lucid

LUCID: Secret Street

See the secret street. It steals one away from tourist traps and lofty lodgings a-glimmer. They prey on starving wallets and sweet sheeple minds. Stride the secret street up into the lull of a desolate shire. Cross into the curl of a sun bleached grin lined with faded lights screaming Come On In!

Just beyond the yaw lies an ancient way of steely playgrounds, glimmering arcades, and music yanked from distant yesterdays. An elegant swirl of gold frosted stairs leads ever upward and then we are there. Rivendellian hall of golden fires, unceasing spirits, unfaltering food.

See them now, they three. Especially he, who left this life behind. Their chatter and laughter rekindle a spark, relighting my heart where once only yawned an imploding dark and festering shriek. Try steal the scene with canon fire. A barrel too narrow can't capture all. Refocus. They have lingered on.

Upon fur topped bunks he sits and grins. Finally capture reflections of him. Now it's they three and me. Reluctantly leave the swell of the secret street. There tilts a sign that rustily screams intersection of Tragedy and Queen. Now back into the bite of the beast that chews away all worth.

Moon has fallen. Great statues shake. They groan and quake. A gargoyle sheds graven skin, growls, grows, spreads its wings. Glare into each others emptiness.

Reassure my trio, my reformed katet, "It's okay. I know how to stop it. I've dreamed this before..."

Lucidity storms.

"I'm dreaming now..."

Wake.

Happy Lucid Dreaming Day. Adding the couple of lucid encounters I had this month so far.

10th

A shifty sound. Wake! Behold gentle night and a strange shadow that shivers midst shadow. Rectangular head upon skeletal frame. Stare into the glare of too tiny eyes. Grimace at the sight of dagger lined lips. "It's a dream. Are you trying to scare me?"

Wake

Sit up. "Still dreaming." Look for the thing. It is gone. "You can't scare me," I sing to whatever will hear. "I am invincible as long as I have this..." Put out my palm. Nothing. Try three more times and finally flourishes my totem. A crystal ball enwrapped in waves of flames floats above my flattened palm.

Wake

Sit up. "I was lucid. Must write this down." Reach for my journal. "Is this still a dream..."

Wake

Sit up. "I was lucid." Reach for my journal. Scribble the shapes of my dreams.

27th

What woke me? Ears strain. Heart shudders. Cast off ancient sheets. Rise. This is a long lost home. Stained by shivering shades of black and blue, it presses. Silence is pristine. The space is so soft, ominous, like a dream. But it is not. I am home. I am alone. Where are they? From bedroom to kitchen to livingroom roam on feet that wish to falter.

A scream. A blur. I'm flung to the floor. Fists slam straight into my face, "You left me! It's your fault! You left me! It's your fault!" chants a shadow puppet brother. But his words are weightless. His fists are phantoms. I laugh around his fury..."Dreaming!"

Lucid will forces the rage swept shadow to rise. Hold it high. It floats, shadow amid shadow, twisting, glitching, flailing. Brother shakes the world with a scream.

I stand. "No fighting. There are other things to do in dreams. And besides, you left us..."

He shrieks, "Your fault. Family left me. Left me. Your fault!"

"I wasn't the one abusing his wife and ki..."

"Your fault!" he screams with demon rage. A flurry of fists rips my way.

I remain untouched on several levels. Walk away? Will him away? Warp to another dream? No. He will see any retreat as weakness, an invitation to stay an haunt. I tire of being haunted. With frightening calm, reach into my brother's shadow and grip his living spine. Rip it out. Crush it to the floor. The rest of his shadow follows, drifting strings of twitching tendons. They fade into nevermore.

Still haunting the halls of my own youth, search shadows for a sign. Nothing. Now what? A reality check strengthens my light. I should exorcise this place. The final ghost to be banished will be mine. But first, the final room. Mind is shining. Heart is stone. Spirit is steel. All demons will be undone... but in this room there stand none.

Instead, upon my mother's bed, sits a mountain of of man, his flesh a gallery of bright, tribal tattoos. He speaks softly, swiftly, in tongues my mind can not unwind. Sit and listen. Ever so slowly I think I can nearly hear his truth...

Twenty Third

Dream Webs

Wake.

World is dark drenched. Not a spark of light to guide. Leaden limbs slog. Twitch. Struggle. Surrender. A familiarity flutters, a swell of ethereal moths. Is this a dream? Or the dream before a dream? Slip sideways through webs of space...

"Dreaming... "

Allow the slip. Embrace the fall. Darkness parts. Land, lucid, in the lightless hall of my dream spun home.

"Dreaming," I announce to all. Wave a hand gently through the webs of the wall. Push through. Through. Through. Fall.

Wake.

From the 13th

The mess is endless In the underworld. There is only time to sleep or to clean. Never is there time to rest or to dream. But wait, cleanliness and unchained light are everywhere found. Disbelief sits me down. Only in dreams are my chambers so clear. Reality check.

"I'm dreaming. Of course!" Reality check again and laugh. "Yes. This is a dream." Sing of running down a dream to keep lucidity alight. Run upstairs. Shake the doors. Punch the windows. Charge the walls. Escape escapes me.

Voices resound below ground. Perhaps they know the way out. Down the stairs. Kayji and Seary are playing games there. Seary's voice runs nonstop, a sharp sound lopping away my lucidity. Snap! Shove Seaery down. Push his head ever down until it is lodged fast in the floor of cement.

Silence.

Thoughts return. "Kayji, this is a dream," I share the secret.

She simply replies, "I know."

"I can't get out of the house. Maybe you can get us out. Where do you want to go?"

She stands, and grinning, chants, "Bee and PuppyCat! Bee and PuppyCat! Bee and PuppyCat!"

"Lets go!" I take her hand. Run up the stairs. Chant our escape. Go no where fast. Re descend to the underworld. How to get out? Call a character from the show, "TEMP BOT! TEMP BOT! GET US OUT!" We remain un-rescued. Spiral in thought, an idea ignites. "Kayji, you have a bell on your backpack! Ring it. See what happens."

Kayji does. A feather light envelope flutters to her feet. She snatches it up and rips it open. "We have a job!" She jumps for joy. My own heart jumps with her.

Dark falls upon us. We roam the echoes of a gigantic, abandoned room. Shadows seem restless. The floor is like flesh. Unease knots within. Reality check. Once. Twice. Three times. Yes still dreaming.

A hole erupts in the floor between Kayji and me. It widens and contorts until a gulf, like a festering wound, convulses between we two.

"Temp Bot!" Kayji greets the gaping, infected chasm. The hole opens and closes, flapping disease. She hears its words. They are undistinguishable to me. "Come on! We got a job!" She calls and leaps toward the hole. She hovers, hand held out. Wary, reality check again. I sigh, "Okay. Lets see where she sends us." Take the leap. Clasp her and plunge into roaring dark. Fear flutters the heart. Anticipation frazzles the brain. From shadows PuppyCat's voice echoes a mystic song. We fall... fall... fall...



Asking a dream character where they would like to go was interesting. I think I'll do that more often.

11th

The Hand
A hand gently wraps my sleeping ankle. This is a dream. Find the calm. Let the hand lift and land where it will upon my phantasm flesh. Ghost hand glides over genitalia. Wake.

Locked
Sit up in a stranger's bed. Frantically glance for the ghost hand. It was just a dream. A little lucid dream. Flop back to bed. Sleep paralysis crushes. Find the calm. Through it shines lucidity. Lucid but locked, "Wake."

Too Early
Sit up in my own sleeping realm. Reality check. Not a dream. "I will remember these dreams. I will be lucid soon." Lay. Inhale. Close my eyes. Wisps of light like a spiral galaxy shifts before me. "I'm dreaming." I whisper and open my eyes.

Sit up in bed. "I AM dreaming," Shadows see me smile. Arise. I will fly. Denied. Recall a goal. Denied. Walk through a wall into abandoned night. Look for a tree. None. The scene shivers. It is too early. Sleep is shallow. Must sink deeper.

Drift down into the dark. Cross legs. Close eyes. Attempt to anchor into the scene. Instead, I float. Softly drift in the weightless dark. Hold my position. A thought occurs. Do I drift in dream space? Or am I still and dream space drifts around me? A wash of vertigo. Wake.


It was too early in the night.

From the 9th

Gafar

The world is strange. Sentient colors, succulent laughter, sensual scents of food and drink ebb and flow in festive tides. The extravagance is too sweet for souls as bitter as this. Wander away from the fabulous fray.

"You have been challenged to a duel," a twitchy man greets then twists into the crowd. Give chase through worsening worlds and into the belly of a trippy brick beast. Cheerers roar aside. Behind a table I abide.

The other door belches wide. In spills a bloated beast of a man. Recognize his local celebrity face. Gafar. Before any words are laid Gafar waves his arms, thrusts hands my way. An invisible bus slams into me. Fly backward through the doors.

Shock stings stronger than pain. Stand and charge into the belly again. Clarity shines. Know without knowing that this is a dream. Wave my hands. Spin. Thrust palms at Gafar. My invisible strike is soft. His laughs heartily while he force whips me up into ceiling and then down into the floor.

The earth shakes. There is no pain but the sting of shame. Stand. Inhale. Serenity. A river rises into my feet, fills the hollows of my bones. "You will win this... this is your dream." Acknowledge the absolute truth. Lift my hands. The blimp of Gafar bobs into the air, limbs swinging, voice singing with rage.

A grin. A nod. A flick of my hands. Gafar crashes into brick and slops onto the floor. He deflates like a softly stabbed balloon. "This is my dream," I proclaim. The crowd rocks and roars. They boo and hiss. I smile and proclaim again, "This is my dream."

Two men burst from the crowd, "Come on!" I am captured and carries along. "She's coming. You have to hide!"

Pride tempts me to stay. Curiosity bids me go with the flow. The pair lead me back to luxury. Crush ourselves into a closet. Then comes a distant clicking. And then a clacking as her heels rage closer. Curiosity boils, overflows. I must know! Step out and straight into her path.

She is Gafar's sister, all pretention and wrath. "How are your teachers?" she purrs through the wickedest wrench of a grin.

"Fine," is all that can be said. It is the only word left in my head.

Her shark smile spreads. She twists. She clacks violently on her way.

My closet companions, now a trio, cheer the confrontation. I am only caught up in confusion. "This is my dream. What did she mean? What does this mean?" Try to find her again but am lost in the scene.

Tested a recent suggestion I offered. Reality checked 100 times every day for two days in a row. Managed a tidbit of lucidity but it felt loose. Loose-cidity.

Run
Heat, next to hellish, presses upon us all. We are not much more than sore streams of flesh pushing and pouring past shop laden shores. In its simmering midst I snap. I stand. I scream. All currents come to a halt. How freakishly odd. What the feck. Reality check? I do and discover, "I'm dreaming."
Some primal reflex screams at me, "JUST RUN!" I obey simply to see what will come to be of this spontaneous urge. Too soon I slow down. Too soon I forget. "Wasn't I dreaming?" Reality check. "Yes. I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming. Don't forget!"
"JUST RUN!" the urge shrieks. I fly on ghost feet through people and walls and worlds. Again my pace slows. Where am I? Don't know. Why am I running? Don't know. Entirely lost, several levels deep, walk back wards to the start. The fog comes crawling. My soul starts cawing shuddersome omens. Slip. Fall. Fade to black.

Who is she, tucked in her long and too-thin casket? Sit aside the mourners. Not a souls is known, not even my own, I think.

A jittery man, red jumpsuit wrapped, plays broken keys, spews spoken hymns. Red backs into the bed. It tips. It rocks. The death mask within un-wrinkles with shock. Her brows twitch. Her lips narrow. Is she alive? Dead? Undead?

The assembled are unbothered.

Look back. Sleeper has shifted. She is mother, face convulsing, eyes rolling in REM rage. Stab of fear. Wash of revulsion.

Seek solace from the mourners. They are unmoved.

Breathe through the shock. Call upon cautious disbelief. This can't be real. Fumble through a reality check, "It's a dream. Of course it is. Just a dream. Just a dream."

Look back. Mother contorts into grandmother. Heavily painted eyes rip open. She sits up. Face bitter. We lock eyes. She gives an unloving grin full of secrets, full of sin. My soul prickles with dread.

The crowd are statues. "This is a dream!" I scream.

Look back. Grandmother contorts into Yubaba. We stand suddenly face to face. "Give me a hug," she croaks through wrinkles, rippling wild. Recoil. Then, through the fear comes clambering some calm. I claim, "This is dream." Step toward the arisen. Fall into embrace. Frighteningly, absolute nothing inhabits her hold. Yubaba pulls away. She floats away. Red still croons fragmented tunes. The undead gives gifts to the statues still littered about.

Slip into an icy, analytical space. "This is a dream. The walking dead. The waking dead. Re-awakening?"

Forked tongue splits a grin. Seeds of lies are sewn. Silence is safety. A sister and I Trip backward in time. We stroll our old halls. They are crowded, cold. Suddenly behold that I am birthday bare. I can't seem to care. This must be a dream. Reality Check. Yes! We are dreaming.

No assertations. Instead, simply know and follow the flow of this cliche scene. Sister is frantic to find me attire. Allow her lead. Door to door to door. All locked. Floor to floor to floor. Half-cocked. Each turn sees us ignored.

Suddenly he strides, dream within a dream. His eyes of twilight and his scarecrow grin cast magic across my lucid skin. His coat is offered. I accept. He goes his own way. His lingering scent leaves me wrapped in vulgar yearnings. But I am lucid. I know this trap. He is a sensual distraction. Reality check. Walk away.

Sister wanders off to find some ride. I wait, dance half naked outside the institute of my youth. I'm dreaming. Dreaming. Dreaming. Sister seems long gone. Bid the sun farewell. Pluck it from the sky. Admire its sharp shine in the hollow of my hand. Make a lucid wish. Now, blow out the sun. It lilts slowly away like a mess of milkweed fluff. Fall madly in love with its simple grace.

Catch a luscious scent. Feel a hungry leer. Surge of temptation. I know he is near. "Who are we?" I ask. No answer. I spin. Fall flat on my back. Laughing, I stand, slip off the jacket, "Take it back? I am naked, not afraid." No answer. Toss the jacket onto rocks. Into silken grass I sprawl. Allow whatever will come, to come. I slip... sink... and fall.

What the Feck!
Discussing dreams and reality checks. Kay laughs out, "What the Feck. What the heck and what the fuck mixed. What the feck! Reality check! For those WTF moments." It should work. Rhymes have a way of worming into simple brains like mine. We test her spell. Surprise! "We're in a dream! It works!" I cheer with childlike glee. A sudden swell of clarity. And then, because no dreams were recalled during earlier wakings, a passionate declaration, "I'll remember ALL my dreams if I wake up right now!"

I woke and dreams came flooding.

Today is my birthday. Curl into some closet but she finds me, as mothers always do. Her smile is gold, eyes emerald sparks. She beckons. With reluctance, I obey. She has gotten me the greatest gift, she says. Peripherally, the greatest gift grins. Look away, away, away. Play blind, blubbering fool til gold is tarnished and emerald sparks sputter out. Why so cruel? Why does my bastard heart want her to hurt?

Hear the greatest gift. I ask who is watching Batman. See the greatest gift, all grins and ghoul green hair. "Hey," I say, "Aren't you that guy who was in Star Wars? Han Solo?" The greatest gift laughs mirthlessly "You're kidding me, right?" I give up the fight to hold firm the jagged stone about my soul. The wall barricading my heart falls broken. I laugh, "Yes. I'm kidding. I know you you are. But it's not my birthday..."

Familiar feeling flutters...

"I know who you are! How are you here?" Look to mother, "How are you here?" Finger slip through palm. "Yes!" Understand exactly where we stand, mid dream. Dance around the green haired gift. We laugh like an improbable mob of joker jedi. Then the greatest gift drifts away.

Two Tails
Feel the surreal familiarity of this fog, float on the fringe of a dream. From all directions at once, she struts, little mist cat of two tails. We will converse once the weight of this world makes us real. But fog lifts, we slip away, victims of the stirring day.

A glimmer of lucidity this morning, perhaps just a notch or two above hypnagogia.

Dreamed Oct 23 2024

Roam the city on a hill. Streets are a clutter of shops, shoppers, shooters, droppers. No way is out of the way. Sink from the blight into swift sweeping twilight. From dim, to dark, to dire. Retreat. Re-clamber to the crown. The world is shut. Claustrophobic press of flesh is faded. Dread desolate slabs of concrete upon which one may make home.

Centre cracks a sneer. Slip between its lips, past cobweb arcades, soul-less store fronts, yawning caves that once shone seductive songs. Bag wrapped bodies clog the innards of this slow dying beast. Asleep? Dead? A body bag woman rises and races. I flee. At stair top we stand face to face. She begs for change or coffee. "I think I gave you change already," I inform. She smiles, "Yes, I think you did." We part, she back to bag rows and I through emergency exit scream.

Stumble out onto a simmering shore of blush and blues. The world is warm and awash in succulent unsettlery. To the right lies a lake sleek and sheer. A many tiered waterfall twinkles awake. Snatches of past life songs twinkle awake within. To the left, cross lazy sands, are souls of several earthen shades beautiful beyond the spell of bastard words. Behind stands a cave, a gaping cavity of glittering stone and gentle swells. From supple waves young men rise, only so high as to reveal their eyes, silver with ravenous glints. Oh to be their sustenance.

Right left stands he of moonlit skin and star frost eye. He asks where we are and how we arrived. I know neither. Finger through palm. Pinch of the nose. Mild surprise. "We're dreaming." No lust for control. Curiosity grows. Where this ride will guide us?

Ships swarm the horizon. Train of giant boxes slop into the water. They are a wall meant to sever earth from ocean, a drifting genocide. Warriors rise. Storms of arrows fly. They but slice softly into sea. And then...
Stillness...
Silence...
Surrender.

The wall surges closer.

I must do something yet nothing. Nudge Moonman. "Use your white savior powers to help," I jest, just a test. With a swift, "Okay," Moon leaps from the cliff, walks across water, faces the floating wall. As blocks swing close he sinks straight down. Rise again as each threat passes. He climbs a boat and calls, "Send explosives." Intentions for dynamite in his hand bestows upon him only a gas can. He christens the boat. "I need a light!"

Finger through the palm strengthens resolve. "Jump onto my hand!" I call to Moon. In a silly show of perspective forced, his feet find my hand. He lands, a tiny creature crouching in my palm. Pass him to the nearest warrior.

Now rises my warrior. How long has it been? Dance an ancient ritual, step, stomp, punch, spin, over and over and over again. Scream from the depths of my innermost hell. Streams of golden plasma spray from fingertips to swallow each ship. Each explodes, one after another, in fantastic plumes of flame and shadow. And then, quite simply, the swarm and their bobbing threat are gone. Turn to the earthen warriors. They are gone. Look for the light of Moon man. He is gone. I stand sole in this still simmering dawn.

"It's done, I suppose," I sigh to the morn. But there is still some stuff to this dream. Launch and laugh from a ledge, pristine. Slip from the sky. Spin so the spine leads the plummet into the next whatever that will have me.

Am I WILD?

A world of warped shadow and feeble matter falls in and out of focus. Fingers are spider legs. "Dreaming." Stumble on no feet. Mumble through madness. Stability escapes me. Struggle to soar. The darkness pulls me down and down and down.

Yon the crush of defeat and the gnarled arms of naked trees... the stars are singing. Singing! Their voices like the tinkle of thin ice on breathing shores. They dance, cluster, and call to me. The world sighs brighter but only a bit. Focus on the lights, the celestial sights that beckon me to their heavenly embrace. Nothing feet push up. Set off from shadow, Set sight on the stars. With blissful speed I spin and swerve into eternity. "We're lucid," I sing to everything and to nothing. And because I am WILD, I freefall, fire and ice through the twinkling heart of darkness.