NLD, first sleep: Several of us are downstairs in a house at night. The front door is wide open. Through an adjacent window, I see a man sitting on a bench next to the road outside, waiting for the bus. Perhaps he tires of waiting, because after a while he gets up and walks right in the front door. I recognize him as "The Vagrant," a character played by Johnny Depp. He wears white face make-up and an old fashioned suit and hat, resembling a mime from the Charlie Chaplin era. I feel hospitable toward him and offer to let him sleep in the wife's room, as she is not home. (I have no sense of who "the wife" might be; there's something impersonal about all the DCs; they are more like roles than individuals.) Someone standing nearby ("the husband"?) gives me a dirty look for leaving the door open and then telling the vagrant he can stay. I don't openly acknowledge the glance, but gives me a sense of foreboding: I don't know anything about this guy, and I've just offered to let him sleep in one of the upstairs rooms. If he turns out to have ill intent, we'll be leaving ourselves vulnerable when we go to sleep. Scene change. There are about three of us upstairs now on a sort of balcony, in addition to the vagrant, who is swinging on a rope. He has not said a word since entering the house, and I start to wonder if we should be worried about his intentions. I consult the DM, who is not physically present in the scene: "If I do 'sense alignment', is it blatant?" It feels as though I ask the question aloud, but in a way that does not manifest audibly in the dream scene -- I'm asking OOCly (out of character). The DM confirms that, yes, the effect would be blatant, meaning that I can't cast the spell on the vagrant without him noticing, either because I have to make distinctive invocations and gestures, or because he would be able to subjectively feel the mental intrusion. I don't want to cast the spell if the vagrant will be aware of it, because at this point I already strongly suspect that his alignment is not on the "good" spectrum, and I don't want to alert him to my suspicions. After the vagrant leaves off swinging, one of the other players on the balcony asks the DM if she can use the same effect on the rope that he has just let go of. She's trying to be clever: a rope, obviously, won't notice anything amiss or feel itself being scryed on. However, she seems to be missing the obvious, so before the DM has a chance to respond, I scoff jokingly, "You can't 'sense alignment' on a rope!" Note: I'm interested in the way dreams can take on aspects of other forms of representation. Mine are often heavily influenced by structural elements from films, video games, and even tabletop gaming, the first and last of which were strongly present here. NLD, second sleep: The fabric of the dream was very thin and immediately frayed upon waking because I did not keep still enough. There was an elaborate plot that I wasn't able to piece back together. However, I was with a group of people that were playing costumed characters, acting out scenes that were somewhere between a play and a LARP. Afterwards, an actor who is a dwarf (of the genetic, not the fantasy variety), comments to me about his disinterest in playing out live-action versions of stories he has already filmed or done on stage. "Kid, we want to see it, or we want to hear about it. We don't want to live it. We've already done that." Note: This dream appears to have been incubated by the thoughts I wrote down after the last dream about the various representational formats that have been an influence on my dreaming. Dream would like to remind me that I left out plays and LARPs. Thanks, Dream, I guess my dreaming is also influenced by plays and LARPs (even if I haven't engaged in either since the '90s). Anything else?
Updated 08-21-2014 at 08:14 PM by 34973
July 08, 2014 Can't Find It I was driving my cousin to an auto-repair shop, where his car was being worked on. We were lost though, and couldn't find it at all D: Wrong Zip Code I was with my friend Moon, and she had picked me up from the airport, and was taking me to her house. We drove through some arid desert hills, and then through a part of the city. We were in the wrong zip-code though, and had to take a ferry across a river to get to the right place. The whole city was really open; not many trees, lots of dirty and sand and clay. LARP Couch I was sitting on a couch with my older brother; the couch was in the middle of this vast, mostly flat field, and there was a rocking chair across a firepit from us, and a bench and some log stumps-for-chairs to our left. There was one tree about 50-yards in front of us and a tad to the left. I was holding my Real-Life LARP staff, but in the dream it was a little more intricately designed, and it was actually Zukin's; I was just holding onto it for her, until she could come to pick it up. My brother and I were talking to a few of the characters (there was a mixture of people I know from LARP and people who live at Zukin's co-op), but one of them was the Face. His LARP character's name was Timothy (at least, that's what I assume. Everyone was calling him Timothy, but they were all in character, so I don't think that was his actual name)
July 02, 2014 Jail Time I was with my family, being held captive in some sort of large building or jail. Every once in a while, some people would go to the other building for the day; I'm not sure what was in that other building, but I remember feeling a great fear for it, so it must not have been anything good... In my dream, they called on me and my brother to go to the other building. I was so terrified, but the warden, or some other guy in charge, helped us escape. He was the one who guided us to the other building, and instead of taking us in there, he veered off to the left with us, and led us into a small house on the side. It was his house, apparently. There was a stuffed deer thing... like... how to describe it. It had the head, but the neck was missing (it was just the bones), and the body, starting at the shoulders, was there... but only about a foot of it. the rest was all cut off, too. It was very eerie. I had said something about it, and my brother said, "Well of course they have it, how else would they be able to eat every day?" Perfect for LARP! I was with my mom and dad at some large mall. There was greenery everywhere, like a greenhouse. We were wondering where everyone was; we were there with other people. I found out that my uncle Floyd was offering to make dinner that night, even though he was already building a shed, giving a dog a bath, and doing everyone's' homework. Then, I heard music that was familiar at the core of me, but which I couldn't name. It turned out to be the Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood music; my aunt Jordan was watching the show in one of the shops in the mall. (and, it's funny, the tune I heard in my dream was the actual Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood tune, even though I haven't heard it in at least 15 years) Anyways, I wanted to go check out one of the shops, since it was having a sale outside the store. I was looking through the sale items, and found a dress that would be perfect for larping. My mom found me then, and told me we were heading out, but I asked them all to wait for a moment while I tried the dress on. When I got to the dressing rooms, there was only one left open, and so I went in; but the door didn't close all the way. When it locked, the door hung open about a whole foot, especially from the right angle. I wasn't as worried about it because it was a women's dressing room, and so I tried to dress on anyways. Except, as I was taking off my pants, a little boy and his mother were on the way out of the dressing rooms, and had to stop to give back the unwanted items. The little boy looked through the gap in the door right at me in my underwear, and the mother noticed, and covered her son's eyes, calling me a whore. "Just because there's a corset and some lace and you show a bit of leg skin, you think you're so sexy!" She berated me. Then, she must have been so busy telling me off, that she was so confused as to accidentally come into the dressing room instead of leaving. The scene sort of shifts, and I'm still in the LARP outfit, but there are more people, and there is also suddenly a bench along the wall in front of me, and so I was going to sit down next to the mother and the boy, who seemed to not have remembered what just happened. I decided not to sit with them, since the mother had been so rude to me, and instead sit next to two or three middle-school aged girls. One of them is holding what looks like a tampon, but not quite like a tampon. A girl across from us sees it, and asks, "Is it one of those?!" The girl nods, very shyly, and I get the feeling I have missed something, like there is some new product out, now. "Wait, is it your first time?" I ask the girl. She shakes her head. "This is a training tampon... I haven't started yet..." And then I woke up.
L.A.R.P NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I am at a LARP festival with one of my friends. We sit in a big room with a lot of other people. It seems like we´re attending a course and/or are studying "the art of LARP". We are waiting for the instructor to show us some moves. I get bored and grab a real sword. A big fight follows in which I actually fight with some of the other students. I get really hungry and the bell dismisses us. We grab a lot of sandwiches and leave the lunch cafeteria. We go to the bathroom and pass another classroom. There is a theory lessons going on and I think how much patience it would take to just learn fighting by theory and not the fun way and admire their dedication. After I am done with my "business" I leave the weird looking bathroom. I find myself in a big hall. Infront of me I see some tables with weapons neatly and evenly spread across. On my right I see some man-high quivers also filled with weapons. I take one elvish looking sword and swing it. It almost looks exactly like this one... I have a lot of fun doing that and keep on slicing the air for a while. I really feel the leather-grip in my hand. I find out theres a second sword and they´re meant to be fought with together. My friend warns me that those belong to somebody, a big looking guy comes and tells us we should feel free to try everything we want. I find another weird looking weapon on the table and swing it, but it bends like it is made out of plastic. We go back to class and I take the elvish sword with me...
Updated 06-30-2014 at 02:08 PM by 69017
June 22, 2014 I was with a really mixed group of my friends; Zukin was there, as were at least two people from high school (my ex and Annie, one of my best friends), as well as some people I know from random times of my college career. We were all sitting at a table in some sort of large cafeteria-type place. Maybe a dorm's dining hall on campus? Now that I think about it, all of the people i nthe group, even the ones from highschool, went to my college, except for Annie. Anyways. I digress too much. We were sitting at a large table, deciding what to do for Spring Break, which was in a few weeks. Zukin and I suggested we all go to Germany and/or Austria. The group liked the idea of that, and so we loosely decided to make it happen. We all went our separate ways. About a week later (one and a half weeks until SB). I was walking around downtown, when i saw one of the girls from the group, a friend from high school (actually, from middle school! Wow. Known her a long time) was walking dwn the street with bright, bright orange hair. I asked her what was up, and she said she had gone to the salon to get her hair colored, and they'd told her she could walk around outside while the color set. She'd gone walking around, and forgotten to go back, and her hair had turned bright orange like this. She was skeptical about whether or not she would be going on the trip or not because of this. I told her it looked awesome (I love orange) and that even if she didn't like it, she could just re-dye it before the trip. She said she'd get back to me about it. Jump ahead about half a week, and I'm online, looking at flight prices. I found a super great deal, and booked it right away, then messaged everyone in the group about it. They all said they would get the tickets very soon... Jump again to the day before we leave for the trip; I am staying the night at Annie's apartment and for some reason my ex needed a place to stay that night, so Annie invited him, too. We all talked about the trip, and I found out that Annie had forgotten to get her ticket, so I was really worried that she wouldn't be able to go anymore, but we got online and found that tickets were still available for that flight. The next morning, we all met up at the airport. It's the same airport that's always in my dreams. This airport is... a bit hard to describe. It's got bits from all the airports I've ever been in, as well as some aspects of Grand Central Station in Chicago and some of the train stations Zukin and I went to in Germany (like the entrance of Stuttgart HBF) The airport is even more maze-like than most real airports, causing my dream self to have gotten lost multiple times... There are also two different runways that I've seen in this airport... Anyways, we got to Germany in one piece. I don't remember much about the plain ride. We got to Germany, and I got the rental car we'd arranged. Zukin and I went, by memory, to a campsite we had gone to in Austria before. But the road there was like the one in the beginning of Spirited Away. We were all in two cars, since we were so many people, and at some point the other car lost us. But at that point it was just one road and they couldn't go the wrong way without tearing through gobs of trees, so we didn't worry about them. Oh. Did I mention we were all in full larp gear? Well, we were. Apparently the campsite in Austria was having a special event for larpers. Zukin and I were trying to get them all into larp. We park the car when we reach the site, get out, and head toward the registration desk. There are so many people. It's more like a ren-fair than a larp event. At least, there were way more people than any larp event I've been to. We lost one of the guys in the group (oddly enough, the one person in the group that wasn't a person I know IRL) Mel (the one I've known since middle school) asked, "Where's Bret (or Brad. I couldn't hear too well over the noise of the larpers around us) Garrett?" "I dunno. The reservation is under his name though..." I waved my hand. "He'll be fine, and I can speak German so it's all good." We got up to the desk and I asked in German if we could check in. The women responded in English, with a pretty fake accent. "Name?" "It'll be under Bret (or Brad) Garrett." The woman, who was rather large but very very friendly looking, looked through some papers, and then handed them to me, adding, "You know, you can stay for free if you go into the woods, have a drink, and tell three strangers you love them." I went back to the group and told them about the deal. Everyone seemed pretty okay with it, and as we were heading toward the woods, Bret/Brad came hastily over, hiding behind us. "Those guys jumped out of nowhere and started singing weird shit at me...!" I turned and saw a group of young men, each with an instrument, singing love songs to Bret/Brad. I think the people from the other car were just joining us as I woke up. I was laughing at Bret/Brad.
I dreamt that me and some friends were going on a LARP. I was packing my things and would decide weather or not to bring a five men tent, that was large enough for everyone, or a two men tent which was much better in keeping rain out but was to small for everyone. I brought the two men tent, since I didn't feel like getting wet. We arrived in the area and the group became disappointed that I had been selfish and only brought the two men tent. It then started raining and I went into the tent while the others were outside getting wet. Mind that I didn't feel any guilt at all, I was quite happy with my decision since I didn't get wet! Later in the LARP I was put in charge of a group of children. We were ninjas who were going to infiltrate a factory. Since they were a group of incompetent kids they would just move forward while I was running around making sure they could do so safely and got them everything they needed. We entered the huge factory on the bottom floor through the sewage pipes. It consisted almost entirely of metal and concrete walkways with a lot of terminals and the like in a huge open space. I got to work silencing (knocking out, not killing ) people who might spot us and pushing some buttons at the terminals they were working on. After much silencing everything was going smoothly. That is, until I ran into a girl I know IRL, and who I am interested in. She looked around and asked "Vilhelm? What are you doing here?" I was stunned. I knew it was bad, partly because she saw me, partly because she recognised me but mostly because I knew what I had to do. I just hoped she would forgive me and began to rip her hair of. Apparently her hair was a crucial ingredient for something we needed for our ninja mission. She was just shocked and asked "Vilhelm...what are...you doing?" I took her hair and ran for my life. The group had just left the open area through a door in the wall and was climbing a huge staircase. I ran up it, always looking down towards the lower levels. I knew she would follow me. She was not a drone like the others in the factory, she had a independent will, and she would not just let me go without an explanation. But she never came. There was more to this dream, but that is all I can remember at the moment.
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