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Another dream on the verge of being lucid without quite being there. In the earliest part I can remember clearly, I’m on a computer: I’m looking up some band I’m interested in, trying to find more of their music. But the dream shifts to another scenario. It still isn’t lucid, but it’s pretty clear I’m not actually invested in it as real. I’m initially in an outdoor farm-like area with flamingos some distance away, observing interactions between characters. I only identify with one when she’s asked a question, changing to her viewpoint and responding as her. There’s a sense of making things up as I go along. I need to go somewhere now, and so I call to the nearby leopard, which I call Arthur, telling him to come with me. (I use the German pronunciation. I am about 90% sure I decided to name it after Schopenhauer.) It doesn’t want to get up, but I pull it to its feet, which it tolerates, and we walk away.

Next, I remember entering a building. It’s somewhat reminiscent of a building on a campsite, just a long rectangle, possibly something like an uninsulated metal frame, and has no interior divisions. It’s mostly empty and white, and there’s an even stronger sense of almost-lucidity here. It’s as if whatever plot there may have been has definitely gone off the rails by now, and I’m driving things, though not in a fully conscious way.

I go over to the bed in the nearest corner – other than the one by the door I entered from – and sit down on it. What follows is maybe best described as a strange kind of visual thinking – a little like reading a picture book, where I cease to really be present in the room and am absorbed in the stories that are playing out in mental space. It’s hard to describe since it isn’t exactly like anything that happens while awake – but it’s almost like there’s another presence there telling the stories.

They seem to be some kind of philosophical parable, and also a sort of story-behind-stories, representing something that was once commonly manifested in literature from an earlier time. The first one was so utterly bizarre that I can’t remember a thing about it now – but in the dream, I understand it perfectly since the meaning in all its facets and interrelations is just a part of it as it is presented. I can see it all mapped out, like a complex constellation. But some of the points are placed in the wrong locations for it to reflect reality. It’s something I was already aware of, but it’s a little sad to see it laid out like this so clearly.

There’s enough of a gap for the room to enter my awareness again before the second story begins. This one is apparently communicating the same thing as the first one did, but in a different way. I can remember the beginning of this one – how the wolves were all howling at the moon, but the moon had fallen asleep and couldn’t hear them…

5.30.21

In this dream, I seem to have been selected to contribute to some collaborative project that has to do with “Game of Thrones” and a couple of prominent political figures, including Trump. I think there are 25 of us in all, but I don’t actually meet with the others—I just have an interview with someone, and that’s it. It’s in a large, modern building, and I recall being in an elevator at some point, deciding that I’ll go to join the others and see the complete work. It seems a little strange to me that I should be playing a part in this—I haven’t watched or read “Game of Thrones,” and I don’t seem to be personally involved in these matters the way everybody else is. But I’m curious enough to go anyway.

I join the others in a room with a large screen on one wall. It’s divided up into smaller rectangles of various sizes and proportions on which video loops are being played. I can see my own contribution among them, in the upper central area, showing the collapse of a temple-like building with hundreds of statues in front of it, among other images.

Then it starts playing, and my part comes first. In the narration, I recognize what I had said in the interview, now in a more polished form. It’s now clear that what I provided was the prologue, tracing out the historical background of the story told in all the subsequent parts, setting the stage for it. That makes a lot of sense, actually—now I can see how it’s relevant, even though it doesn’t directly concern the characters that the story is focused on.

(30.8.18)

I'm reading a book. There had been a series I'd loved that ended some years ago, and now the authors have put out a new prequel series featuring some of the side characters - one of them is the Magician.

Scene changes slightly - instead of just seeing words on a page, I'm now seeing the scene described in the book. The Magician and Julie are having a standoff, just arguing with words at the moment but willing to cause damage if it gets to that point. I'd been looking forward to seeing a scene with Julie. In the main series, it's established that she and the Magician had a long and complicated history, but we only actually see her once - learning more about her is the main reason I'm interested in this new series.

But Julie's personality here is drastically different than it had seemed in the main series - I actually hadn't realized this was meant to be her until just now when I heard her name (she's using two of Julia's usual aliases). Her portrayal's so different that it just seems like bad writing, like she's been reduced to a caricature. And that complicated history she had with the Magician seems to have become a standard characters-who-irritate-each-other-wind-up-getting-together plot. In the years since that first series ended, the writers have really gone downhill. So I decide I'm just going to ignore this characterization, this new series in general, and focus on the main series instead.

For (supposedly) unrelated reasons, a character on the Magician's side puts his hands over his ears and starts singing to avoid hearing what the Magician and Julie are saying.

Oct 21:
A combination of C and T are terrorizing everyone in high school by just seeing how much they can get away with -- not that far-fetched from real life. He/They are armed with a whipped cream/silly string shooter -- again, this is exactly the kind of shit they'd pull -- and randomly shoots at the other students walking by. When he targets me with the silly string, I stiff arm and deflect the cream-beam with a single outstretched hand, like Darth Vader blocking Han Solo's blaster shots, while trying to explain that he is acting like an idiot. I'm not sure how long this lasts, but it felt like a really long time. At one point, my old friend K tells me something along the lines of "it's no use talking to him" while I'm still blocking the stream (which has been continuous this entire time), but I was determined to resolve this like an adult.

Dream two has me sleeping in my room at my house, and at a God-awful time, my mom begins running up and down the stairs that's right outside my door as a form of exercise. I voice my objections, but she just comes and sits on my bed and asks me if I know the old Chinese story of Hou Yi shooting down the suns. All I could think about was how she's getting sweat on my bed while I keep telling her that yes, I know, please let me go back to sleep.

In a bit of an ironic twist, I wake up from that.

Oct 22:
I could barely remember any of my dreams. The furthest I got was about wanting to find something at work. Bleh.

Fragment involving Ben Affleck and people complaining about a Fantastic Four movie.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

X-Men fragment involving Erik and Charles (as played by McKellan and Stewart) having an argument about something involving a young man, a mutant who lives with them; one of them leaves with the young man. Scene changes so that this is a movie I'm watching, I'm explaining to someone who just came in that this was the last time they saw each other for 9 years. On screen, it's now some kind of opening credits for the Avengers showing various backstories, some actual Avengers characters (Loki, Banner, "Hawkguy", deliberately misspelled - nothing for Iron Man though he shows up later for the fight sequence), mostly characters made up for the dream, one guy with a Buddhist hell motif, leading into a fight sequence in New York, complete with a very dramatic soundtrack featuring classical singers.

Scene changes, ditches the TV framing. Dream's now following a man in a suit who's standing on a New York street, looking up at the Avengers flying around fighting each other, when this woman says to him, "But do they care a touch for the wedding of the moor folk?" Moor here meaning the type of land, moor folk meaning faerie folk. They hold each other's gaze for a moment, she grins, he laughs, low and strange. She continues, "You weren't thinking, were you?" She's a red-haired woman with an Irish accent, wearing a veil, though the wedding she mentioned isn't hers, and looking very out of place on the streets of New York with a bunch of flying lunatics duking it out in the background.

(Woke up. Reflected that this was obviously inspired by a conversation yesterday, about the spin-off show starting today and how I still haven't gotten around to seeing the Avengers movie, and how that must have made me subconsciously remember the X-men movie that I also haven't gotten around to seeing - completely forgetting at the time about the Affleck dream which seems to have actually kickstarted this whole superhero thing. Although I haven't seen the latest Batman either, so I guess that still fits the theme. Anyway - decided to finally get around to watching that movie before the spin-off airs, went back to sleep, and making that decision seemed to do the trick, no more superhero dreams tonight.)

Fragment involving driving to the beach with IRL acquaintances and seeing Iolaus on the side of the road, looking out over a river.

False awakening - don't remember the actual waking up part, but I was in my IRL home talking about the previous dream scene as a dream, and went on to talk about skinny dipping and Xena (separate topics). Over-steeped the tea while I was talking and went to toss it out, outside.

Outside I'm on a city street, and the trash can I use is right in front of a bookshop. Looking over the books in the window display, I start thinking about idolizing people and forgetting that they're only human, and eventually seeing their flaws and feeling let down, although you're the one who put them on a pedestal in the first place. Thinking about viewing the work and the writer separately as a balancing act, being able to see a writer's flaws as a person and to love their stories without the one contradicting the other. And the flip side of that, thinking about the stress on people who are idolized.

As I walk back to my apartment, I pass a cafe where a writer I know (a DC, no resemblance to any IRL writers I'm aware of) is sitting at a table with two women young enough to be his daughters or granddaughters. I stop to talk, and I say to him something along the lines of, yeah, you're idolized and you're only human, but the way you use your young, impressionable groupies is seriously creepy. One of the women gets up and leaves. The other stays.

But when I'm back in my apartment (which no longer bears any resemblance to IRL) and making a fresh cup of tea, I turn around and find that the woman who'd stayed is now sitting in my kitchen. I offer her a cup, she says no. She tells me haltingly that she's thinking about getting a job to support herself - maybe working for a political campaign, maybe going back to college, getting a degree and working in publishing - instead of relying on her writing.

3rd person. A military camp at night, raining hard, ground's mostly mud, the dogs and eagles used for running messages are having a rough time of it - at which point the dream switches to 1st person. I'm standing outside the dream, watching it, complaining to a woman with me about the use of animal messengers. "These people can create magic doorways linking one place to another, why are they still using messengers? Why do they even have supply lines?" She tries to say it's probably just shorthand, but I'm not impressed by this excuse. It annoys me that magic is only being used for flashy combat techniques and such when it could be put to so much better logistic use, it's a complete waste of manpower.

The next ASOIAF book comes out, and I skim the first few chapters and find a pleasant surprise: another Melisandre POV chapter. I settle in to read.

3rd person, following a woman who works at a newsstand that former president Bush II used to walk past every day as part of his routine, a long time ago. Now he's here with a bandage around his head, blood showing through, looking dazed. This happens twice. Both times he's found and picked up by his own security, but the woman is thinking to herself he 'looks the way he did in 2004,' meaning on the verge of death. The second time this happens he nearly walks into traffic, looking as if this isn't something he wants to do but is unable to stop himself. Unable to think straight, his mind is following an old routine.

A woman took me back to her home and left me to sleep, and now I'm hiding behind a door and watching her tend to a crying man, seeming to comfort him. In actuality, the scarf she wears around her hair is soaked in tears; this is how the witch feeds.

(Woke up with comparisons to Circe on my mind for that last one. Back to sleep.)

3rd person following a couple who meet for lunch every day, sitting at the outdoor tables of a cafe in a major city. He's a writer, and she used to read his stories during her breaks and tell him what she thought at lunch, but with this most recent book she finds she's got less and less time for it and finds herself making excuses: "I had a few moments in class, but..." He dislikes that she seems to feel obligated to read it, and tries to tell her there's no reason she should be spending all her free time on his writing, but when he says this out loud it just sounds like they're drifting apart. He gives her a peck on the cheek as they stand up from the table, and as he leaves he passes two women bending their heads together for a kiss.

I'm running some kind of transdimensional superhero team (though everyone here's wearing suits and ties, thank god, or casual clothes in Banner's case; no spandex in sight), and we've just encountered this reality's version of Superman, a version who grew up not on Earth but as the only living creature on a dead planet, raised by recordings, never understanding what had happened to everybody else.

I'm traveling, and attending this formal dinner. I'm seated next to this older guy who occupies some position I'm very respectful of, something to do with myth and ritual, and he asks me about what my legacy would be. I'm not a native speaker of whatever language we're using but I believe the word he used has a connotation to do with children, so I talk about being an uncle to my IRL sister's kids. (She doesn't actually have any yet.) He and the people around us seem disappointed by that answer - as if it's an acceptable answer to the question, but an indication that I'm not the kind of person they hoped I was. Then, unsure if I'm translating this accurately, I change my answer to "if the stories I tell are remembered." Now he seems much more approving.

Fragments from earlier: Taking a bunch of tourists to see a show claiming to represent old Aztec traditions, stepping back from the show while they watch, and standing next to an ancient Aztec dead man, listening to him mock the show. 3rd person, a magician who traveled and was misinterpreted a certain way by the people he met became known as 'king of kings' (my first waking association with that was Ozymandias).

I have been remembered my dream very clearly since I was very very young (may be I was three or four). Most of my dream are some kind of stories.

Sometime I dreamt about the same place I went in the other dream and knew that I already been to this place in another.

Sometime I can do realities check on the dream and the trend of the dream is changed based upon how it is in real life. Like example, if I am flying than I said to myself it is not possible and then I lost the ability to fly or if I met someone who is already passed away and as soon as I remember that someone disappeared in the dream.

The dream from last night was kind of strange. This is the first time I dreamt as I was somebody else. But I knew I am dreaming but I don't have control over like the other dream.

I was a 30 something male who is in love with a single mother. She has three children, two boys and a girl. A girl is middle child and the oldest one is about 8 or 9 years old and the youngest is 3 or 4 years old. The lady I was in love was headmistress of the girl-only school. The whole family has blond hair.

The family were living in the back of the school compound (btw the school compound is very large). It seems like the school is boarding school. I wasn't living with them. The children were looking after by her aunt (who is never been married before). It seems like I get along with the family and everyone likes me (even loves me).

I don't know how I look like. I felt every time I look at her, I knew that I am deeply in love with her and love the kids to bits. Very strange feeling.

One day sunny day, we were doing gardening with the girls from the school. There was the wild grass at the corner of the school compound. And somehow because of the digging the earth or cutting the grass(I don't know that for sure as I was planting the seeds somewhere else), we were surrounded by the white features or pollen.

All of the sudden, some of the girls start to die. So we run as fast as we can. And at some point, we had to pass the very large garage which has doors on both end. As soon as we were inside, both doors were starting to close slowly.

I was about to reach the door at the other end, the door was almost close, tiny space left to get through. The someone push me to through the door and I knew that someone was her.

All of them die. About 70 or 80 of them were dead. The school decided the buried all of them in the school compound. I went to funeral. I was very sad and the children were confuse. Then we went back to the house (her house). The youngest one said he saw his mummy.

As soon as we reach the steps to the house, we knew that her soul was trapped under the stair along with 70 something girls.

At that time I thought to myself (felt like Horror movie ending) "oh that's part II". Then I wake up.

I woke up and I was on a bus. I wasn't too freaked out because I've nodded off on buses before. I was sitting near the front and there were two old ladies near the back. I could just make out what they were saying.

"Well, I'm somewhat glad we're finally on our way."
"I don't really regret anything."

I didn't think anything of it. I looked out the window and noticed this wasn't any usual bus route I remember. Instead of driving around town, we were driving across some kind of desert on a worn trail. The bus left a big cloud of dust behind it as it drove. I walked up to the bus driver.

"Hello, sir?" I asked.
He turned to look at me. "Yes?" he asked.
"I'm just wondering... where are we going?"
He looked solemn. He just turned away and said out of the side of his mouth, "Just... please, take your seat."

I was beginning to worry. I walked back to where the two women were so I could ask them.

"Um... pardon me a moment. Where is this bus going?" I asked.
They looked uneasy. "You don't know?" one of them asked. I shook my head.
The other just mumbled, "Oh dear..."
After a pause, the first woman said, "Sweetie... you're dead."
"...what?" I finally managed.
"Why didn't you tell him?" the second woman yelled to the bus driver.
"I didn't want to tell a kid the bad news!" he answered.

I wandered back to my seat in shock. After a while, I looked up to the driver again and said, "I can't be dead!"
"No?" he asked.
"No!" I said. "I was just napping in my bed!" This was true, I was napping around two in the afternoon when this dream happened.
"Really, now. Then why don't you just wake up?" he asked.
And I tried. I tried to wake up. I tried to open what was my physical eyes beyond what I could currently see and feel. After a while, I could not wake up. Panic began to build in me.

As time passed, some more people started to just appear on the bus. Some people in army uniform, more older women and gentlemen, but I just sat there not knowing what to think. There was so much I wanted to do. So much I didn't get to experience.

At some point, there was a bright light building on the horizon. We started to drive into it and it got brighter and brighter. When everything was perfectly white, I felt myself floating. Then I was on my feet and when the brightness went away, I was in my house.

"So... that's it?" I thought to myself. I wandered into the kitchen. I opened up the refrigerator looking to see if anything had changed. As far as I remember, everything was the same, which meant the fridge was not that full. "I'll have to go to the store later," I said out loud.

"The store?" someone asked behind me. It was followed with a disapproving sigh. I looked behind me to see who said that. Of all the people I hoped it wasn't, who I saw was at the top of the list.

It was the bus driver.

"I can't be dead!" I yelled. "This is my house! This is where I live! This is my neighborhood! Look!" I ran to the front door and opened it. I could look down the street both ways and it was exactly how I remembered it. "See!? I can see down both directions!"

He just shook his head at me.

"I-I can't be dead!" I pleaded. "There are so many stories I haven't written! So many comics I haven't drawn!"

"I'm sorry," he said. "We can't let anyone go back except for special cases."

"What about stories?" I asked. I knew it sounded ridiculous, but I had to try. "What if I wrote a story so good that they had no choice but to send me back to share it?" He shrugged. I didn't know what he meant, but anything that wasn't a flat out rejection gave me hope. I thought for a while. "I'll have to do it within a certain someone's lifetime..." I said to myself.

After that, I woke up. I laid there staring at the ceiling not knowing if I was really alive or not.