Thread: LiveInTheDream's Public Dream Journal

Wow, my dream recall EXPLODED last night! None were lucid, but I came pretty close a couple times. Memories from real life got in more than once, and as each dream went on I started to question how it was possible. I didn't get any farther than that, though. I think I need to slightly tweak how I'm reality checking...


Dream 1: Well, I did it. Remember the girl I had flown around in my previous dream? I saw her again, and this time asked if she would go out on a date. She accepted, and we made plans before going our separate ways. That night on facebook we both changed our relationship status, and I started to be in disbelief about the whole situation. Questions started to arise concerning the impossibility of all of this, but I just accepted it as a fact that these things always work out in unbelievable ways and didn't RC.

I woke up for a short while after each dream, but basically rolled over and re-entered the same one.

Dream 2: We were actually going out on the date now. Sadly, I don't remember much of what happened, but the restaurant was nice and the food was good.

Dream 3: A few of my friends and I decided to make a movie, and I guess my church building was the best location for it, because we decided to take a night and film there all night long. When everyone was there and we had laid all of our stuff in one of the rooms, I remember one of my friends commenting that he saw my relationship status on facebook. I told him it was true, and even talked a little about the date. Once the camera was set up and ready to go, however, I sort of put that aside for the sake of making the movie. Everything was going well and we were getting great shots, but when we went outside to do some outdoor filming, there was this weird guy lurking in the shadows. The parking lot lights were on, so we caught a glimpse of his face beneath the black cloak he was wearing. The man was a bit heavy, with a rough-looking goatee, and what looked like brown warpaint on his forehead. He said nothing, he just watched us. We didn't notice him for a long time, even though several of us made comments that we thought we heard something. Of course we decided outdoor shooting was done for the night and we ran inside, locking all the doors to the building. "That thing on his forehead looked like a clan symbol or something," I said. "Who knows how many others he's got out there, hiding? Surrounding the building, even?" It seemed best to stop filming then, so we decided to turn off all the lights and hide in the storage room. It wasn't long before I fell asleep in there. No, I do not remember dreaming in my dream. When I woke up, it was light again, and all of us were safe. For a moment I felt like sleeping had been a good thing, but when I realized I had only gotten about three hours of it, my mind changed. I felt awful; really tired, weak, even shaky. My friends and I attempted to resume filming our movie, but just couldn't act anymore. We ended up calling it a day and heading home to sleep.

Dream 4: I was back home, and apparently had caught up on sleep, because I was feeling fine now. That didn't last long, though. The weird guy in the cloak burst into my house and declared that he was from the government. He had a couple other guys in cheap gray suits with him too, but they were more for threat factor than anything. Seeing I was outnumbered, I let the guy talk. He began by handing me a paper. "You sir," he said, "have been convicted by the federal government for piracy of video game music." "What!?" I shouted. "I legally own the game, don't I? I paid for the music, and I have shared it with no-one. How is ripping it from the disk for personal use piracy?" That stymied him a bit. But then one of his buddies spoke up. "Where did you rip the music to?" "Well, my hard drive." "Oh," the cloaked man said. "The hard drive...tsk tsk tsk." "How does that make it illegal?" A third guy spoke up. "Those songs which you have ripped to your hard drive were available on iTunes for a low price. I believe this game of yours even included links to places where these songs could be purchased for the sake of personal use." "Yeah, well I don't use iTunes, and I paid for the game, which includes the music, so what's wrong with me converting it to MP3's for personal use?" They didn't answer, but just pointed at the paper. "Your court hearing is in three weeks." The cloaked one said. "We'll see you then." He smiled wickedly and then left with his goons. "This is impossible." I said. "This doesn't make any sense...how would they even know that I converted the music?"

Dream 5: Now I was at Walmart, and I just had this knowledge about the fact that I had simply given in and paid for the music to keep from going to jail over it, and that had cleared everything up. Now I was going to pick up a Wii Motion Plus attachment, go home, and use my video games in peace . I walked up to the shelf and saw that there were no Motion Plus's there. "Wait a second, this seems familiar...didn't I already do this?" (Yes, I did, IRL...other than the government coming after me for converting video game music, that is)

Dream 6: My siblings, my parents, and I were on a vacation as a sort of personal family-reunion. We went on a vacation to this weird city...the entire thing was like a massive factory. Oily smoke billowed out of the rooftops of every building there, construction didn't seem to be finished on anything, as pipes and concrete and rusty metal beams were exposed everywhere. It was really a very dirty place...but something about it was attractive, too. I can't remember a whole lot of it as one continuous memory, but I recall first driving into the city by tightly winding, one-lane roads that were mounted up above the city buildings, and then spiraled downward until they reached the ground level. We drove around a bit from there on, checked into our hotel, and then looked around for a good place to eat. The buildings were actually pretty cool from ground level. Most of them were in a style that would have been retro were it not for the pipes and metal patches that made it all look modern. Inside the buildings was pretty cool as well, since all the appliances were steampunk, and the decorations and furniture looked to be a couple hundred years old. It would have made a very cool place for a movie.

So yeah, 6 dreams recalled last night, and never once did I go lucid. There's just something not right about that.

Wow, last night was a good one. Congratulations on meeting up with the girl from the other night. It sounds like you were close to figuring out that one was a dream.

Originally Posted by Robot_Butler

Wow, last night was a good one. Congratulations on meeting up with the girl from the other night. It sounds like you were close to figuring out that one was a dream.

Thanks! Yeah, it's too bad I didn't quite figure it out...I have the hardest time getting an RC to work for very long. Seems like after a week or so it becomes mindless and I can do the RC in a dream without ever realizing I'm dreaming, so I always have to figure something different out...like I'm doing right now

AVATAR FANS: Even though this one isn't lucid, you'll probably want to read it.

Blast! This morning I got woken up by someone knocking loudly on the door, so I didn't have a chance to work on dream recall. Fortunately, I woke up earlier and recalled my first dream of the night, but that's all I get this time.

So here's my one dream:

I was a Na'vi (well, a human in an Avatar) in a Na'vi camp. The odd thing was, I, along with several other Na'vi around me, had tan skin at first. Also, Pandora looked more like New Zealand than Pandora, but a short walk fixed that. Everyone's skin turned blue later on too; I'm not sure when.

We were preparing for war, and it fell to me to scout out the land and set up a few traps designed to stop the initial wave of human ground attack. I did so by running across the thick tree branches like pathways. I had to jump between them and maintain good balance, but somehow it was very easy to do. When I had a good idea of the surrounding territory and good, defensible positions, I went about placing traps. As I placed the last one, an exploding plant they called a 'hermit bud', I heard the footsteps of someone approaching from behind. "Oh no! He heard us!" A Na'vi voice said. It sounded like they dove behind a bush then, so I had a good idea of where to look. When I found the two runaway Na'vi, I grabbed them by their braids and threatened to cut their neural connectors off if they fought back (capitol punishment for a Na'vi). They were cowards, which is why they fled the fight in the first place, so my threat kept them quite cooperative on the way back to the camp.

The Na'vi chief was very impressed with me. I had scouted out the land and set the traps in the best possible places as well as captured and returned two deserters. As the deserters were tied to a post to await punishment, I was given a promotion, effective immediately to...well, I don't know what the Na'vi word for it was, but basically a general. This was great news for most people, but one general, who hated the Avatars, did not take so well to it. He was willing to fight with me as a subordinate, but not an equal. This general happened to be watching as he sat on his Ikran, so in his fury he simply took off and proclaimed he was going to join the humans. The Na'vi chief ordered the archers to take him down, but they were so shocked and flustered that they couldn't get armed in time.

A sinking feeling hit my stomach as I watched the general ride out of sight, unharmed. I imagine everyone else felt it, too, because the chief put a hand on my shoulder and turned me to face him. "You are both human and Na'vi," he said. "Only you can save us now." I didn't like it, but I understood his reasoning. Without their best strategic leader, they would need someone who understood well how human machines worked--and therefore how to break them--to balance out the gap in military strength that was left behind.

"My Name is Lincoln" started playing, as if it were a movie. I was suddenly in red general armor with warpaint (and blue skin now), leading a Na'vi team on Ikran. The sound of hundreds of approaching aircraft rang loud in the air, and it was only a few moments before what we were all dreading appeared: a Dragon Assault Ship, with a swarm of Samson fighters shortly behind. We had little time to think of what to do, as the Dragon's forward guns began picking off Na'vi and their Ikran. Most of us managed to get past the guns, but there was no way we would be able to defeat all of the aircraft with what weapons we had. Thinking quickly, I jumped off my Ikran, drawing my dual blades at the same time, landing on the back of the Dragon, near the back propellers. My blades couldn't instantly pierce the metal of the ship's hull, but they could dent it, and so after several strikes to the propeller's joint to the ship, I was confident I had a weak enough spot to do some damage. I raised both blades over my head and thrust them down, piercing the metal and the machinery beneath, disabling one the propeller. The Dragon lurched, suddenly losing its balance, but I knew the pilot was skilled enough to keep it in the air as it was. There was no more time; we were beginning to near Na'vi ground defenses, and if I took the ship down, it would kill too many of my allies. In a desperate attempt, I ran to the front of the ship and did a flip off the end, throwing one of my blades through the cockpit window and into the pilot inside. My Ikran flew by at just the right moment to catch me as I fell, and then flew away before any damage could be done to us. I looked over my shoulder and watched as the dragon lifted upward and tilted due to the imbalance in propellers, forming a wall for the Samson fighters. The bulk of the fighters couldn't get out of the way in time, and either collided with the Dragon or other Samson's. The few remaining fighters soon found themselves caught in the flames of the resulting explosion, finishing off the human air support with one blow. All airborne Na'vi let out a cheer, but our celebration was cut short. Through the smoke came the defective general, both his Ikran and himself clad in RDA armor. "Go help the ground troops!" I ordered my Na'vi subordinates. "I'll take this one myself!"

Sadly, I can't remember the details of that fight. It was a whirl of spinning, colliding, and exchanging blows, and I was slowly losing, being in the weaker armor. I do remember how the battle ended, though. No matter what I did, I couldn't do damage to the general...until I noticed one single weak spot. I drew my remaining blade and threw it right at the defective Na'vi, cutting his braid (and thus his neural connectors) in half. He was stunned, and so was his Ikran, who now was out of the general's control. It was only a moment before he lost his grip on his ride and fell to the ground, hundreds of feet below.

I could feel my Ikran getting weak, and I myself was bleeding, so I took us back to the camp, where upon landing, I was informed that even with the humans knowing our ground strategy, we had managed to hold them off once my Ikran-mounted soldiers had arrived. That had not been in the original plan, and therefore it surprised the human soldiers and ended up destroying their whole operation. Pandora was ours! Everyone began celebrating, and I soon woke up.

It's really a shame that wasn't a lucid dream, or it would have been really awesome. However, for not being lucid, I had an usual amount of mental presence. Not being lucid is to be expected right now, anyway.

While Naiya's reality checking tutorial is good and worked for me, it only did so because I had a couple days where I had the time to give myself a mental workout. I don't have that kind of time anymore, so I'm tweaking a few things and I believe I've finally found a reality check that is both mental and physical, quick and solid. It's just going to take a few days for it to become a good enough habit to break into my dreams.

Well, that was a weird experience...last night, I mean.

The first dream I had, I went lucid. I didn't have time to do anything, though, because there was a man standing in front of me. "I am The Guardian, and The Guide." He said. I tried moving...and found myself unable to. "Listen to me, because this is very important: you will not be able to dream again tonight. If you follow my instruction, there is a chance you will, but you have to do everything perfectly." He then went on with his instruction, but being unable to move, I gradually lost lucidity and eventuallywoke up.

Weird, weird experience. Especially because...he was right! After that, I couldn't enter SP for long enough to dream. Whether I went into it intentionally or unintentionally, the SP would simply break after a few moments, and I could never hold on to any of the dreams that began to form . I couldn't even remember what the guy had told me to do in order to successfully dream. When it reached 6:00 or so, I managed to dream, but it was another dumb one, and not lucid.

I applied for a job at a cookie dough factory. I didn't get the job, but all of my would-be co-workers really wanted me to get it. This one odd girl especially wouldn't give up on me. She said it was just because I didn't know baking well enough, and that if I created an original recipe to sell to the company, they'd hire me in no time. With her minor assistance, then, I did just that (yep, right in the factory...no one told the manager I was there). It was late in the day by that point, so she told me that she'd keep the first batch of the new recipe in a safe place so I could show it to the manager the next day. That sounded fine to me, but when the next day came, I arrived at the factory to find everyone cheering on this odd girl for her new recipe...which was actually mine! "Oh, you gotta be kidding me!" I said to myself as I turned and left.

I don't think I'll ever understand how some of my dreams can be super-awesome and some can be super-stupid...like that one...

I think my new reality check is working! The great thing is, I should be able to continue to do it every day, even on busy weekends, so hopefully a day without RCs won't have a chance to mess me up anymore!

As you may have guessed, that means I went lucid again last night. And I mean REALLY lucid this time. I've never had a clearer LD before. And even though I didn't remember to go to Pandora like I originally set out to do, it was pretty freaking awesome. I honestly didn't ever want to wake up from it

I'm not exactly sure how I went lucid. The first thing I remember was being lucid, so perhaps I realized I was dreaming from the very beginning. I was in the world of the Matrix, right down to the atmosphere being dark and having the sunglasses and black clothes on.

I found myself in a storage room at the basement level of some building. Currently nothing was happening, so I decided to take the time to really clear up the dream. I walked around and touched everything I saw, enjoying actually having the right sensation for each texture. But eventually I came across a rusted pipe in the wall that felt smooth. "That's not right..." I thought. So I concentrated on what rusty metal should feel like, and gradually the proper sensation came to me. When that was done I rubbed my hands. "I really want this to last a while. Heck, I hope I never wake up!" By now, the dream was as clear as real life...clearer, even. I could forget that I even had a body elsewhere and just live as if this was life. But then I stopped myself. "If I forget this is a dream, I won't be lucid anymore. So I still need to remember that...but how?" Then it hit me. I pinched my nose and breathed in without problem. "Now I know." I said to myself, aloud this time.

Now it was time to have some fun. Being the Matrix, I just had to try out a few moves. Flips, kicks...I could do it all. If it felt like I wasn't going to land right, I'd just suspend myself in the air for a half-second so that I could regain my footing. I intentionally didn't just fly, since that would eliminate all challenge and make things much less enjoyable.

Playtime was over pretty soon, though. Trinity walked up to me from behind a stack of boxes. I didn't think about it at the time, but it was incredible how realistic she was. Not cartoony at all like regular dreams make people. There was seriously no visual difference between seeing her in the dream and seeing her in the second movie. She was in the shiny biker outfit. "Someone's hacking the Matrix," she said. "We have to find him quick. He's causing all sorts of trouble, and who knows what he'll do if he's left to run rampant." We quickly found out. Viperwolves appeared all around us right then. Why this didn't remind me that I was intending to go to Pandora I don't know. Trinity held up her fists and got into a ready position, but I held up a hand in her direction and said, "Hold on, I got this." Then I reached out with my other hand and used telekinesis on the viperwolf nearest to me. It whined in pain as I held it suspended in air, slowly crushing it into a ball. When it gave in and stopped trying to fight, I threw it across the room and into a wooden rail. It smashed right through the wood, breaking the rail and killing the viperwolf. Trinity sharply turned her head towards me as I did the same towards her. We nodded to each other, and then she ran off to drive the viperwolves in my direction, and as they came, I promptly picked them up with a thought and smashed them onto the concrete floor, into the ceiling, or anything else that looked like it would do them damage. Most of the time I only tried to grab one at a time, but for a final, climactic blow, I picked up about five of them at once, crushed them, and then threw them off to the side.

After a few moments of waiting to see if any more would come, I suddenly was drawn out of myself and flown around outside like an invisible security camera. I was 'decoding the Matrix'. Soon, as I was pulled back into my dream body, I nearly fell down from the transition. Trinity saw it, and was worried. "What happened?" She asked, rushing over to me. "I...I saw the hacker." I regained my balance. "He's up three stories. Door to the fire escape. Go!"

We made it outside and looked at the fire escape, but pretty soon a problem became evident to us both. Trinity was the first to speak it out loud. "You say he's coming out that door?" I nodded. "He'll see us and turn around unless we get up there really quick." "You know what, Trinity? You're right." So I ran up to the wall and then began running right up the side of the building. I reached the top and then did a flip off of it, landing right on my feet outside the door, just as it began to open. Standing there was a bald man with a scruffy goatee, dirty clothes, and a gun. He took his shot and sent a bullet right through my gut, but I healed myself instantly, so there was hardly even any blood loss. So next the hacker tried to punch me, but with both attempts I reached up and deflected his blows. "I know jujitsu." I said, intentionally copying Neo's line. It was an all-out fight after that, going back inside the top floor of the building, but unfortunately, this is where my dream recall starts to fade. No doubt about it, I was still lucid, and the fight was long, intense, and incredible, just like you'd expect from a Matrix fight. I remember running off walls and doing some crazy awesome kicks, but of course it wasn't an immediate victory for me. I was hurt a couple times, and being such a vivid dream, it really did hurt. I believe it all ended when I grabbed the guy and flew him back outside, smashing down the door in the process, and then flying down into the ground and crushing him into the concrete. Soon after that, I woke up.

Honestly, I'm glad I didn't go to Pandora as I had planned to. It's probably not as exciting to read about, but it sure was an incredible experience going through it!

I just lived out three months of my life last night. It was the worst dream I have ever had in my entire life. If it were a movie, it would be rated R, or higher. By necessity, I have recorded foul language, but blocked out certain characters. Sorry it is so long, but it's hard to record three months at once and keep it short.

I was first aware of the dream when I became lucid. Oh, that I had not! I tried leaving the building I was in and going to Pandora, I tried using telekinesis, I tried doing everything, but even though I was lucid, I could do nothing. I was as limited in this dream as I am in real life. I couldn't even wake myself up. There were a couple others in the concrete and steel-piped room, but they simply watched me try to go through the wall as if it were expected of me as a newcomer. I shouted out in one final attempt, and only succeeded in hurting myself.

“No point in trying to escape.” An old man in the room said to me, slowly and depressed. “From this point on, all you can do is your best. The tests...will not be easy.”

I held up my hands, giving up. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

The old man sighed. “Then...there is no hope for you.”

Just then, I saw a light on the floor; a door was opened behind me. Guards came in, wearing gas masks and black army uniforms. The leader said, “Take that one” as he pointed at me. His voice was deep and forbidding; he didn't have to shout or emphasize his words because it was obvious from his voice alone that no one would dare challenge him.

I didn't react to them at first. I figured if they grabbed me, I could just phase through their arms. But when they grabbed me and I realized I couldn't do that, I panicked. I fought and kicked and punched, but nothing I did could get me out of their iron grasp. “Sedate him!” The guard on my right hissed. “What? Sedate? No, no, no, no!” I watched in horror as the lead guard came into view with a needle and slowly pressed it into me. Things started fading. All was black.

I woke up momentarily in my bed and RC'd it to be real, but I couldn't stay there for long. It was like something was pulling my mind back into the dream, and it was soon successful. When I was back in the dream, I was just waking up from the sedative. I RC'd again and found myself dreaming, but lucidity again did nothing for me. I was trapped. The dream was totally realistic. Even my vision wasn't perfect, and as in real life, if I closed my eyes, I saw little spots. I was really there in mind and spirit, and now body as well, in the greatest possible sense. I sat up, depressed.

“Welcome back.” I heard a voice say. When I looked up, I saw a middle-aged woman with curly red hair standing there. “I'm Dr. Grace Augustine.” She said.

“Doctor...so you're not being tested too?”

She smirked, and then began to work some computer machinery as she spoke.

“Oh, I'm being tested. We're all being tested, save the big man himself. Here.”

She gave me a cup of water, which I took gratefully.

“Who is the big man?” I asked after a swig.

Grace stopped for a moment before answering.

“That is a very dangerous question. Honestly, no one really knows the answer. No one's ever seen him, not anyone from this level. Some believe he's in disguise undergoing his own tests, but I know better. I may not have met him, but I've spoken with him, and believe me, he's not in this for a science experiment. There's something much deeper at hand. Anyway, for lack of a better title, people around here call him the G-Man.”

“What are these tests? What are they for?”

Dr. Augustine handed me a clipboard with papers on it detailing an organization called the “D.N.A.”

“The DNA is a human research organization of the government.” Grace explained as I skimmed the pages, disappointed that the text wasn't changing like it should in a dream. “It's to...study human behavior; put people in a series of varying living conditions and see how their environment affects them.”

“Well,” I explained, “I'm a Christian; I doubt they'll find my living circumstances to change me in the ways they expect.”

I could tell Dr. Augustine wasn't convinced.

“We'll see about that.” she said as she pulled a nearby lever.

A steel bulkhead door opened behind her.

“This way to your first room.”

I got up and followed her down several dark hallways. The walls and ceiling were made entirely out of pipes, and the floor of a paneled steel square, with metal grating lining the left and right sides. One of the pipes was leaking, spraying steam out into the air and giving the area a very creepy atmosphere. Finally we reached a door.

“And this,” said the doctor, opening the door. “Is your room.”

Inside was a small room that looked very much like a little house's living room. It was smaller than the average hotel room, carpeted bright red and walls left white (and peeling at some points). Basic appliances were there, such as a television and a refrigerator, but they were old, small, and very outdated in appearance. Three people were in there, one a guy a bit taller than me with blonde hair and a thin face, and two girls, one an equally taller red-head and the other a shorter brunette. All of them looked to be about my age. They had the TV going and honestly seemed to be enjoying themselves. Their presence definitely cheered the whole situation and made me think that maybe there was some positive aspect to all of this.

“Food will be brought to you once every day.” Dr. Augustine explained. “You must ration it out for yourselves and save each of the portions in the fridge.”

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

“How long do I have to be here?”

“One month.”

“A month!? You gotta be kiddin' me, you can barely walk around in this place!”

“You have a backyard. Just don't try to go beyond the fence. Now get in there, or I'm going to have trouble with the boss.”

“Alright, alright!”

I walked inside.

“One month.” Said Dr. Augustine as she closed the door behind her.
I just stood there for a moment, silent, not believing the situation I was in. I RC'd again and found myself to still be dreaming, or at least, not in my normal body. Honestly, I don't know where I was then. It was all too real. I took a couple steps inward, and the guy there turned and looked at me.

“Oh, hey! The new guy's here!”

The girls waved and said 'hi' as well. I just sat down on the floor next to the guy, since no chairs were around.

“So how long'a you been here?” I asked.

“Three months.” The guy said, with the girls nodding their agreement with the guessed time.

“Huh, what? I thought we were only supposed to be here one month?”

“No man, that was you!” he said as he put his arm on my shoulder. “You're the one we've been waiting for! The test setup isn't complete without a second male. Here, check the paper.”

He flipped through my clipboard until he came to a page on test 1.

“'This test must be conducted regardless all circumstances with two males and two females. The government reserves the right to keep an incomplete test's subjects in their environments until suitable additions have arrived'.” I read. “This is crazy! I didn't even sign up for this.”

“Nobody does.” The brunette said. “And yet...everyone does. Look at the last page.”

I did, and there was a signature on the dotted line. My signature. I couldn't believe it.

“I...I didn't do this!”

“Everyone who is born signs their signature there from simply being alive.” The guy explained.

“Great. So what are we supposed to do?”

“Didn't Grace tell you?” the redhead chimed in. “Live on rations for a month. It's not much, but we can definitely live on it.”

“Is there really no way out of this?”

To that, no one spoke for a long time. Finally, the brunette broke the silence.

“Only a few have tried. They wanted to climb over the fence. No one knows what happened to them, but they never came back, and the government will act like they never existed if you ask them about it.”

“Outstanding.”

“Well hey,” the guy suggested. “How about we play a game? You know, loosen the tension.”

“Sounds good to me.” The brunette agreed.

“What about you?” The redhead asked, looking at me. “You in?”

I sighed.

“Why not...nothing else to do.”

So we played a game of monopoly, and learned each others names. The blonde guy was Truman, the brunette was Mia, and the redhead was Danielle. I didn't know them, but I don't think I really needed to in order to understand that they had something. They had been living in semi-poverty for three months, and they were the happiest people I'd met in a long time.

The days went on after that. As Grace had said, food was brought in once every day, and we had to ration it out and save what we could in the fridge. Even though there was little, everyone simply learned to think of the other three before themselves. There was no selfishness in that little place, which I think was supposed to be part of the test. To prove one or another of us to be selfish and in the process despise the others. But it never came close to happening. Every day we read the Bible to each other and it was our greatest source of encouragement. We were about as much a family as could be.

Still, I came to feel something special for Mia. I didn't say anything about it to her. I didn't have to. Every time I went to bed I knew she'd be there the next day and that I'd spend every moment with her, so why complicate things? It wasn't like she didn't know. Once, Mia fell terribly sick, to the point of death. We were told that medicine would be exchanged for some of the daily rations, and I volunteered to give mine up so that Mia could get better, which she did. By this point, I was actually beginning to get beyond acceptance of my life and actually enjoy it this way. Every day was...was very pure. It was all about putting others first and living life to the best possible way for the sake of everyone else. I figured out that Truman had feelings for Danielle, and although it would have been very easy, nobody slept together. We kept to our own corners of the room at night and didn't cross any boundaries. It was a kind of life that I would have lived for a long time.

But a month is just a month. Eventually the day came when Dr. Augustine visited our door and told me to say goodbye to my friends. I was very glad at this point that I had said nothing to Mia; it would have made things even harder. I told her goodbye the same way I did the other two; with nothing more than a hug and a word. It was very painful to be torn away from them, but guards were there to assist if I didn't comply of my own free will.

When I was outside and the guards saw I wasn't fighting, they walked away for Dr. Augustine to handle me.

“Why do this?” I asked, frustrated. “Why pull me away from them?”

“Your test was for one month. Boss's orders. I don't make up the rules, kid.”

We walked a bit farther and no one spoke.

“You're going to have a break today.” Grace said. “Back in the room you started in.”

“Why? Why not get the tests over with?”

“I told you I don't make up the rules.”

I went back inside the concrete room and sat on the concrete bed. It was like a prison cell.

“Great. So I'm here. What now? Just sit and take a break?”

“No.”

And then something really weird happened. As Grace said,

“The boss wants to see you.”

My environment faded into total darkness, and Grace morphed into a guard, emitting a blue glow that was painful to look at. Her voice changed to that of the guard as well, giving an eerie feeling about me. Then the guard disintegrated and was taken up into the air. I screamed in fear and tried to run, but I found myself colliding with a wall in the darkness, falling down, knocked out.

Again I woke up for real, but was pulled back into the dream by a force other than me.[/COLOR

When I woke up in the dream, I was in the piped hallway. I took one small step and heard my foot echo all the way down the hallway and around the pitch black corner. Then I heard a gut-wrenching scream, and a dead man limped around the corner. This was no Half-life zombie; this guy was really dead and decaying, and walking towards me. I turned and ran into the darkness of the corner, found a stack of boxes over to the side, and tried to knock it over to block the way. I saw the dead man round the corner, keeping after me. The boxes were too heavy...but then, just in time, they fell, and with another sickening cry, the dead man admitted defeat. I heard him walk away, and then I was left alone, my heart pounding, sure that another of them was going to end up being right behind me, against the wall as well.

“Well, well, well.”

The voice startled me so bad that I thought there was a zombie behind me, but it turned out there wasn't.

“Who are you?” I called out.

“Who am I?” The voice replied, slow, quivering, and dry, sending chills up my spine. “The question is: who are you? That's why we're doing these tests. To discover you. Isn't that right?”

I got his point, but I didn't like it. I remained pinned to the wall, heart racing. The voice laughed wickedly.

“You see? Your eyes are blind. You speak of understanding, but you do not know what you are talking about.”

“What are you talking about?” I finally gathered the courage to say. “What was that last test for? Why did I have to be pulled away? I was living right, and I had the truth.”

“You are looking for truth, and right. But you do not know what you speak of. You may have passed the first test, but I wonder, was it you, or was it the others around you?”

“They were good people. They don't deserve to be imprisoned by you!”

“I didn't put them in prison. You did.”

“I would never do such a thing!”

“Oh,” the voice replied, undaunted. “You don't know what you would do. It's Murphy.”

“Murphy as in Murphy's laws?” I mumbled so quiet that no one could hear it.

“Yes...somehow your pathetic human was the only one to understand. It doesn't matter what you believe, or where you are. Sooner or later, you will give in. It's all...just...a matter...of...time.”

I especially hated the way he said that last part.

“Now, go. Your next test awaitssss.”

Suddenly, the dead man broke through the boxes and ran after me. My legs froze; I couldn't make myself run, I was so afraid. But then, a blue light shone around him, and as I fainted, I could see my environment reverting to the lab with Grace Augustine.

I briefly woke up in real life yet again, but yet again was pulled back asleep.

I awoke in the dream with the doctor waving a light over my eyes and saying my name, trying to get me to come to. When I finally did, I sat up on the concrete bed and RC'd. I tested to be dreaming.

“What the h*ll was that? Get me out of this right now!”

“I can't do that.” Grace said. “Come on. It's time for your next test.”

I was taken outside, which looked a lot like Pandora, honestly, save I wasn't in the midst of trees. The testing facility was all up on a plateau, overlooking a forest, with an active volcano in the far distance. The sky was red and orange from the sunrise. I was led through various gates that required the doctor's authentication, and eventually came to a tree.

“Here you go.” said the doctor. “Test number 2.”

“Huh! A tree? Are you kidding?”

“Nope. For the next month, you are to live here. There's shelter already built for you towards the top.”

“Who's in it?”

“No one. The point of this test is to see how you behave for a month when you are alone. Food rations will come out once a week...”

“What!? Once a week?”

“...but there are weapons in the tree house for you to hunt your own food.”

“Great.”

“Trust me, you'll want to learn how to fight well. You think all the animals are stuck on the ground? Think again. Now go on.”

I looked around me. There were guards at every possible exit and escape. The fences were of latticed barbed wire. It was comply or die.

“Listen...I'm not supposed to tell you this, but after this test you'll get to see Mia again.” Dr. Augustine told me. “One month. That's all you have to endure. Don't kill yourself now!”

I looked at the factory as if it were the embodiment of the G-Man and the voice I had just heard.

“Son of a bit**.”

But I climbed up the tree then—for Mia.

I don't know that I want to or even can go into details about that month. It was horrible. Weather was hot, water was scarce, and so was food. The weapons were all hand-made and very pitiful. I had to sharpen each blade and tweak each arrow for balance before even attempting to use them. Of course the initial rations of food were not good enough for the week, so I had to go hunting. That didn't go so well. I was wary of every creature at first, trying to fight without being hurt, but one strange creature ended that attempt by biting the back of my arm.

“Ow! S**t!”

I then beat down the animal and tore at it with all my might, taking out my anger, temporarily forgetting all about the meat. I pulled it by the tail back to my tree, leaving streaks of dark blood on the dirt and grass. By that time it was night, I was sore, tired, and too hungry to go on. I barely was able to climb back up the tree to sleep. I didn't RC...I didn't want to. I knew where I was, that dream or no dream I couldn't change anything about my situation. I thought about Mia, and cried. Thinking of her made me want to read the Bible, but I could not, because I didn't have one with me, and my mind was too dulled and emotional to recall any memorized verses.

I ended up falling asleep that night with rain pouring through the leaky roof of the wooden tree house. About the only good thing about it was that it cleaned the wound on my arm.

The next day, I got out of the tree to find yesterday's kill completely devoured by other creatures.

“D*m* it!”

I spent the day hunting, and this time I got the meat from the kill right away, made a fire, and tried to cook it as best as possible. It tasted horrible; tough and dry, with no seasoning or spice to it at all. But it was food. I couldn't appreciate it, though. Not doing it for myself. There was no love in that; only hatred. Hatred for the G-Man, hatred for the pesky animals, hatred for my situation, even hatred for myself. By the end of that month, I was as much an animal as the beasts that I killed. My muscles were all huge and solid, my hair long and rough, and my mouth foul. I didn't pray, I didn't think about the Bible...all I thought about was Mia during the day, and the G-Man and the dead man during the night. Many times I was afraid that I had heard the cry of that demon in the night, when it would turn out to be a bird or some other creature.

It was only a month, but it seemed an eternity.

Finally the day came where I climbed back up into the tree house and found Dr. Augustine there. She was examining some pictures of Mia I had drawn on tree bark and hung on the walls.

“Excellent work.” She said.

I glared at her.

“I ought to kill you.”

“I don't. Make. The rules. Besides, you get to see Mia now, because I'm going to take you to her. You should be happy to see me again.”

“I'm happy just to see another living soul again! I've been here alone for far too long. I just wish it didn't have to be you or anyone associated with the d*m* DNA.”

“Tough luck. Come on, buddy.”

I was taken to a car with the DNA logo on the side, put in, and driven to what Grace said was my third and final test environment.

When we got there, I looked out the window to behold a huge mansion.

“And that is your new home.” said the doctor.

“You serious? It's fu**ing huge!”

“And this time, no rations.”

“What!? How am I supposed to live? There are no animals in this place!”

“No rations. You get ten million dollars to spend however you wish; on food, clothes, whatever.”

“You're kidding.”

She shook her head.

“Holy s**t!” I laughed. “Well this will be a breeze after living in the woods for so long.”

“Well good luck, then. Here's the key. The place is yours. After one month here, we're shipping you back home. Make the most of it.”

“Yeah, seriously!” I said, taking the key and dashing out the door.

When I got inside, the place was incredible; three stories high and hundreds of rooms on each floor. There was a fountain in the middle of the entrance area, and huge stair cases on both sides. Mia was there, and saw me come in from the top of one of the stair cases. She called out my name, and I called out hers, and we ran to meet each other.

“What happened to you!?” she asked. “You're filthy! And your clothes...they're all torn up!”

“They made me live out in a tree house for the past month! A d*m* tree house! Rations came only once a week; I had to hunt for the rest.”

“You poor thing! Come on, let's get you to the shower. There's clothes and everything you need up in the master bedroom.”

She led me upstairs and to the room she spoke of. It was an amazing place; the bed was big enough for someone 9 feet tall to comfortably fit in, and the accommodations in the bathroom were just as extravagant. Mia was just about to leave so I could get cleaned up, but I turned and put her hands in mine before she could.

“I'm afraid that if I let you go I'll never see you again.” I said.

She smiled.

“I'll wait right outside. Not a step farther away.”

“Thank you.”

It was great to get cleaned up after a month of filthiness. After a shower in the bathtub with jets and floor lamps, I trimmed my hair and shaved in front of a fifty-foot mirror. I never could get over the fact that was a multimillionaire and this was my new home for the next month. I didn't care, though. I knew how to live without money at all. It was Mia that I cared about.

When I went into the bedroom to get dressed, I noticed a PDA on the bed. It hadn't been there before. I picked out an outfit and tried to ignore the device...but somehow it grabbed my attention. I touched the screen, and it turned on. A man with a gnarled, wrinkled face wearing a suit appeared on the screen. He was hideous. I didn't even need to ask to know he was the G-Man.

“You son of a bit**! What do you want with me?”

“Careful. Don't forget who gave you all this, and Mia.” He said in his usual, slow and devious manner.

“Who the h*ll are you, really?”

He ignored me.

“I'm here to tell you about this device. This is what you will use this month to do everything.”

“Like what? Why would I use s**t that you and your half-a**ed guards sneaked into this place?”

“You will use it to make purchases.” He continued, undaunted.

The screen changed to illustrate what he was talking about.

“I have made hundreds of bookmarks for you. Web stores, magazines, everything is all right here for you at the touch of a button. There's even vast adult web content available at low prices.”

“I'm not interested in adult web content.”

“We shall see.”

And with that, he was gone. Mia knocked on the door.

“Is someone in there with you?”

I turned to look at the door.

“Oh. No! No, just talking to myself.”

When I looked back down at the device, the G-Man had made it automatically switch to one of those bookmarked adult web pages.

“D*m* it!”

I tapped the home button on the PDA and shoved it into my pocket. Then I opened the door for Mia.

There was something about the way she turned to look at me that made her stunningly beautiful in the red dress she was in.

“Mia...there's something I have—I need—to tell you.”

“You can tell me anything.”

“Mia...” I took her hands in mine again. “I love you.”

I saw a tear form in the corner of her eye, and then she threw her arms around me.

“I thought I'd never get the chance to hear you say it!”

Things went very well the rest of that day. Mia and I went exploring the huge house, uninterrupted by anyone else. Since many rooms were empty, we also did some shopping. Well, I did, anyway. I told Mia I would order things; I didn't show her just how. See, I couldn't delete the bookmarks on the device, and I didn't want Mia to find them and think that I had put them there. So a 70-inch plasma screen TV, a water slide for the backyard pool, paintings by famous artists, you name it, all came in without Mia ever knowing just how I was ordering.

It would have been a good month, except for the fact that Mia and I got so caught up in riches that we left behind the Bible and God and lived for ourselves. We couldn't leave our estate because guards would stop us, so marriage wasn't an option, and therefore, rather than make the right choices, we simply started sleeping together. But our love was quickly turning to selfishness, and so more and more those bookmarks became a temptation for me.

Eventually, I resisted no more. I thought Mia was on the other side of the mansion, so I pulled out the device and opened the first bookmark in the list. Not ten minutes later, Mia came back and found me there with the device. And yes, she did think I had put the bookmarks there. But that hardly mattered now; I had given into them, which was a far worse deed.

In the middle of our argument over the issue, blue lights shone from us both, and we were taken to the cement place I had first arrived at. Grace wasn't there, the G-Man wasn't there, but we could hear his voice.

“You claimed to love this woman, but look at what you did!” His spine-chilling voice shouted.

Then we were transported back to the first test room.

“Remember what you were? Look at yourself now!”

This time, only I had the blue light. Mia grabbed for me.

“Mia! Don't!”

She didn't have time. I was transported to the dark hallway with the pipes, and I was utterly alone, standing beneath the only light in the entire place. Behind me I heard the cry of the dead man again, but when he rounded the corner, I saw not just him, but an army of dead men behind him.

I swore and ran away. They advanced behind me, faster and faster. I took twists and turns down the hallway, but at one point I had three options. Back, left, or right. Behind me was darkness and dead men, so I turned left. To my horror, more dead men swarmed in on that side of me as well. I screamed and ran, the decaying, limping bodies crying out after me.

I began to realize as I ran that even the bright moments had been deception the past three months. It was all a trick, all a lie, and I had given into it all. I had been weak and easily decieved, I had become the very thing I hated, and now I was about to be destroyed by the very thing I feared most.

I was lucid, but I couldn't wake up, I couldn't fight, I couldn't flee. The worst fear I've ever had set in as I realized that as far as reality was concerned, this was real, and there was no escaping it.

There was one last corner for me to go around, but when I did, the army of dead men was already there. I was trapped this time. Quickly, I searched for more boxes, and found them, but knocking them over did no good. Hundreds of zombies were on both sides of me this time, and they were very strong. I held up the walls with my own hands and feet, but I knew I was only prolonging the inevitable. I couldn't hold them off forever, and there was nowhere else to go. They reached their decaying hands through holes in between boxes and clawed desperately at me in the darkness.

Cusses and swears came from my mouth, and then the G-Man joined in the racket with his wicked laughter.

“You wanted to find right and truth.” He said, still slowly, his voice still quivering, and chilling as ever. “Well, you found it. Or should I say...you found them.”

“What!? These are you. You!”

“No, these are you.”

I finally began to understand, but I didn't want to.

“No, no, no, no!” I cried.

“Yeessss.” The G-Man hissed. “Every one of them is a work of yours; a tragedy. Weren't you a Christian? Then look around you.”

The armies of dead men began to cry louder and beat harder against the walls of boxes.

“You see? All there is...is tragedy. So much for Christianity.”

“This can't be right. This can't be true. This isn't. It isn't!” I tried to convince myself, and control the dream. It was no use. I was still pinned, growing weaker by the moment.

That speech seemed to crush everything about me; like the past three months had all been a sick game played just to prove to me that I would give into temptation if put in the wrong environments for enough time.

Suddenly the pressure against the boxes eased, and the zombies were gone...or so I thought.

A moment later, their faces came into view by the thousands, all behind one gnarled and twisted face of an old man that appeared right in front of me.

“Tragedy is all that is, and that is what makes it right. It's Murphy. It's all...just...a matter...of...time.”

With that, the G-Man snapped his fingers, and all was snuffed out in darkness. I wasn't in body then, but spectating, and I zoomed out and saw a briefcase being closed over my clipboard of papers. When it shut, the ten stars on the DNA symbol lit up.

“We have his DNA now. I just hope it was worth doing to the poor fellow.” A rather heavy government worker said as he picked it up.

The G-Man was sitting behind a desk, which I saw as things continued to zoom out.

“Trust me. All of it is in that DNA. Right and wrong, good and evil...it's all pointless and meaningless...a fabrication of fragile, disgusting humanity. With this DNA, we have the ability to decide for ourselves what is good, and what is evil.”

“You better be right.”


And then I woke up with a start. I might need to illustrate this a bit, since just reading it is not nearly as scary. I've never felt so scared, so betrayed, so deceived...I became a wicked, wicked person, not all that unlike who I really am, just less bridled. It's a very sobering story, especially since the G-Man's face and that line “It's Murphy. It's all...just...a matter...of...time” are not unfamiliar to me. I saw them both early on as a little kid. I called the G-Man “the gray man who stands next to my bed and brings dreams to me.” And he said that line more than once before.

If there's not something of the devil involved in all this, I don't know where it came from...

EDIT: A couple illustrations can be found here. I didn't spend too long on them, but the first one is pretty accurate, and the second one is exactly right.