it goes vwoom together

Nick woke from a dream and fell into an immediate recount (transcribed by Mike; edited by Jules):

Dude, I had the weirdest dream.

Me and Suresh were on the side of a mountain. He had a calf’s head necklace wrapped around his head. I made fun of him. As I was leaving, Suresh threw the calf’s head into a lake. I went to chase it, but when I got in the water.. it was like a warm-water-vortex.. but it wasn’t really water. It was like a green oily.. goop. And it wasn’t just a vortex, it was an intake valve going somewhere.. into the island maybe..?

I thought I was going to die.. I started kicking and screaming.. I was afraid you guys would hear me but I was actually underwater. I couldn’t make a sound. And I think the haitian may have been there. On a boat.. (dun dun dun . . .)

@ -2 nights

Brad and I were in a large shopping center. We spent the largest portion of our time at Barnes & Noble (attention Barnes & Noble customers, the cd you are currently listening to is “A Charlie Brown Christmas”..). There was a new Harry Potter coming out and we were waiting for our copies. Each of the past books had color associated with it. The new one was a deep maroon.

@ -1 nights

Another expansive field with an impossibly high sky. Kung Fu training among ancient statues and knee-deep grass.

@ -0 nights

I decided to see how long I could remain lucid. My alarm was set to go off at 9am. I just woke up.. it’s 1pm >_> I think I find this mildly disturbing. I don’t know what time I began my lucid dream, but I slept through my alarm clock and an additional four hours afterward.

Ugh.. I can already feel most of it slipping away. I was something of a pirate.. at least there were lots of wooden floors. I didn’t try to change too much. My main focus was just drifting along through the dream while maintaining strong consciousness and fully engaged senses. There was a time in the beginning where I felt like I was slipping irreversibly towards full consciousness so I started speaking aloud. This did wonders for the imagery. I’m always a bit hesitant to forcefully speak out tho. I’m afraid that I’ll wake up and speak in real life. Luckily I engaged my minds voice only and things got quite a bit better from there.

One thing I found interesting was that it seemed my voice was quite a bit louder than that of all my dream characters. It seemed like it didn’t really come from me, but from around me.. It was a really.. full.. sound.

So I spend most of the dream just following along with the existing plot.. nothing too spectacular. There was this one time where a small group of characters were out hunting some rogue. I lent them a hand by creating a long string which attached to the back of the rogue. There were able to follow it to the hunted character.

Another interesting part.. I was standing with other characters around this open box. I motioned it closed with my hand while turning to face the other way. I heard sounds of someone scuttling out of the box and turned to see what had happened. The moment I looked I started to lose the dream. At least it felt like that. I wonder now if maybe it wasn’t just part of the effect. Anyway, the scene started tilting like we were on a moving stage and I started to have an incredible time trying to stabilize everything. The dream characters were being strewn about. Only myself and the individual exiting the box seemed to have control.

This was where things got really weird and confusing. She gets out of the box and says something like: “I can’t stabilize the dream.” It suddenly came to me that we were two dreamers in a single dream. We were both trying to balance the scene from termination. It was like we had different perspectives and we were fighting against each other for control. I think I lost..

I don’t really remember what happened after. It was a while before I regained lucidity. But this event fascinates me. Here I was trying to prolong a lucid dream for as long as possible, and what happens? My mind creates another lucid dreamer who is strong enough to put me back in my traditional dreaming place. I imagine it will happen again some time and I intend to fight. Two dreamers in a limitless universe? Should make for a good show.

She had white hair and black traces around the outsides of her nails. I remember running quite a bit.

I really should sleep soon. Ugh.

Tonight I plan on using some lucid time to attempt some behavioral augmentation. hahaha..

Last night I dreamed she took me on a date. We had pizza and root beer. At one point we were driving down this long sloping road. It was raining. There was a homeless man lying on the sidewalk. The outing was some sort of payback on her part. She wanted to feel vindicated but ended up just frustrating herself.

When I saw the guy on the sidewalk I had to look away. When I looked back I noticed how the rain drops appeared to fall faster than normal and make a seemingly painful impact with the man’s face and chest. I remember feeling sick again and looking away. I just couldn’t look at him.

I had two dreams last night in which I was attempting to obtain a milkshake. I’m not sure on the exact flavor but it had a vanilla base and neon-green blobs of.. something.

In the first dream I had Lily with me and the whole milkshake obtaining process seemed very simple. We enter this swamp area, drop some ham into the water, and take a hidden sub to the diner. Things started going awry the moment I dropped the meat.

Lily was having trouble swimming out to our vehicle and so I turned around to help her. She was flailing a bit and I could feel myself slowly sinking. Next thing I knew, someone else had gotten onto the top of the sub and were planning on leaving without us.

When I confronted the lady on the deck she went a bit berserk. She seemed delusional and pulled out a small knife from her lunchbox. She was trying to stab me and succeeded in stabbing my hand which was trying to take the blade away. I felt I had no choice and plunged the long steak knife (which had appeared in my other hand) just a short ways into her abdomen. It was a very sickening sight. The handle and majority of the blade was still exposed, and the stab was only a couple inches deep.

She fell overboard and I tried to push her all the way under while she continued to slice at my hands.

I woke up then feeling quite disturbed. I walked around for a bit then went back to bed.

This next dream was less severe but I had a similar goal: that milkshake. I found myself in Nigeria and had to swim through this canal to reach a resort area. The water was disgusting. It was full of hair and locals trying to souvenirs which were made from various body parts.

I ended up deciding to leave once I got to the resort. I did get to meet Paul Teutul. Turns out he’s an amateur magician..

I couldn’t lose lucidity. It was almost like old times.. except I slept through it. Anyway, there was one pleasant part I had no control over.

I was in a nice performance hall of my current (but unrecognizable) school. I sat on the stage floor and watched the performance directly in front of me. There were two lines of girls, all dressed in these long white robes. From my perspective, the lines were longest when measured left to right and were two rows deep.

The performers were arranged so that each line, or group was on a separate moving platform. The platform had three vertical positions, each about ten meters apart. The performance consisted of singing and dancing on these platforms which would accelerate at incredible speeds which hurtled the performers high into the air. There were all manner of flips and the whole spectacle was quite pleasant.

The finale always included flying dismounts onto a hidden stage underneath. After watching the performance a few times I moved down below to see the hidden stage. It was a bit sickening to see the bodies of the performers sprawled along the floor and against the walls.

I then understood why there were limited rehearsals. It turns out that the final maneuver ended in the performers death. Sad.

So I’m here. And I’m tired too. I think I slept 13 hours again last night. I had one dream where I was preparing for the LSAT.

Actually.. I took the exam with nearly no preparation. Those who passed were given awards and a ceremony reminiscent of olympic games. The final passing grade was to be either given to me or some other boy. There was a drumroll. I won. Oh, I won. I couldn’t believe it. What were the chances? I hadn’t even studied. I attributed my success to my firm belief in my ability to win.

As I took my place next to skippy and eminem I saw my parents down below. My dad was crying.. he couldn’t believe it either. I turned around and barely dodged a blow from my newest combat instructor. He wore a black bandanna like an eye patch.

Each swing he took was followed by a small trail of bubbles from his mouth. They had a very pleasant easing (out) movement but I couldn’t watch them too long. The moment I directed too much attention towards the bubbles I felt my sternum crunch under my opponents palm.

There were apologies all around. He was trying to tie the bandanna around my torso. It wouldn’t reach but he kept trying, slowly squeezing my body thinner and thinner. Each movement he made became more primitive. I was at this point I recalled that I was asleep. I tried to remember the past days events in order to gain full lucidity.

Truck. Bus. Truck. And then there was the zipline and the simple violin tune. No wait. I think that was a dream too. It’s hard to remember but I think it was shingle outside.

You see before ‘heroes’ there was plain old magic. These three brothers were practitioners of illusion. I wore my coat because it looked like paper and stretched to fit my shape. It reminded me of that one band. The one with the paper cutouts, remember? And then they attacked. Except it wasn’t their real attack. It hurt so bad but it was just a fake one. They sent the little flames to follow me. I kicked the short one and he split in two.

Game over man.. They muttered submission while shuffling out the glass doors. I think I might agree. School of Conjuration > School of Illusion.