yesterday if you count the magical world of Lux and/or Dis, where my alter ego has been trapped for the last several millenia. IDEK.




_Riddles. Reaction: Hello, Id? This is your Ego speaking. You need to lay off of this metaphor._

----------


## Hidden

> I lived there for a few months last year. Why, you been?



No, I was just wondering what it was.  And now I know.

----------


## Hukif

Riddles, brainbreakers I call them.

----------


## Samael

*looks at #54*

I have to wonder what I was thinking yesterday.





> No, I was just wondering what it was. And now I know.



Weird name, yeah? It's actually the name of one of the indigenous peoples in BC, and the actual name is "Sḵwxwú7mesh". So yeah.





> Riddles, brainbreakers I call them.



I've never been any good at them, myself.

----------------

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #55: A CAT!*

I feel a steady pull somewhere, like I'm being summoned. Images of an immense stone cavern, alive with a bright blue energy.

I seem to be on a road trip with my family. We get mixed up with the local vampires, and I have half of the population out to kill me. I'm standing in a hotel room with off-white walls and a duvet on the bed, talking to a woman with short blonde hair. She's an important figure to the vampires, and she's giving me information that might help me survive. We're planning something.

Memory of a red metal door and what might be a gymnasium. Being chased by the vampires, slamming the door into the face/arm of one of them as I run outside. It's daylight, but I'm not sure if that bothers them. Outside a brick building, patches of green grass growing weed-like in the gravel.

Space dream. Mentions of Kyle Katarn. I'm in a ship, dark metal interior. A DC thinks he's intimidating, but I don't feel the least bit threatened. Semi-lucid, I'm thinking about writing things down later. Sex dream.

Weird FA. I still feel half-stuck in the dreamworld, but not immersed in it. I think about waiting at the Twin Towers that Walms mentioned as a possible meeting place, pull up an image of what used to be there. I'm standing on top of the north tower, beside the antenna. I think about the Task of the Month, jumping off a skyscraper. I watch my dream avatar jump from the building and land on her feet, as if I'm watching a video clip. The scale is all wrong; the DA is too tall in comparison to the building beside her.

I'm Neal Caffrey from White Collar, helping to catch people. The dream-plot is nonsensical, and my surroundings are wavy coloured lines over white. I talk to Peter Burke about the people we caught by running into them with more wavy coloured lines that might have been a car.

"*OMFG A CAT!*" I shout, pointing. A cat walks along the driveway. I have no idea what context could turn this into a momentous event. Maybe all the animals are dead?

_A CAT! Scare Factor: 3._

----------


## Hukif

GAH! Ah well, at least we are getting closer, right? Silly vampires though <.<

----------


## Man of Shred

I use to work for a guy named Peter Burke.

----------


## Hidden

Let's see...  We've got vampire attacks, lucidity, jumping off skyscrapers, and random cat appearances.  I like this dream. =)

----------


## Samael

> GAH! Ah well, at least we are getting closer, right? Silly vampires though <.<



Yeah, at least. I can't say my recall's improving lately, though. Going to have to figure out how I can sleep better.





> I use to work for a guy named Peter Burke.



You worked for the FBI?  ::shock::  Okay, kidding. They do tend to use common names in fiction, though, so I guess it's not terribly surprising.





> Let's see... We've got vampire attacks, lucidity, jumping off skyscrapers, and random cat appearances. I like this dream. =)



Random cat appearances.  :smiley: 

-----------------

Couldn't fall asleep until after 4AM. Blah.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #56: Climbing Classes*

I'm wandering around Quickton. There might be some kind of business convention going on. I temporarily will a giant tower into existence over the highway, to defend/attack something.

My old high school. There are teachers and students milling about in the hallway, and I'm standing outside near one of the entrances. I'm hooking fingers and toes into the brick of an inside corner, climbing onto the roof. At one point, I'm near horizontal, and climbing in dreams is so much fun.

Apparently there are some parkour and climbing classes going on in June (in the dream). I want to sign up, but there are people trying to kill me, and I'm trying to lay low.

_Climbing Classes. Scare Factor: 1._

----------


## ClearView

You have a lot of neat dreams.. Keep them coming! You've got another reader.
-CV

----------


## Hidden

> there are people trying to kill me [...] Scare Factor: 1.



Hmm...  What does this say about your other dreams? =P

----------


## Samael

> You have a lot of neat dreams.. Keep them coming! You've got another reader.



Aw, thanks.  :smiley: 





> Hmm... What does this say about your other dreams? =P



But... they were just quietly lurking in the distance! How are they supposed to be scary if they're not even going to attack?  :Cheeky: 

I'm rating on how much emotion I have invested in the dream as well. I'm rating the following dream as a 2, just because of how annoyed I was with the DC in it.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #57: Q&A*

I dream about writing all of my previous dreams down in my journal. One of these dreams was a half-awake lucid. One line is written in shorthand, so it's probably a sex dream. When I wake up, my journal is blank, and I don't remember anything I dreamed about.

I'm standing on a stage, facing a group of people. The lighting is dim, the room around me comprised of dull browns and off-whites. The floor is a greyish tile that you usually find in schools and gymnasiums, although there's brown carpet in some places, and the stage is covered in cheap wood panelling. I'm introducing a guest speaker to the crowd, some actor. The crowd cheers and some people start raising their hands immediately. One of them is Kina from high school. 

I stare at them. "Yeah, I won't be answering any questions."

I walk off the stage and pull aside some thick grey curtains leading into an office/waiting area. "We're ready for you." I tell the actor. 

He smiles widely and takes his feet off of the table, says something and brushes past me into the auditorium.

Instead of heading up onto the stage, he goes to the back of the crowd and looks critically at the stage itself. The crowd collectively turns to look at him, but they stay in their seats. Where is security, anyway? I wonder if he's upset with the lighting.

"We can turn the stage lighting on," I say from the other end of the room, "But it'll probably blind you."

The actor just smiles and shakes his head. He has two hands out in front of him, forming a square that he's looking through.

I run a hand through my hair and sigh. What an irritating individual.

_Q&A. Scare Factor: 2. Notes: You know, I've never actually been to a convention. I also don't plan to. It sounds like way too much work._

----------


## Hidden

That is one odd dude...

----------


## Samael

> That is one odd dude...



I think it was this guy. The man might actually be stranger in real life.

----------


## Hukif

hehe, dreams about journaling, good it wasn't only about that.

----------


## Samael

I'm having multiple writing-things-down-in-my-journal dreams (in one night), which is really annoying when I actually wake up and find it blank. Occasionally I can remember bits and pieces of what I wrote, but still: irritating. Apparently I'm going to have to RC more while I'm journalling. 

In one of my fragments, Neil Gaiman was trying to take over the world. Apparently he's on Time Magazine's Most Influential People list, so this wouldn't be too surprising. Oh, and he's capable of adding to historical mythology.

Be afraid.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #58: The Heist*

I'm robbing an art gallery. This is the easy part, casing the place, looking for details that might assist us in our escape. It's near closing time, and we need to know _exactly_ how the staff shuts the place down - so we're posing as tourists, waiting to be shuffled out of the building.

The place is huge, large enough to have their own conservator on staff, a woman that I'm talking to right now. I'm pretending to be a collector, probably talking about donating a piece to the public collection. We're discussing the minutiae of restoring a particular piece, a thirteenth-century painting that I actually have no interest in (ie: we're not stealing it). 

"Where are the security cameras?" I ask her. After all, I want my donation to be safe. I've spotted one camera in the entrance lobby, but none in the main areas or at the employee exits.

"Oh," says the woman, "We don't have any."

I look at her blankly for a second. "Well," I say, "That's stupid." 

I look over the woman's shoulder at Johanna, the blonde ghost girl from #59, _Ghost Ship_. My accomplice is decidedly un-ghostly today. She's with a tour group, examining the high-tech vault that our prize is locked in. The metallic display swivels around, forms a coffin-like shape, and seals itself away, fitting like a puzzle into the tile floor. The rest of the group applauds enthusiastically, but Jo limits herself to a small smile, eyes glittering with anticipation of the challenge.


Jayne Wisener Johanna

I signal Johanna and say goodbye to the conservator. We shake hands and she tells me to contact her if I have any questions. I assure her that I will, and I slip away into the back hallways of the art gallery, off limits to the public.

Jo meets me at our planned escape route, one of the employee exits that requires a code to leave without setting off the alarm. I notice the visible red laser line over the floor, which could be stepped over easily, but the door is alarmed as well. I hear a voice over the intercom, saying that the museum will be closing in a few minutes.

There's a keypad beside me. I enter the code, which I gleaned from the mind of the conservator when I shook her hand. This is why Jo and I work together well: I get the information and she steals the priceless artifact. We split the danger and the cut. And I do my job well - the outer door swings open, and the alarm switches off.

"All guests have two minutes to exit the building," says the intercom. Jo and I grin at each other and step out into the alley. We pile into a small green car with a few other girls. This was our test run. We'll come back tomorrow night and pull the real heist.

We've stopped at a hostel/diner/convenience store. While waiting in line, I'm looking through the racks for a pair of sunglasses that don't make me look like a girl. Everything's sold out though, and apparently I already bought the last pair of sunglasses, which are either broken or missing.

DCs have been telling me, for the last few minutes, that I'm late for the Evil Meeting of Evil. This is, apparently, not a good thing, as the meeting is headed by one of the organization's scariest members. I remember being appropriately terrified earlier in the dream, but now, semi-aware, I can't see why I should be afraid of a DC. When I step outside, I see minions of the League on rows of fold out chairs, under a bright blue sky. Odd.

The terrifying speaker is a black woman with straight, shoulder length black hair, who bears a remarkable similarity to Zoe from Firefly. This, of course, means she's a badass character who I should probably Run Away From Really Fast, but instead I pretty much ignore her as she yells at me and tells me to sit down.

Not!Zoe continues her pep-talk, and I wander back into the building, finding myself in a hostel-style dorm room filled with bunk beds.

The first person I notice is a Legion-style, long-limbed teenager. I'm fascinated by how tall he is, and by the way he's swinging from what are effectively monkey-bars suspended by the bunk-beds. Apparently, the boy can't support his own weight. He stumbles into the diner/convenience store area, and his mom snaps at me not to stare.


What are you looking at?

I turn around, and suddenly there's a high speed bundle of white lace crashing into my arms. I catch the little girl as she throws her arms around me, demanding a hug from a complete stranger. I stand there awkwardly, regaining my balance.

The mom rolls her eyes when I look at her, and tells me that the girl used to suffer extreme pain when anyone touched her. Now she's cured. Okay...

I leave the strange family behind and go back outside to deal with my fellow villains. Who want me to become Doctor Insano. I tell them that I really would (I have my lab coat on and everything), but I can't find my swirly goggles - I only have a set of pink ski goggles, and those just aren't the same.


So yeah.

Johanna and I are back in the art gallery, along with another girl, Macy, who's actually outside. Macy was with us in the getaway car, and she's possessing her pet cat (her spirit animal) so we can have another set of eyes on the inside. The cat is darting through the gallery's hidden places, under tables and behind exhibits, practically invisible unless you know what you're looking for. Jo and I are about to split up, while I keep the entrances clear, when we're interrupted by the most ominous sound I have ever heard.

"KITTY!" shrieks a delighted, childlike voice. This is followed by a chilling snarl from Macy's cat.

I turn around to see that the cat is a charred pile of fur and skin on the floor, and the little girl from before looks absolutely stricken. I look upward and sigh, knowing that we won't have a chance at the painting at this point.

I'm waving at the little body, willing it up from the floor, and slowly toward the side door. At the same time, Jo and I are having a heated discussion over who gets to take care of the girl without making a scene. More so than the fireball and the crying child already have, anyway.

"Me?" I ask incredulously, "I'm not a Meta!" (I don't have superpowers.)

Jo sends a significant glance at the cat magically floating out the door, and looks back at me with a raised eyebrow.

Well, I can't argue with that.

I go over to the little girl and ask if she remembers me. She nods her head and I hold out my hand, and we all go outside.

Jo is over with Macy, who's a sobbing wreck on the ground, leaning against one of the tires of the car. She's looking at her cat, lying on the dirt a few feet away from her. Apparently, her experience was slightly traumatizing.

I lead the girl over to the cat, and kneel down beside it. I give a heartwarming speech involving the importance of responsibility and compassion, and tell her how important it is that we keep our powers under control. Then, waving a hand over the cat, I _tug_ at it's life energy, and the cat gets up and wanders over to Macy.

"There," I say, getting up and dusting myself off. "No harm done."

An alarm starts to blare from within the gallery.

"Son of a _bitch_!"

All of us pile into the backseat of the car, which is suddenly filled with half a dozen girls, and we speed away.

_The Heist. Scare Factor: 3._

----------


## Hidden

> I'm having multiple writing-things-down-in-my-journal dreams (in one night), which is really annoying when I actually wake up and find it blank.



I hate that too.

On another note...  That is one epic dream.

----------


## Hazel

> I'm having multiple writing-things-down-in-my-journal dreams (in one night), which is really annoying when I actually wake up and find it blank. Occasionally I can remember bits and pieces of what I wrote, but still: irritating. Apparently I'm going to have to RC more while I'm journalling.



This used to happen to me all the time... so annoying.





> Things to Run Away From Really Fast #66: The Heist



What an awesome, epic dream! This one was fun to read; I have a feeling I'll be stalking reading your dream journal more often.

----------


## Samael

Has anyone else noticed that I'm _really_ bad at counting?





> hehe, dreams about journaling, good it wasn't only about that.



That would be _extra_ annoying. I'm glad I got to go back to sleep after that. 





> On another note... That is one epic dream.



Thanks. I was remembering the whole thing out of order, so I made notes of all the scenes and tried to put them together in a way that made sense. It's odd sometimes, translating dreams into written form. In dreams, you can move back and forth and do things over again, but it's confusing when you try to write it out.





> What an awesome, epic dream! This one was fun to read; I have a feeling I'll be stalking reading your dream journal more often.



I was amazed that I actually got back to the gallery after I left with the DCs. Usually the dream would just be a half-finished mess as soon as something else got my attention. I was surprised when the little girl showed up again, too.

Stalk Read away, my friend. I myself am stalking reading several members' journals, and I'm not nearly as upfront about my creepiness.  :wink2:

----------


## Samael

Had another writing-in-my-journal dream, only this time, I knew that I was dreaming. I was reading the entry, trying to memorize the text before I woke up. The only thing I remember is "Lewis Lovhaug", the name of one of the reviewers from TGWTG.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #59: The Hunt*

I take the stairs two at a time, with Angel right behind me. We reach the top floor of the Ixburg apartment building, rounding the corner so fast I slide a bit. I practically crash into the door at the end of the hallway, and start to pick the lock telekinetically.

Angel stops me with a hand on my wrist. "What if your parents are home? We could be putting them in danger." 

A bit of dread creeps into my stomach, and I try to ignore it.

"They haven't lived here for _years_," I say dismissively. I shake free and flick the door open.

The sound of thunder in the distance. "Quick!" I say, pulling Angel by the arm. I pull him into the apartment and slam the door shut.

My mom and dad are standing in the entrance, looking surprised. My brother is there, and Sam and Dean Winchester are off in the background.

"Mom. Dad." I say, "This is... great."

Silence.

"I want you to meet my boyfriend!" I say, threading my hand through with Angel's. "This is Angel. Angel, this is my mom and dad. Who are _really_ not supposed to be here."

Angel is rolling his eyes toward the ceiling, but at least he's saving the "I told you so" moment for later. Ben, my brother, looks completely shocked, and the other Sam's face is melting.

In fact, everyone's faces seem to be shifting at random. Angel briefly flickers into Dexter, who flickers into... some random person I don't know, and Dean's not nearly as pretty as he usually is. Ben's someone completely unrecognizable, and I push through my parents into my room, waiting for the dream to stabilize.

I'm trying to figure out how to fit both a desk and a double-sized bed into my childhood bedroom when Angel walks in. He's looking somewhat normal again. At this point, we decide, we have to stay here. The Wild Hunt will tear their way through my family whether we're here or not, so we might as well stay to protect them.

I'm having a shower when, through the window, I see a group of my brother's friends running over the lawn. Apparently I'm in the basement. I run outside, fully clothed, and look back at the building I was just in. It's an approximation of my parents' duplex, though it's currently worn down and the entire back yard is yellow and covered in weeds and vines.

I spot the group running through the back yard and I give chase, catching up and tackling the one that's supposed to be Ben. I pin him to the ground, yelling that this is a dream, and the rest of the group stands to the side, eerily still.

"Could you give us a minute?" I say, hauling my brother to his feet. "I have some questions for my brother."

I'm pretty sure this DC isn't my brother, but rather an impostor sent by Mab.

And apparently I was right, because a second later, the group of teenagers shift into unearthly horsemen and hellhounds. Mab herself appears from nowhere, wearing red and riding a horse that just might be an animated skeleton. 

Mab demands my surrender. I decline.

Half a dozen faeries rush me at once. I hit the first two with a rush of pure kinetic energy, liquefying their organs and taking them out of the fight. I disarm number three and stab him in the gut with his own green dagger, letting the body drop to the ground as I pull the weapon free and look to my next opponent.

And I see, again, a trail of bright blue energy following my movements, latching onto the Fae and _pulling_ their energy toward me. One of the fairies' power is surprisingly in tune with my own, and I hear a voice telling me to use it.

At first, I think it means the dagger, but as I focus on the energy I'd just absorbed, I realize that this isn't the power of a foot soldier. This is bigger, and I feel myself drop away from the dream, ascending higher and higher until I can see all of the stars and the Queen of the Wild Hunt is just a speck I can only barely see, and I suddenly understand why she thinks so little of those around her, because _everything is so small_...

When I come to awareness, Angel is next to my bed.

I groan, shielding my eyes from the light pouring in the window. "Some help you were." I grumble.

He snorts. "While you and Mab were unconscious, most of the Fae just wanted to chop off your head and be done with it. I had a hell of a time getting you out of there alive."

"I woulda been fine."

"Right." He looks dubious. "And the Dreaming?"

I look up, pulling myself into a sitting position. "This is a dream, that was a dream." I sigh, "When I wake up, I'll be reality checking all day."

_The Hunt. Scare Factor: 3.5. Low-level lucidity_

----------


## Hazel

> I'm pretty sure this DC isn't my brother, but rather an impostor sent by Mab.



Is this referring to the Mab of myth, or some other character?

Cool dream. It's always nice getting to date hot vampires, isn't it?  ::chuckle::

----------


## Samael

> Is this referring to the Mab of myth, or some other character?



Yeah, this was the mythical Mab, probably influenced by The Dresden Files. Odd that she was heading up the Wild Hunt, though. Disclaimer: I reserve the right to blatantly deconstruct established mythologies.





> Cool dream. It's always nice getting to date hot vampires, isn't it?



Yes, but only the awesome ones.  ::D:

----------


## Requiem

Hey, is there a legend for text color?

Keep 'em coming.

----------


## Samael

> Hey, is there a legend for text color?



non-lucidsemi-lucidlucid

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #60: Zombieland*

My team saves a little girl's life while we steal something from her father.

I'm cycling away from Vancouver, eastwards. There are people shuffling down the road on foot, heading into the city. One of them makes a grab at my bike, and I punch him, knocking him over. A few people pass me, on bikes themselves, and an older woman tells me I shouldn't hesitate to take them out if they try to grab me. A skinny bald man further up the road is moving into my path, and I hold out an arm to clothesline him, but he stumbles away at the last second.

People are still shuffling around, but they're a little more zombie-like now. Two people are holed up in a lab, a guy with shoulder-length black hair wearing a leather jacket, and the main character from _Zombieland_. We have a few frantic fight scenes. I end up throwing hard punches at the zombies and wishing I had a shotgun, but punching them tends to stun them for a few seconds, so that's something. A zombie with tangled curly hair, a bigger guy, rushes us, and I accidentally tear off the bandages covering his mouth. He tries to bite me, and I swing a computer moniter into his head repeatedly, until he stops twitching.

We have to get something from the control room, so I'm rappelling down a wide chute, in circles around the wires coming from the centre. I realize too late that going in circles means that I have less rope, and I'm several metres from the ground when I run out. Climbing out the vertical hole, about twenty metres, would be practically impossible, so I untangle myself from the harness and drop to the floor. I land easily. I see a flash of what's on the other side of the exit, a conveyor belt leading to the zombie from before. 

I hurtle out of the chute at full speed, launching myself at the zombie and aiming a punch at his jaw. My punch barely connects, and I realize too late that it's too weak to do anything. The zombie looks at me, and I've used up all my momentum; I panic. I _push_ back at the zombie, telekinetically blasting it into the wall, splattering its brains over the metallic surface.

Abruptly, I realize that I'm dreaming, and I walk to the control room, throwing zombies through the walls as they try to approach. I'm having _so_ much fun, and the remaining zombies scatter like leaves, though their landings are bloodier.  I reach my destination and find a zombie!GIR and zombie!Yoda standing there waiting for me. They've gotten bigger. I try to toss them away with TK, but the move barely pushes them a few centimetres. The pair stalks menacingly toward me.

I'm lucid, though, and decide this is a complete waste of time. I decide to ignore the pair and go look for Walms. I look away from the bizarre zombies and make for the exit. Zombie!GIR is a green couch bumping up against my leg.

I'm waking up. I try to stabilize, but fail.

New dream. We're survivors in an art gallery IN SPACE while running a pet shop. We find other survivors on earth and establish an alliance. My cousins want to look at the fish.

I have the wrong prescription for contacts and I'm running away from a government conspiracy with my family. Or monsters, maybe. My brother wants to know why this is necessary.

My luggage is too heavy, after I get off the bus, but I find that if I lean a certain way, I start floating along automatically. I run into Milly's mom, Pat Green*, and we go for lunch at a vegetarian cafe.

*From high school. You realize I'm making all these names up, right?

_Zombieland. Scare Factor: 3._

----------


## Hidden

A zombie dream!!!! -is obsessed with zombies-

----------


## Hukif

haha, zombies prevented you from looking for me. And cool dreams, I like how it went from hard to easy to hard again, also, what do you guys mean by reading? Stalking is the way to go!

----------


## Samael

> A zombie dream!!!! -is obsessed with zombies-



Zombies! I love zombies. They're not nearly as scary as they seem to think they are.





> haha, zombies prevented you from looking for me. And cool dreams, I like how it went from hard to easy to hard again



Random difficulty levels FTW! That's the first time I've ever gotten away with ignoring something.





> what do you guys mean by reading? Stalking is the way to go!



 :Cheeky: 

------------------

I went through all the old threads and fixed the order; I know I was missing a few. Also, the first thread is now a table of contents.

*Things to Run Away From #61: Penguins*

I'm in water, dog-paddling, and it's dark. Someone lifts up the lid, and I shrink back from the light. He doesn't see me, but he puts down the blade of the propeller inches from my head, and I curse. I swim around the boat and climb on, quickly dispatching the three guards with strikes to their temples. I go about tying them up with the single length of rope I have, using slip-knots. I look for my allies in the other boats.

Something goes wrong, and I'm captured. I'm tied up, but slip free of the rope almost immediately. They take me to their leader, who looks suspiciously similar to me.

I'm with a class of young people, led by a teacher who might be from a university or college. We're shovelling rocks over the cracks in a hollow, rocky hill. The hill is shuddering as the monsters inside ram themselves against the rock, trying to break through and kill us all. We avoid these spots, trying not to antagonize them as we bury them alive. There have been attacks lately; we're trying to strengthen our defenses.

We finish that edge and go around the corner. The wall is missing. Our group freezes, coming face to face with dozens of the creatures.

They look like penguins. Misshapen, evil penguins with claws and teeth, but still. They're kind of comical, but they're still trying to eat us.

Most of the group takes off at a sprint. I hang back, along with one other student, for the first charge. Two of the little monsters come straight at me. I swing the shovel at one, knocking it away. I pull my weapon back, swing it through the second one until the shovel hits sand, impaling the penguin on the blade edge.

We've given the others some time to escape, and we take off before the rest can charge. I run fast, catching up to the others and greying my vision at the edges, when it finally clicks. _I'm being chased by mutant penguins._ I turn around, blasting our pursuers with telekinetic energy, scattering them into the lake/ocean behind their hills.

I've _still_ got to find Walms, but I'm not trusting my abilities with portals lately, so I try to find one that's already active. I walk _right past_ what might be a stargate, and look out through the windows built into the walls of the hill building I'm in.

When I look back, I see Marge Cartwright and her youngest daughter, sitting in chairs that have appeared around the room. Cartwright's eldest was in my graduating class. I say something to the effect of "Another Other Mother?" and claw my way out through the plastic-covered window.

I try to imagine a great fall out of the window, so I can get into another setting, maybe a skyscraper, but I fall four feet into the sand and land _hard_. I can feel the impact. Ow. I keep exploring the dream-setting.

I escape from a prison using a tazer and a group of accomplices, pick a car in the parking lot and drive it through an iron fence, and have to drive it away with an invisible hand because it won't take much more damage. While we wait for the car to get repaired, I explore an underground fairy hutch and almost get trapped inside.

_Penguins. Scare Factor: 3._

----------


## Hukif

lol mutant penguins ninja? That would have been cool.

----------


## Hazel

> They look like penguins. Misshapen, evil penguins with claws and teeth, but still. They're kind of comical, but they're still trying to eat us.



Hah, believe me, I know the feeling. The only difference is that my evil penguins appeared to also be robotic.

----------


## Serenity

I'm sorry I'm slow at subscribing! Caught up on the last few dreams, you've got some interesting ones!!

----------


## Samael

> lol mutant penguins ninja? That would have been cool.



Mutant Ninja Penguins, that's all I need. Apparently there's a song by a band called Satan's Penguins called "Mutant Ninja Penguins (From Hell). Hilarious.





> Hah, believe me, I know the feeling. The only difference is that my evil penguins appeared to also be robotic.



 ::shock:: 





> I'm sorry I'm slow at subscribing! Caught up on the last few dreams, you've got some interesting ones!!



Hey, thanks for reading.  :smiley:  I haven't actually caught up with the beginnings of everyone's journals. Some of them are very long, you know.

Do subscribers show up on a list somewhere? I'm just curious.

-----------------

*Spoilers* for the end of Lucifer.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #62: Stray Little Devils*

Fragment: Misha Collins and I walk through a grassy field, looking for a shed or a house that contains something important.

Fragment: My own dark energies are overshadowed by the presence of* bright blue*.

I've somehow popped into the _Sandman_ universe, after the end of the _Lucifer_ series. Considering I'm the devil herself at the moment, albeit one from an alternate reality, I think it prudent to avoid people who might recognize me.

A group of the ex-Lucifer's allies are converging upon a town, ready to attack, for some reason. I have an image of him (from my avatar) crashing into one of the buildings with a semi-truck, stepping out unharmed. I realize that I'm going to have to hide my healing ability.

I make for the rooftops. I run up a ramp and leap onto the side of a three-story building, using tiny handholds to inch my way onto the roof. I get to the edge, and I pull myself up, and immediately scramble for cover at the back of the roof. Mazikeen jumps up the same way I came, armed with a sniper rifle and ready to take out enemies on the ground.

I notice that she's recovered the other half of her face.



I inch out of my hiding place to get a better look at her, and she turns around. "Lucifer?" she accuses, calling fire into the palm of her right hand.

"Um, no?" I say, "Not yours, anyway."

She doesn't seem to believe me, and being burned alive is never fun.

"'He flew outside of creation, and the nothing imposed itself upon him. Or maybe he imposed himself upon the nothing.'" I misquote, "It was something like that, anyway."

Yeah, that fireball doesn't seem to be dying down.

"I'm here to help! Really!"

"You're here to help?" She says mockingly, "What can _you_ do?"

_Some time later..._

I'm a child in white, laid out over an altar. A man holds a knife out in front of him, poised to strike into my heart. Like lightening, I stand up and take the knife, slashing across his throat and spraying arterial blood into the audience. A woman licks her lips, and I wonder what it tastes like to her.

One sacrifice down.

_Stray Little Devils. Scare Factor: 2._

----------


## Hukif

Ah, you should have taught her what you can do! Also, sorry, I keep forgetting about visiting you at the right times <.<

----------


## Requiem

Having read your dreams for awhile now...you have really crazy dreams and excellent recall.  I'd like to see what you come up with while lucid.  How do you get all these powers and characters in your dreams?  I am wondering what you do during the day.  Read a lot of comic books or something and the material works in way into your dreams or what?

----------


## Samael

> Ah, you should have taught her what you can do! Also, sorry, I keep forgetting about visiting you at the right times <.<



No worries. Anyway, I was trying to make nice with my Lucifer's allies. Probably would have been more fun to fight her, though.





> Having read your dreams for awhile now...you have really crazy dreams and excellent recall. I'd like to see what you come up with while lucid. How do you get all these powers and characters in your dreams? I am wondering what you do during the day. Read a lot of comic books or something and the material works in way into your dreams or what?



Yeah, I read a lot. Fantasy and sci-fi, mostly. I'm also a wannabe fiction writer, and I work in construction. When floor joists start floating around in the background, that's to blame. Characters tend to be a mix of fictional and original fictional characters, with some random DCs thrown in for plot convenience.

Powers aren't really acquired, right? If you spend enough time thinking about what telekinesis would be like, IRL, chances are you'll be able to do it in dreams. I end up staring at pencils on my desk occasionally, half expecting them to up and fly away. Which, by the way, flying is something I'd like to be able to do eventually.

-----

Had this all neatly typed up before my computer crashed.  :Mad: 

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #63: College*

I need to get into the Ixburg Apartments. I pull out the screen from a window on the second floor. Before I climb in, I'm distracted by a group of people in the parking lot. I recognize the character from Bum Reviews, but he runs away as soon as he sees me.

I'm Marty McFly, in a mall, talking to Lorraine, his mom. I'm either in the future or the past, and I consider the fact that my chequing accounts shouldn't be working nearly as well as they are.

I'm in dorms in a school. I have a top bunk. There's a ventillation shaft leading from above my bed to the library, and I take it there and back a few times in the middle of the night. Someone catches me once, and I look back and see that the tunnel I crawled through was too small to fit a person.

I wander through the library during the day. I pick up a book and am amused to note that they cited Encyclopedia Dramatica as a reference (I can read in dreams).

Apparently I've transferred to ACAD in Calgary. I'm mad that I've been put down as a first year, and I realize that I have to do the paperwork to transfer all of my credits from my other school.

I talk to a guy in the dorms. He introduces himself as Josh or Joshua, and I mention that one of the DV members is named Josh/Joshua. He says that he's actually Loaf (he pronounces it "loof"), isn't that a weird coincidence? Then I run into Serenity and MoSH, as well as another girl I don't recognize. 

Now I'm staying with roommates away from campus, and I have to find the Student Services table so I can change my courses around.

I'm following a story about two men who were intrepid adventurers in the wilds of Saskatchewan. I float down a cliff, following the story (the DCs can't see me). I realize that I'm dreaming, and I also notice that I'm barefoot. I think that the easiest way to get around that would be to shapeshift into one of the dogs, and I could follow the story better. I trot along the side of the river, trying to catch up to the group, but I notice that the setting is fading into white, and I feel myself starting to wake up.

_College. Scare Factor: 2._

----------


## Serenity

Woohoo! I'm in yet another person's dreams!  ::D: 

Actually, I live in Calgary, too  :smiley:  I graduated from SAIT (which you probably already know is right next door to ACAD).

----------


## Samael

I remember you saying you were from Alberta. I didn't realize that you graduated from SAIT, though! And the C-train loudly announces SAIT's presence at the station ("SAIT/ACAD/Jubilee Station"?) for all to hear. Oddly, I've never actually been in the SAIT buildings.
*
Things to Run Away From Really Fast #64: Time Management*

Cell phones are evil and I talk to my brother about comic book continuities. Apparently Batman showed up in the _Sandman_ universe. I'm playing video games in a living room. I switch the gender on a character customization screen, which affects three dreams:

- A ghost enacts vengeance on his/her killer, and both go up in flames. There's a picture of a kitten involved.

- A warrior... guy... who looks like Ichigo from _Bleach_ saves two main characters from... something, but one of the background DCs gets killed. The costume is warm, and he looks at the river, thinking about going for a swim. Zoom back to me with the video games, looking at a character screen that looks way different than the actual character did.

- I have to capture all six million Pokemon. I also have to click across a screen to keep them happy. 

I'm in the same room, which is now a bar. I'm sipping on the large chai latte I bought before the coffee shop closed. Linkara is bartending. It's someone's birthday, and he randomly slices pieces off of an angel food cake when people come in. There are two cakes; one is hiding in a cupboard somewhere.

_Time Management. Scare Factor: 2._

----------


## Hazel

> I end up staring at pencils on my desk occasionally, half expecting them to up and fly away.



O.O Wow, I think we have twin minds.





> I wander through the library during the day. I pick up a book and am amused to note that they cited Encyclopedia Dramatica as a reference



 ::chuckle::  Wouldn't want to see the grade you'd get from using THAT in a research project.

----------


## Serenity

> And the C-train loudly announces SAIT's presence at the station ("SAIT/ACAD/Jubilee Station"?) for all to hear. Oddly, I've never actually been in the SAIT buildings.



LOL yeah, except that ACAD gets the whole name out... the voice always says, "SAIT, Alberta College of Art and Design, Jubilee Station." What? It's too much of a mouthful to say Southern Alberta Institute of Technology?! Sure, you'd have to start the announcement from Sunnyside, but come on! Favouritism  :tongue2: 

I mostly only spent time in the buildings I had classes in  :tongue2:  I don't really know what the other parts of the campus are like. Similarly, I have never been through the doors of ACAD.

----------


## Hidden

Mutant killer penguins?  Awesome!





> Had this all neatly typed up before my computer crashed.



I hate it when this happens. >.>





> I have to capture all six million Pokemon. I also have to click across a screen to keep them happy.



This made me happy.

----------


## Samael

> O.O Wow, I think we have twin minds.
> 
>  Wouldn't want to see the grade you'd get from using THAT in a research project.



OMG. I'm going to have to get a creepier avatar.  ::shock:: 

And that image breaks my brain a little.





> *Sure, you'd have to start the announcement from Sunnyside*, but come on! Favouritism
> 
> I mostly only spent time in the buildings I had classes in I don't really know what the other parts of the campus are like. Similarly, I have never been through the doors of ACAD.



I'm in favour of this.  ::lol:: 

Aside from the graffiti hall, you're not missing much. I've been told that ACAD was designed by a prison architect. Odd choice for an art school, but hey, graffiti hall!





> This made me happy.



Pokemon! Penguins! Evil mutant penguin pokemon? 

Is there a penguin-based pokemon? There totally should be. Wait for it...

----------


## Samael

Didn't sleep much.

*Things to Run Away From #65: Choosing Sides*

Two men are standing outdoors. The shorter man is yelling at the taller one.

"If you're not with us, you're against us!" He spits. Then he yells something about going back to the North if he can't support his friends.

The taller man stares back evenly, and says that there's more to the American Civil War than wounded pride.

Also, talking to Serenity about the ability to edit certain posts on DreamViews.  ::?: 

_Choosing Sides. Scare Factor: 2._

----------


## Man of Shred

what did the girl you didn't recognize that was with us look like?

----------


## Samael

Typo. I meant to say that I didn't know her name. I'm pretty sure she was Loaf's friend (I skimmed through his blog a while back).

----------


## Baron Samedi

> I remember you saying you were from Alberta. I didn't realize that you graduated from SAIT, though! And the C-train loudly announces SAIT's presence at the station ("SAIT/ACAD/Jubilee Station"?) for all to hear. Oddly, I've never actually been in the SAIT buildings.
> *
> Things to Run Away From Really Fast #64: Time Management*
> 
> Cell phones are evil and I talk to my brother about comic book continuities. Apparently Batman showed up in the _Sandman_ universe. I'm playing video games in a living room. I switch the gender on a character customization screen, which affects three dreams:
> 
> - A ghost enacts vengeance on his/her killer, and both go up in flames. There's a picture of a kitten involved.
> 
> - A warrior... guy... who looks like Ichigo from _Bleach_ saves two main characters from... something, but one of the background DCs gets killed. The costume is warm, and he looks at the river, thinking about going for a swim. Zoom back to me with the video games, looking at a character screen that looks way different than the actual character did.
> ...



A couple weekends ago, my girlfriend and I brought an angel food cake to her cousin's house for dinner. Surprise! Her cousin had one in the fridge.

----------


## Samael

> A couple weekends ago, my girlfriend and I brought an angel food cake to her cousin's house for dinner. Surprise! Her cousin had one in the fridge.



Huh. I wonder if I picked that up from you. 

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #66: The Last Unicorn*

I'm a cross between Alice (in Wonderland) and the human form of The Last Unicorn. As per usual, I'm utterly convinced that I'm the character. I'm a lot more nervous and soft-spoken than I normally would be, and I feel completely out of my depth. I feel no indication that this could possibly be a dream.

The hunters from this clip get killed by a shapeshifter as they leave my forest. 

I somehow end up with a group of soldiers. They're protecting me. I'm wearing one of their uniforms, which comes complete with this hat. The hat only makes an appearance once. After I get dressed, nobody else is wearing one.

We go into an atrium to get food. There are birds nesting on the ceiling, and we can't look up. If we do, they'll attack us. I can see them in my mind's eye. They're brightly coloured: red and blue and yellow, and they look remarkably pretty swarming above us. I have to resist the urge to look, and I keep my eyes straight ahead as I grab a vat of mashed potatoes. Of course, one of the other members of the group looks up, and we have to run away without the food.

I'm trying to draw the layout of the building we're in. Drawing seems to stabilize everything, and the rooms rearrange themselves to fit the drawing. As soon as I get involved in the plot again, everything starts back to shifting. 

There's a stage. I don't remember why the stage is important. Chairs are set out for the evening, but it's mid-afternoon and no one is using them yet.

_The Last Unicorn. Scare Factor: 3._

I was _boring_ in this dream.

----------


## NightCrawler

I have not read many of your entries yet but I read a couple because I recognized some characters from shows I watch like Castle and Supernatural. Good thing I did, your dreams are really interesting I'll be checking back often!  :smiley:

----------


## Samael

> I have not read many of your entries yet but I read a couple because I recognized some characters from shows I watch like Castle and Supernatural. Good thing I did, your dreams are really interesting I'll be checking back often!



They're two awesome shows, aren't they? Thanks for reading.  :smiley: 

------------------------

So, a sex dream is the only thing I remember in any detail. I actually am going to detail it here, because ironically, my public journal seems to be more private than my written one. Go figure.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #67: Girls*

I'm in one of my old bedrooms from when I was a teenager, flirting with a girl who is, apparently, one of my female friends. She has short, reddish hair and is probably taller than me.


*Spoiler* for _Mature Content_: 



We end up on the bed, her leaning against me, back pressed into my chest, leaning her head against my shoulder. Her breath tickles my neck.

She says something and I laugh, willing her clothes away with a thought. She smirks, presses kisses onto my neck. "I wondered when you were going to get it," she says in a low voice. I run a hand over one of her small breasts, down the smooth skin of her stomach. I trace two fingers down through smooth curls, bringing my fingers back up to brush against her clit. She arches up into the contact, letting out a low moan.

"Shh..." I say, letting my lips brush against her ear. "Parents in the other room."

I trace my fingers through the folds of the labia, feeling the wetness there, and she hisses sharply as I push the tips of my fingers in. 

"Ow." She says. "Watch your nails."

I will my nails to grow shorter, as they've shifted length during the dream. I mumble an apology and press a kiss into her temple, and continue to tease her.

I can feel it when she gets close. Her climax carries us both through it, as attuned to her as I am. When it's over, I climb over her so that we're facing each other, and I kiss her lips. She kisses back, and I notice vaguely that this is more solid than it usually is in dreams.

We lay on the bed for a while, lazily making out, before the dream fades out.




Other fragments:

Walking through a wasteland of a city. There are "heroes" here that are similar to the Power Rangers, and they tend to fight the monsters that plague the place. One of the monsters tries to attack me, but I ignore it.

Talking to Tim, a kid from my hometown, the same age as my younger brother. He's making fun of the entire setting, saying it's as stupid as "that Spirited Away movie" we watched repeatedly one summer. I wonder aloud if the story-line is similar because both shows are Japanese.

Watching the show in a living room in one of my family's old houses. My mom asks me about it, and I say that they made a whole bunch of Doctor Who references because the shows are similar, and both British.  ::?: 

Wondering at the length of my big toenail as I cut it. I didn't know toenails could get that long.

Talking to Raven Knight about the possibility of her teaching the BD DVA class, but she doesn't understand what I'm talking about.

_Girls. Scare Factor: 1._

----------


## Serenity

> As per usual, I'm utterly convinced that I'm the character.



This happens more than I'd like to, especially when it's a Sailor Moon referenced dream (which is a major dream sign for me, obviously)! Usually, I *am* her, which makes it so hard to realize that it's a dream  :smiley:

----------


## Hazel

> We go into an atrium to get food. There are birds nesting on the ceiling, and we can't look up. If we do, they'll attack us. I can see them in my mind's eye. They're brightly coloured: red and blue and yellow, and they look remarkably pretty swarming above us. I have to resist the urge to look, and I keep my eyes straight ahead as I grab a vat of mashed potatoes. Of course, one of the other members of the group looks up, and we have to run away without the food



Wow, I would love to have seen something like that! Unusual birds are pretty common in my dreams, actually. Too bad that DC had to ruin everything  ::chuckle::

----------


## Samael

> This happens more than I'd like to, especially when it's a Sailor Moon referenced dream (which is a major dream sign for me, obviously)! Usually, I *am* her, which makes it so hard to realize that it's a dream



Hm, I know what you mean. If I think back during the dream, I can recall a character's entire history as if it's my own. It's kind of hard to realize you're dreaming when all of the weird stuff that happens during dreams seems completely normal for your character. It's not like portals, evil little demon girls or broken fourth walls would faze Dean Winchester. 

Seriously, that show is messed up.





> Wow, I would love to have seen something like that! Unusual birds are pretty common in my dreams, actually. Too bad that DC had to ruin everything



An individual bird was more or less a solid colour. It was when you put hundreds of them together that they were absolutely breathtaking. I guess I can't blame a character for wanting to see that. Was it worth it, though? I have vague memories of him being eaten alive on the way out.

Well, maybe not. That would have been cool, though.

----------------

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #68: Welcome to the Jungle*

"Don't see why we had to take a job on this _bo shui kueh_ piece of rock." I grumble to myself.

Mal steps onto the loading ramp. "Who's in rutting command here, Jayne?" He doesn't wait for an answer. 

"All right everybody," he says to the crew assembled inside the ship. "We've got 'til nightfall before anything needs doing. With the exception a Jayne, here," he slaps me on the shoulder and ignores my growl, "You can all enjoy the benefits of civilization until that time. Kaylee? I believe you had something you needed to pick up..."

Mal goes over to Kaylee and discusses specifics of cost and necessity, and I pick up two 20-liter buckets full of water and start trudging into the muddy rainforest.

The first group of people I run into turn out to consider this a sacred duty or something, and decide not to kill me for this reason. That's really all I can remember up until the point that I join forces with a younger girl and go climb up a tower that just appeared. My boots have been traded out for the running shoes that I wear in real life.

The tower turns into an insanely high jungle gym, of the fall-off-and-you-die variety. The four people I'm with turn this into a game, describing the best way to get to the top. There are posts built into certain places for no reason, and these turn out to be part of the puzzle. I run up a 45 degree angle and slip, barely catching myself. I keep jumping upward until I'm climbing the underside of a slide. I've reached the top, and I'm just about to pull myself up -

I wake up.

_Welcome to the Jungle. Scare Factor: 3. You know, Mal, as it is my dream, technically, I'm in command._

_bo shui kueh_: ...a restaurant? Apparently, I need to work on my Chinese.

----------


## Serenity

> bo shui kueh: ...a restaurant? Apparently, I need to work on my Chinese.



*giggle*

----------


## Hukif

hehe, high jumgle gym and towers appearing out of nowhere, sounds fun.
I dreamed about you today, btw.

----------


## Hidden

I didn't realize anyone else knew about The Last Unicorn.  ::D: 





> The tower turns into an insanely high jungle gym, of the fall-off-and-you-die variety.



Sounds awesome.

----------


## Hazel

Hehe, I enjoyed reading that jungle dream. Pushy DCs can be difficult to get along with.  ::lol::

----------


## Samael

Hi, I'm back. Disappeared of the face of the earth for a while (work related stuff, yikes), but I'm back.

And apparently the DJ threads are being phased out. Fuck up my system, will you?

-----------------------
_Thursday, June 10_

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #69: Something Blue*

I'm running away from something. I'm underground, and it's dark and brown and I propel myself forward upward through the cave system. The thing I'm running away from is catching up to me, but I realize that I'm dreaming. I spin on my heel, turn around to confront the creature. I feel an icy thrill of fear when I see it. An inky black miasma chokes the air around me, and I can feel the creature's energy trying to infect my every pore.

I use that against it.

I expand my awareness, absorbing the black energy and forcing it to change, twisting it into an approximation of my own energy. I blanket the creature in a cloud of soft *red and black*, my aura, and allow the energy to dissippate.

All of my surroundings are gradations of red and black, and I find the atmosphere calming. All that's left of the monster is a swathe of black fabric on the ground, and a round plush toy that doesn't make much sense. I step over the toy and peer out into a gigantic cavern.

The very air starts to _hum_. I can feel *bright blue energy* spiking through the dream, interrupting the calm dark colours, and the energies start to clash as everything fades to white.

_Something Blue. Scare Factor: 6._

And then I went to the dentist's office and found this:


It's _identical_.

_Tuesday, June 8_

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #70: Spiral Staircases*

I'm running up an underground staircase. I had the route planned out ahead of time, parkour sequences that he won't be able to duplicate. I've run through the attic of a school and into this place, a spiralling staircase with nothing but a thirty-story fall down the center.

I get to level ground, and something feels off. I look at my hand. It's clawed, and pale-white, and moving on its own. I watch with sick fascination as the fingers move in impossible patterns, until I tear my gaze deliberately away, trying not to get more freaked out.

When I look behind me, nothing is following. I look down the staircase and wonder what would happen if I -

I jump.

I feel the sick thrill of falling for a few seconds, before I reach out and catch myself in a web of orange and yellow, meters from the stone floor. I float in mid-air, close my eyes in contentment, and wake up.

_Spiral Staircases. Scare Factor: 5._

_Sunday, June 6_

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #71: The Job Site*

I'm Dean Winchester. We're on a hunt, and I'm running from the thing we're trying to kill. I jump over the piles of wood at our job site, aiming for the window of the just-framed basement.

I'm lucid out of nowhere. I'm still running and jumping, and nothing is chasing me. I shapeshift to default, frame slimming and I'm moving faster. I vault through the window, over a chain link fence and take down the guard on the other side. He gets up and I shoot force-lightening at him, *blue electricity* arcing from my fingers.

_The Job Site. Scare Factor: 2._

_Friday, June 4_

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #72: Corporate Sabotage*

Two girls hide in a closet behind the bathtub. The dream has been third person for a while now, focusing on the girls, who are part of a super-secret experiment involving clones or superpowers or whatever.

The Matron is walking into the room, and the pre-teen girls - Rae and Johanna - are hiding from her. Rae is about to leave the room and face her, hoping that she can still save Johanna from a horrible fate. Rae takes a deep breath and steps out into full view of the office -

Only to be blocked from sight by an adult stepping in front of the door. It's me. The Matron is coming in behind me, and I'm distracting her from Rae.

"It's always an... experience, hosting a representative of Cypher Industries." The Matron says, ushering me toward one of the chairs facing her desk.

"I've no doubt," I say, sending a wink at the girls hovering at the bathroom door. No doubt the Matron knows they're there, but she's ignoring them so far.

"If I may ask," she says, sitting down, "What brings you here? Our corporations have not been on the best of terms, as of late. Your safety is not assured."

"I'm supposed to give you this." I throw a sheaf of papers onto the desk in front of her.

She doesn't touch it. "And this is?"

"Oh," I say, rolling my eyes, "Roundabout legaleze that doesn't mean much. It's basically demanding access to what we consider to be our property."

"Really?" says the Matron icily, "And what property would this be?"

"You are in possession of two very special little girls. We want them; I'm taking them."

"Why shouldn't I kill you right now?" Her hands are folded on the table, her head tilted to the side.

"Oh, that's easy," I say, leaning back in my chair. "The term is 'Tactical Nuclear Missile Strike'."

"Excuse me?"

"My team is currently flying directly overhead," I say, leaning forward, "If I flatline, then they will immediately make the entire island -" I wave my hands, "Explode."

There is a beat of silence.

"Get out."

"I'll be taking the brats, then." I jump from my seat, smiling widely, and make for the door. "Pleasure doing business with you!"

Rae and Johanna are right behind me. The three of us run down the glass staircase, laughing, as the world unravels around us.

_Corporate Sabotage. Scare Factor: 2._

...I am a psychopath.

_Thursday, June 3_

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #73: Fighting Fire*

I'm at a track for horse-races, in the back. There are trailers around, and stalls as well. The place is deserted.

I don't know what clued me in to the fact that this was a dream. I think on that for a second, then shrug it off. I've been meaning to try flying. I jump into the air and swoop around for a bit. I remember to try to contain my excitement, but -

New dream. I'm probably ten years old, fighting a friend who has decided to be a witch. It's all in fun, and I trace sigils into the windows and tell her she can't get inside. In retaliation, she sets a bulletin board on fire. All of my photographs go up in flames, and I smother the fire with *blue energies* that aren't a tiny bit wet.

_Fighting Fire. Scare Factor: 2._

----------


## Hazel

Yay, you're back!  ::content:: 

Nice control in that lucid. And it's so cool that you found that same plushie IRL!

----------


## Baron Samedi

So badass!

----------


## Hukif

yay you back!

----------


## Serenity

Hi Samael!! Welcome back!!

----------


## Requiem

I'm glad to have you at my side, my friend. And I'll join you in the big hunt before too long.  Before too long.

welcome back

----------


## Samael

@Hazel: Thanks. Finding that plushie was immensely disturbing. I actually woke up, wrote in my dream journal, threw on clothes, went to the dentist, and AH! WHAT THE HELL!?  ::shock:: 

@WakingNomad: And so, so very much fun.

@Walms: Now lets see about that dream-sharing thing. How long have we been on that?

@Serenity: Hi! Glad to be back!

@Requiem: And you know I'm always up for a fight!

------

This is a long one, guys. Another warning: light romance between me and a fictional (male) character. Any _Supernatural_ fans are likely to be annoyed.

*Things to Run Away From Really Fast #74: Seven Minutes in Heaven*

*What greater weapon is there than to turn an enemy to your cause—to use their own knowledge against them?*



I'm browsing through the sale aisle at Bootlegger when I feel the temperature drop. Slowly, I place the t-shirt I was holding back on the rack, and reach out with my senses, feeling at the presence that appeared directly behind me. I can feel a stare burning into the back of my head, and I turn around, keeping my hands visible and obviously empty.

Standing there is a dark-haired man in a trench coat, staring at me without blinking. Aside from the creepiness factor, he doesn't appear to be a threat, but I can see beyond the physical. Cold light bleeds from his form, barely contained within his vessel, and I check my initial impulse to attack.

"Is there something I can help you with?" I ask, gesturing with my hands.

His expression doesn't change, though I notice a slight twitch of annoyance. "My name is Castiel. I'm an angel of the Lord." He says this tiredly, as if it's something he's had to recite a lot lately.



Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I've heard those words before. I'm still caught up in the feeling of _deja vu_ when he says, "Luc, heaven has work for you."

The words jolt me back into the present. "Wait, what?" I say. "My name's Jack."

"Of course it is." says Castiel.

I calculate my chances of being able to control the holy fire I'm about to summon. Blue flames start to dance across my fingertips and my claws lengthen in response to my irritation.

A ball of pure kinetic force slams into my side, sending me flying through the glass store-window. I pick myself up from the ground and spin to face my attacker, a man I barely get a glance at before I'm dodging another kinetic missile. 

The force slams through the back wall of the shop, sending people screaming for cover. I roll into a crouching position and _pull_ all the glass around me into the air. I _throw_ the broken glass and the shards fly like bullets toward the attacker. Before they've even hit, I'm sending a wave of holy fire at him.

The incompatible energy burns ice-cold, sucking the heat from my bones. I collapse, shaking, fighting for breath. I manage to raise my head to look at the wall of fire that's burning on its own, and decide that it'll probably hold off the angels long enough for me to escape.

A hand grips the back of my shirt and hauls me to my feet. I look up at Castiel and groan.

"Bit of a trigger-happy bodyguard?" I complain, leaning on the angel for support.  "Was that Lucifer? It looked like Lucifer." I mutter.

Castiel actually rolls his eyes. "We should depart.  It would be best to avoid him for now."

"Oh no." I say, stepping back from Castiel on still-wobbly legs. "I can't take any more of your light-based heavenly magics right now. I say we walk."

Castiel just looks around our flaming surroundings. The building will probably fall down on us any second now.

"Fine." I say, closing my eyes and bracing for more hypothermia. I feel Castiel touch my shoulder, and a sudden lurch, and I open my eyes. We're standing in a three-car garage; concrete floors, white walls. The weirdest thing? I feel completely fine.

"Guess I've found an angel I'm not allergic to." I say, "Where are we?"

"Heaven."

"What?"

Castiel doesn't have time to answer. Flames are appearing from nowhere, licking up through the concrete floor and burning it away. The flames explode outward in  a spiral and I shield as best as I can, but I can feel them lick at me, burning cold.

I'm running toward the door to the house, stepping onto the tile floor and slamming the door shut behind me. There's an inch of space left, and the door won't stay shut.

_Last time, it actually closed the whole way,_ a little voice reminds me, but Lucifer is on the other side of the door, twisting the doorknob and I pull against the door, holding it shut from the inside. Lucifer is pounding on the door, causing it to rattle in its frame. I'm worried he might actually knock it down.

Of course, the fact that he hasn't is a little insulting.

"You know, I am way better at being you." I mutter. 

I look around for something to brace the door with. The garage opens directly into the kitchen. Metatron is walking through on the far side, behind the island.



"Hey, Metatron! A little help here?" I say hopefully, still holding the door shut. It shudders against the onslaught.

Metatron looks down his nose at me. "Honestly, Luc, the lot of you are acting like children," he sneers, and continues on his way.

"My _name_ is _Jack_!" I shout at his retreating back.

The feeling of ice water is creeping back into my veins. I shiver and lean against the doorframe for support, gripping the doorknob with my right hand. I hear shouting from the other side of the door and the noise is lessening. Lucifer's not trying to get in.

When Castiel appears beside me, the room seems to get a little warmer. I'm clutching at the lapels of his trench coat before I even realize what I'm doing. The cold is fading away, though, and I decide that it's worth the awkwardness. 

"Is he gonna back off?" I grumble into Castiel's shoulder.

Castiel tentatively places his arms around me. "Raphael understands that we need your help. So long as you don't burn down any more buildings, I think you'll be fine." He pauses, considering. "If he finds out that _you_ mistook him for Lucifer, though, he might try to kill you again."

"Raphael." I blink, pulling away. "That makes more sense."

"I also recommend that you remain close to me," Castiel says, "Heaven's defenses seem to have an adverse affect on you as you are now."

I shiver. "Fair point. Now what the hell is it you want me to do?"

---

It turns out, the bright blue energy I've been playing with for the last few weeks has been wreaking havoc on Heaven's delicate ecosystem. For some strange, probably sinister reason, I'm the only one who can fix it.

Part of the living room has been torn away to reveal a crack in the dream-fabric. Blue electricity is spitting from the black chasm, and the angels in the room shy away from it every time it crackles. Castiel and I walk into the room without much fanfare, though the two angels hurry out as soon as we get there.

"Is there something I'm missing?" I wonder aloud.

"You need to absorb the _Lux_. We'll be able to repair the tears," says Castiel, pointedly not answering my question.

"So there is something I'm missing." I say, turning around to look at Castiel. "What happens to me if I do this?"

Castiel's face is deliberately expressionless. "You'll be able to withstand our defenses on your own for a time. Once we've repaired the tear, I'll return you to Earth and the _Lux_ will fade away on its own."

I turn back to the tear, staring into the terrifying void, alive with crackling blue. It's breathtaking, in a way. 

"Jack," he says, catching my elbow. I look back at him. "Please do this."

I smile and say, "I never could say no to you, Cas." It feels like I've said the words before.

Castiel pulls back like he's been burned, and I turn to the void, holding out a hand and bracing myself. I focus on the blue energy and _pull_ -



_It's like crashing headfirst into a star. The whole world is alive - burning - and I can see. I can see everything. I can see blue, blue, bright, light blue, and it's trailing after every living thing in the universe.  I don't know. I don't know what it is, but it's not light, not like Heaven, not like the power Readers have. It's deeper, more primal, and it wants nothing more than to be free -_

My world explodes with blue light, and my bits and pieces of awareness are interrupted by the intense humming of the _Lux_ in my veins. I'm vaguely aware of strong arms pulling me away from the hungry black tears in the dream-fabric, of clutching at the rough fabric of a coat, trying to hold on to something tangible, before I'm torn away from him and left to calm down.

The next thing I know, I'm in the kitchen. I'm sitting on a stool at the island, propping my elbows up on the granite countertop, resting my chin on my hands. Most of my attention is on the movie being projected on the wall across the room. I have a vague recollection of choosing _Dogma_ just to be obstinate. 

Castiel walks in from the living room, looking neither more or less rumpled than he usually does.

"How'd it go?" I ask.

"We were successful, thanks to you," he says. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine." I say, "Better than fine." I can still feel the _Lux_ thrumming through my veins, offering me power beyond my wildest dreams.

As much as I might like Cas, he doesn't need to know that.

"We've done this before, haven't we?" I ask quietly. 

Castiel looks away, and I catch his hand in mine. He meets my gaze, looking sad.

I let go of the breath I was holding. "Wish I could remember."

Our hands are still threaded together, and he squeezes my hand, says, "Let me take you home."

And we're standing at the center of an empty city square, bathed in orange under the afternoon sun.  The cobblestones are warm beneath my feet, and the air is dry and still. Castiel and I are holding hands, and when I look up at him, my breath catches in my throat.

"We'll just do the same thing, Cas, over and over again. You know that."

"It has to be this way."

"It doesn't." I insist, but Castiel is already letting go of my hands.

"I'm sorry, Jack." He raises two fingers to my forehead, preparing to erase my memories. 

My force push sends him flying through a brick wall. Dust and mortar fly everywhere and the angel collapses in a heap. The rest of the wall falls in on him.

I'm standing with my palms outstretched, panting. I let my hands fall to my sides, and watch silver-white light leak from the pile of stones. I don't have much time.

I flee the square, running over the cobblestones and heading toward the cliff overlooking the rest of the city. I don't slow down; I leap from the cliff and focus on the rooftops hurtling toward me.

As I land, I blanket this section of the city with my black and red aura, sending my awareness out in all directions until only the blue-white energy is left. I can feel the pull to a place only I can find, and I close my eyes and let myself drift toward Lux.

_Seven Minutes in Heaven. Scare Factor: 3._

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## Samael

Ha! Okay! Done! All 75 Things to Run Away From Really Fast have been moved here.

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## Hukif

Awwww, but I can't use that thing! And epic recall on that last dream, and I dreamed about you a few times, too.

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## Samael

So you can't view the entries from your computer?

I can keep posting here for a while, but the admins keep threatening to destroy the planet lock the dj threads.

I could probably post somewhere else, but I kinda want to keep all my stuff in one place.





> And epic recall on that last dream, and I dreamed about you a few times, too.



I swear, I had the same dream something like three times over before I finally changed the ending, haha. And I'll read through your entries that I missed when I get the chance. 

If we're going to keep trying to share dreams, I'll probably have to copy my posts elsewhere. *headache*

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