Sleepwalking Stories: Coins

About three years ago, I was at my friend Alex's house. A group of about 8 or 9 of us decided we were going to read scary stories in the dark. I don't remember the stories being very frightening. In fact, I don't remember the stories at all because I fell asleep.

Now, as you might imagine, it is not a good idea for me to fall asleep in public places. I try to avoid sleeping on public transportation, for example. Imagine if I started talking, or worse -walking in my sleep while on a plane. I would probably do something to get myself arrested.

But I fell asleep at Alex's house. It wasn't the first time either.
The first time, there were maybe four of my friends watching confusedly as I walked around demanding my cactus book, and putting pillows in the freezer.

So they were prepared for this. When they saw that I was asleep, they chose not to wake me. Especially since I had already started moving my hands, spelling words in sign language. I soon opened my eyes and demanded my cactus book again.
Ok, maybe I should talk more about the cactus book.

Cactus Book Tangent!
In my undergrad in California, I lived with a girl named Laura. The first time I ever did anything in my sleep in that apartment, she was walking by my room at 4am. I screamed "LAURA!"
She walked into my room. "what?" she asked, sleepily.
"Where's my Cactus book?"
"Your what?"
"My cactus book. I lent it to you, and you never gave it back. I need it."
"Are you asleep?
"They're coming, Laura. The cacti are coming, and I need my book!"
"Go to sleep, Lizzy."

She then went back to her room. I lay there, still sleeping, and now very annoyed at Laura. I got up, went to the closet between our rooms, took out a large shampoo bottle, and dropped it from chest height onto the floor. I did this with several other heavy objects until Laura came out of her room.
"What are you doing?" she asked, still sleepy and getting annoyed.
"I'm looking for my book!"

For the three years I lived with Laura, I asked her for my Cactus book many many times while sleeping. It became quite the theme.
My friends joked that they should just buy a book about Cacti, and give it to me. But they never did.

I had an elaborate dream about the cactus book, in which the Cacti were a species from another planet. In the Cactus culture, Etiquette is Extremely important. If anyone breaks a rule of Etiquette , they were killed. The Cactus book was a book of Cactus Etiquette , that I was studying because I was chosen to be the ambassador to their people when they visited Earth.
Sounds pretty damn important to me.

Back to the Coins story!
So, I'm sleepwalking at Alex's house. After a while of signing random words, and gazing around me for a while, I asked them who was at the door.
Noone is at the door, they told me. But I insisted someone rang the doorbell.
Ivan got up and walked to the door.
"Who is at the door?" I persisted.
"Ivan's at the door." They said.
"...No. Ivan answered the door."
I think they got scared that I seemed to know what was going on around me.
After a pause, I said "Where is my book?"
They handed me a random book. I took a look at it for a while, then threw it across the room.
"That is not my book." I insisted, firmly.

I did some other things that I can't remember now. I believe I took a jar of jam out of the refrigerator and presented it importantly to someone. I think I tried to go outside, but they dissuaded me from that idea somehow.

What I do remember vaguely is going into the hallway, and taking everything off of Alex's sink, and arranging it into a small structure. Apparently I said, "Where is Laura? This is for her."
They went to get Laura, who was still in the livingroom. I asked her "Where is my book."
She groaned and said once again. "I don't have your book!"
I proceeded to knock down the structure I had made. It was probably a peace offering in return for the book.

Alex also had a large container full of loose change. I spilled these out on the carpet, and sorted them. With Ivan as my fascinated helper, handing me certain coins when I demanded them, I placed the coins in a pattern on the carpet.
This picture is the only record of that active sleepwalking night:



Alex said it looks like a spaceship. That's a flask on top there, and a pin with a picture of David Bowie in Labyrinth sitting on top of it.

Eventually I woke up while walking around, got a little freaked out and demanded to know what the hell happened. They relived the night for me, which is why I know the details.

Dream: Big Screen Tree

I had nothing but category 1 dreams last night. But one funny thing is worth mentioning.

In the dream, I walked into the livingroom where my friend Anjin was watching television on the largest TV I have ever seen. It wasn't wide -maybe 3 feet wide, but it was over 12 feet tall. I was impressed and tried to change the channel. As soon as I touched it, it shut off with the ominous sound a computer makes when it improperly shuts down. Smoke came out of the top.
Anjin looked at me with horror and fury and screamed "You killed the Great Deku Tree!"

I woke up horrified. Then I chuckled before falling back asleep.

Dream: The Fifth Restricting Stone

I dreamed that my fiancee died. I couldn't bear it, I was dangerously overcome with grief. I followed rumors and half-remembered myths until I found a witchdoctor, who I heard could bring people back to life.

She gave me the means to bring my fiancee back. It involved a complex ceremony to be performed over his grave. I had to say opening prayers/acknowledgments to certain spirits while facing specific directions, and then wash something that represented my fiancee in a copper bowl of my own blood. (gross. Why does my subconscious choose these kind of images?)
The witch doctor told me that once my fiancee was raised, his new life would be connected to mine. If one of us died, the other would die as well. This seemed more than reasonable to me, in order to get my fiancee back.

One step in the ceremony that I MUST NOT FORGET involved what the witchdoctor called the restricting stones. She gave me a beautifully embroidered satchel with them inside. I must put the restricting stones around the grave. If I did not do this, the power of the ceremony would not be restricted to that one grave, but spread through the cemetery.

I went to the cemetery, full of desperation and strained hope. I placed the four restricting stones beside the grave in each cardinal direction. I performed the ceremony, washing a crown in my blood. (I don't remember why it was a crown. There was a good reason for it, but I can't recall.)
When I was done, I sat down and waited.

I waited for hours upon hours. I began to rock back and forth slightly, too weary to cry, stretched to the limits of my emotional endurance. Dawn was breaking when I thought I heard something. I held still, and listened hard. The sound was coming from the ground in front of me, a kind of scuffling. I began to dig with my bare hands into the grave. When I was three feet into the earth, my hand hit something warm. It was another hand. It flailed until I grabbed hold and pulled as hard as I could. Slowly, a body emerged from the grave. It was my fiancee. He was alive. He seemed to know what had happened, because he didn't' act confused. We held each other, gasping and weeping at the base of his grave until the sun was well into the sky. Finally we gathered ourselves up, and I led him out of the cemetery.

What I didn't know was that there was a fifth restricting stone.

The next few weeks passed in a blissful kind of dream. My fiancee was back. We had our apartment again -I hadn't changed anything. He told me about what it was like to die. I told him about my grieving. We cried for each other's stories.

I was still going to CIM -my music school. I hadn't confided much about my fiancee's death to the people that I knew. They knew he was horribly ill, but I made it seem like he had a miraculous recovery. People couldn't be happier for me.

There had been a story at CIM that I had been told about 3 students (two vocalists and a pianist) who had died in a car accident a few years before I arrived at the school. I knew their names, but I had never met them. One day, one of these people showed up at school. They were walking around the halls, going to a few classes as if they had never left. At first, I think, people didn't recognize them. But as they started to talk to other people, everyone realized they were the students who had died in the accident.
"What? The car accident? You thought I died in it! Oh how horrible! No, no I didn't die. Obviously. I was badly injured and dropped out of school for a while. I've been abroad for part of the time. I'm back now!"

I met one of these students, the pianist, and shook his hand. I told him I had heard the stories of how he had died in the car accident, and was glad they weren't true. He was very nice to talk to, but as he walked away, for a split second I thought his face changed. Just as he was turning away from me, I thought I saw that his face was covered in blood, part of his skull crushed in. The expression in his eyes was hateful, evil. I blinked, startled, but his face was normal again.
As I was walking up the stairs, wondering what it was that I saw, I looked down at my right hand -with which I shook his hand. It was covered in blood. I flinched, and it was normal again.

More and more, people who were known to be dead started appearing all over town. I heard stories from many different people about long dead relatives, or friends appearing with excuses of having been out of town, or in a coma this whole time.
I tried to talk to my fiance about this strange phenomenon, but he was oddly touchy about the subject. In fact, he was becoming more and more distant. Once or twice I caught him looking at me across the table with a look of pure hatred.

It turned out that the fifth restricting stone had fallen out of my satchel on my desperate journey to the cemetery. This restricting stone was supposed to sit in the exact middle of the grave. The ceremony's power had extended throughout the cemetery, bringing almost every corpse back to life. Their lives were all connected to mine, just as was my fiancee's. If any one of us died, all the others would die as well.
When the dead are brought back to life, they can never be quite whole. There is something off, something sinister about them beneath the surface. The longer they remain living in their second life, the more prominent this dark side becomes. They were turning evil, all of them.

Dream: Demon No Longer

I remember last nights dream being very interesting. But I can hardly remember it. That doesn't happen to me! That happens to other people! D:
I still blame it on the comfortable guest bed.

What I do remember is that I thought I was a demon. I had been raised with demons for as long as I could remember. There were demons, angels and human beings all living together on earth. Demons weren't particularly evil, angels weren't particularly good, and humans were pretty oblivious. We were all just people. But demons and angels did tend to stay away from each other. It was almost like a class system, with the angels being higher class and not wanting to associate with the demons. Wealth wasn't an issue though.

I had always believed I was a demon. But as I got older, things began to look different -my vision began to change. After a while, demons looked fuzzy around the edges. Sometimes I could hardly see them at all. It was very upsetting.

I found out that I was actually only 1/4 demon. I was 3/4ths angel! And I also discovered that angels usually can't see demons. They know of them, but unless they concentrate really hard, they don't see them. I hadn't known this, but it explained a lot. Why angels always ignored me and my demon friends at school. Why angel adults used to be startled when I was suddenly in front of them, and hadn't seemed to notice me before.

As demons began to disappear from my vision, angels started paying more attention to me. They started trying to be my friend, inviting me to things. I was insulted, even disgusted by them, as I had been all my life. I desperately wanted to get back to living with the other demons, but they were shunning me.

I found that the only way I could see them clearly, was if I let my eyes relax and cross slightly. It was just like when you're trying to see an image in a magic eye picture. But when I did this, they looked different than they had when I could see them normally. The tips of their fingers were dark red, the area around their mouths was dark, as if in shadow. Their eyes were golden.

I woke up to my mom gently shaking me awake. I was muttering something like, "I'm really a demon... I can't see them anymore..." My mom was less surprised than you'd expect.



This isn't the first dream in which I've been part angel. It also happened in an old post called The Devil's Favorite.
Seems to be a reoccuring theme. No idea why.

Dreams: The New Teacher

I think my mom's comfy guest bed, coupled with my cat sleeping next to my face is making me sleep more deeply than usual, and therefore dreaming less. I haven't sleepwalked or sleeptexted since I got here. My dreams are more normal, with less detail than usual.

For example, last night I dreamed the tires on my car were stolen. By beavers. The end.

The night before I dreamed that Roberto Alagna, a famous opera singer, came to teach at the music conservatory I go to.
Here's a picture of Roberto Alagna.


Everyone was very excited -it was the buzz of most of the gossip between students. He was going to teach an opera history/opera workshop class. I was also very excited, I had just seen Alagna in Carmen in a live broadcast from the Met, and looked forward to what I could learn from him.

We had a welcoming ceremony for him in the lobby of the school. All the voice students were there, and there were balloons and banners. He was very gracious, and smiled and shook hands with everyone. When he saw me, his smile dropped for a moment. He smiled again, but his eyes were piercing when he looked at me. Throughout the ceremony he glanced at me every once in a while. I began to feel a little uneasy, and I told my friend Anjin about it. She said I was being a stupid 4**, thinking everything was about me. I laughed it off with her, but I still felt strange about the vibes he was sending me.

I took his classes, with all the other voice students, and they were fascinating. He had a lot to say about the history of opera, and about his own experiences. His opera workshop classes were useful and challenging. When he posed a question to the class, I raised my hand. His eyes always fell on me first, but he purposefully called on other people.

One day noone else raised their hand but me. He stared at me for a full thirty seconds before calling on me. My answer was correct. He stared at me again, and a grin spread slowly across his face. It was a wolfish grin, and I felt uneasy once more. At the end of class I was slow moving because I had a lot to pack up into my backpack. I was the last person out the door. Just as I was walking out the door. I thought I heard a faint "Lizzy!" from right behind me. I turned around, and suddenly he was there. He slapped me sharply across the face with the back of his hand. I wasn't that hurt, but I was so shocked I hardly had time to recover before he was saying "Good work today, Lizzy. I'll see you tomorrow." He showed me out the door with a smile, and shut it again after I left. I stood there in front of the closed classroom door for a few minutes, utterly stunned. Did he really slap me? Had I just imagined that?

A few days passed without incident. I stayed quiet in his classroom, no longer raising my hand. I even ditched class once. I felt sure by now that I had just imagined the backhanded slap, but that did not worry me any less.

A few nights later, I was walking towards the school building from my car. It was dark already, but I wanted to practice before I went home for the night. It was snowing, and I was alone in the parking lot. I heard something in front of me, and looked up. At the end of the parking lot, standing under a holly tree was Professor Alagna. He wasn't wearing a coat. He was staring at me with a fierce grin that made me take a step backward. I took off the hood of my coat to get a better look, but he was gone. I'm imagining things again, I thought. What's wrong with me? I started walking again. I was in the middle of the field on the side of the building when I felt something grab me by the back of the neck. It felt like a very large hand. I felt myself being lifted off the ground.

Then I woke up, dammit. It was very frightening while I was dreaming it, so I probably forced myself to wake up -nightmare wake-up style. But I want to know what happens!
This dream is different for two reasons: 1. There's not quite as much detail as other dreams. I blame that on the comfy guest bed. 2. I'm not often myself in my dreams. I'm usually playing a character of some sort. This was me for-sure. School even looked exactly as it looks in real life. My friends acted as they probably would. The new teacher was the only variable, which made it extra freaky.



**4 is on the Enneagram scale. It's a personality scale that I've read about. According to the scale, I really am a 4,. 4's are supposed to be creative artists, rather moody, and they think they're special. They're also reluctant to be categorized by numbers. :p


Update: 1-19-11
Last night, in real waking life, I parked in that parking lot that was in this dream. It was after dark, and I wanted to practice, and it was snowing -exactly like in this dream.
Halfway across the empty parking lot I suddenly got a feeling of uneasiness, and a chill raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I stopped in my tracks and looked up. There was the holly tree that Professor Alagna had been standing under in the dream. Noone was there.
I looked down, and found $20 bucks on the ground, half buried in the snow! yay! I wouldn't' have found it if I hadn't have had a creepy flashback to this dream.

Childhood Dreams

I am home for the holidays, at my mom's house. I was going through some old papers, and files on my mom's old computer, and I came across a few dreams I had written down years and years ago. Some were written down in brief summary by my mom because she thought they were interesting. Here is one I found written when I was very young:


"People are picking flowers and holding them up to their faces looking at them. The flowers are closed and then they open up and mimic the expression of the person's face that is holding them. They have little flower faces. One looks very happy and another looks grumpy and then surprised. Flowers from somewhere else?"

I don't remember that dream. I wonder how old I was when I wrote it. I'm assuming young enough to be ignorant of the use of commas.
Its too bad I didn't write down my dreams when I was a teenager. I used to have at least 3 long, vivid dreams every night. I was too lazy and angsty to write them down.

Here is one my mom wrote down. She just wanted to write a brief summary, so I'd remember more of the dream later. I was very young when I dreamed this too:

"Lizzy walks into a completely deserted town. She hears a crackly voice from somewhere say to her, 'Now that you are here, you can never leave.' She turns towards the voice and see that it is a crow talking to her. In her dream, Lizzy has walked into a town that has been quarantined with some horrible disease. Law officials show up and try to shoot her because she has been in contact with it."

That dream I do vaguely remember. I remember the talking crow anyway. I must have been 7 or 8 years old when I dreamed that.

Sleep Text: Falsehoods

I texted three people last night in my sleep, and none of them responded.
To all three of them I said:

"I cannot be held responsible for the consequences of your falsehoods."

It was at 2:30am, so I'm not surprised no one responded.
I've never posted the ensuing morning conversations I have with the people I sleeptext, but some of them can be just as amusing as the sleep texts themselves.

One of the recipients of this text was my sister, Jesse.
This morning I had a short text conversation with her about it.
Jesse: "Hahaha!! Hey -you finally texted me in your sleep!"
Awake Me: "Sorry about that! I'm glad you knew it was in my sleep, and that I wasn't just strangely angry at you."
Jesse: She's an angry elf!
Me: Shut up you. At least I'm not the one telling falsehoods.

Dream: WWIII

I dreamed that World War III had happened, and 2/3rds of the population of the world had been killed. The main enemies had developed weapons that could kill every living thing within a specific radius, without harming inanimate objects. They had also developed weapons of torture. One weapon was a bit like a gun, only it had unlimited range, and caused every single pain receptor in the victim's body to activate. The weapon also prevented the victim from losing consciousness from the pain.

My entire family had either been killed or kidnapped. The enemy had pressed me into their army by torturing me and holding my family hostage. It had been months since I became one of their army, and I could barely feel anything anymore. I committed horrible acts of violence, even genocide, without emotional consequences. I thought my soul had been shattered, and I was just a body, acting out of habit now. My job usually included being part of the execution squad, killing lines of innocent people with automatic weapons.

One day, we were marching through a small village in rural china. We marched on foot, and set up camp every night. I didn't know what the point of our mission was, and I didn't have enough humanity left in me to care. We seemed to just be walking from town to town, killing.
Following orders, I gunned down about 20 people who were forcibly lined up against a wall. After they fell to the ground, one of the villagers, a little girl, stood back up. She couldn't have been older than two years old, and she had ducked when I fired my weapon. She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen.

My commanding officer saw what had happened, and ordered me to take her behind the houses, and shoot her. I took her out of sight, and pointed my smaller firearm at her.
Something inside of me broke. I didn't think I could feel anymore, but tears started pouring down my face. I had locked my soul away somewhere, and the eyes of this tiny beautiful girl had brought it closer to the surface again. I lowered my weapon. I already loved her.

I hid her with my equipment, which was kept in a all-terrain, tank-like vehicle. I made sure no one found her, and that she kept quiet. There was nowhere safe I could bring her. Each village and town that we went to, we brought nothing but death. I kept her safe for months this way, not knowing what else to do. She began to call me Mama, and I loved her with all of my being.
One night, after I had set up my camp, I left my tent to go get water. When I returned, five officers were standing around my tent, my equipment spread out on the ground. The little girl was nowhere in sight. I was seized, and was roughly forced to walk for twenty minutes until we reached the center of the village we had decimated that day. There was a raised platform in the middle of an open space in the village center. On the platform stood my commanding officer, his hand on the shoulder of my little girl, who stood by his side, blindfolded.

My commanding officer saw that i had arrived, and nodded to a soldier. The soldier took out a pain-weapon, and pointed it at my little girl. I screamed, and tried to get out of the grasp of the three men holding me. I was hit hard on the side of the head with something, and forced to my knees. They waited until my vision had cleared before they used the pain weapon on my little girl. I don't know how long this went on before they stopped, and forced the girl to her feet. They took off her blindfold so that I could see her eyes, and placed a shotgun against her head. My little girl looked at me and screamed "Mama!" I awoke from this dream as the gun was fired.

Wtf subconscious?? I was already crying when I woke up, and could not go back to sleep. It's a terrible feeling, not wanting to go to sleep for fear of dreams.

Sleep Writing: The General

My dreams last night were all very strange and jumbled as normal dreams usually are. I think the highlight was when a reflection of a mutilated little girl appeared in the mirror and shrieked "Only sinful children look at me! Only sinful children look at me!" over and over. Then my friend Alisha poked the reflection in the eye, and said "Don't listen to her. She's licentious."
No idea what this dream means, and I'm not sure if I've ever used the word licentious out loud.


However, I did find this old piece of paper tucked away in a journal. It was something I wrote in my sleep a few years ago. (2006, it says in my awake handwriting.)
It is a paper torn out of a notebook. It's not a poem, exactly. It almost seems like an excerpt from story, or play. The quotation marks are actually written in. Here's what it says:

"Yeah, okay. But now you can listen to me, sir. I will take my cushy job, and my paid-for education, and my real relationships with my friends and kin. I will take that over your death and your insanity. And by god, General, I think I win."
The General's face flooded with rage, but Jack cut him off before he could speak.
"You believe that because you've seen first-hand the worst that humanity is capable of, that you are more of a person than I am? The fact that you've killed other human beings means that I must be the one to rethink my life? I must improve my character, make my life more valuable by ending the lives of others? I'm sorry, General, but I would rather win my life than this war."


I think this was the first thing I had ever written in my sleep. I remember being weirded-out when reading it in the morning. I've tried googling phrases from it, but it doesn't seem to be from anything. It's strange how it's in dialogue form.

Sleep Texts: The Cheesemaker

Me: Pardon me, but where can I find the cheesemaker at this late hour?

Laura: I believe he is at the tavern having a drink before he heads home for the night.

Me: Thank you. I must find him right away.

Laura: Is everything ok? Is there anything more I can do to help?

Me: Well, not particularly. Unless you know the cheesemaker? I don't know him by name unfortunately.

Laura: I stop by the shop from time to time. His name is David, I believe. We are friends.

Me: Thank you for the information! You have been most helpful. I am Gwyn, the physicians assistant. Who are you?

Laura: My name is Lumen. My father owns the bakery.

Me: Well, thank you again. I'm off to find the cheesemaker. Stop by the physicians workshop sometime.

Laura: I will stop by sometime. Bye, Gwyn.


Then, about a half hour later:

Me: Excuse me, sir, are you the cheesemaker? I was told the cheesemaker might be here.

Chris: Cheese? CHEESE? Ugh, is this what I'm reduced to? Yes, I make cheese, and do many other more important things as well. What are ya looking for?

Me: I'm afraid I've interrupted your drink rather late. But I am sent on an errand of importance. The physician needs to know if you keep a stock of lillywax cheese in your shop.

Chris: Lillywax, eh? That's a rare one these days. I hope you have the coin for it. What's that physician up to anyhow?

Me: He is preparing an antidote that can be administered only by the lilywax cheese. If you don't mind, might we go get it now? The patient could probably wait till morning, but it's best if we get it to her sooner.

Chris: A medicinal trojan horse! What a clever man. Alright, come around back, I keep it in the cellar. It's much too humid these days. Will this be goin on the physicians tab then?

Me: Yes, thank you.

Chris: Not a problem. You're just lucky I was still up. The misses usually calls me to bed earlier, but she's at her sister's for a time yet. Oh, and tell that physician to stop by sometime. We haven't had a good chat in too long.

Me: I will tell him. He has his hands full these days with the misadventures of His Grace's twins. Every week it's something. And now little Emily has gone and eaten the poisonous heath flowers. Hence the lillywax.

Chris: Ah! I had forgotten about those flowers... Bless those children. They've brought so much joy to that man. Hurry along now, Emily is not one to wait for anything, even health heh heh heh.

Ok so, I don't remember any of this. Sometimes I vaguely remember the story behind it, but this time I don't. It's a pretty clear story though, I even have a name this time.
Also, Lillywax cheese? O_o

Dream: The Death of a Sacred Lion

I dreamed that I was from a sprawling city which looked most like a middle eastern city, or perhaps somewhere in India. In my culture, lions were sacred and very common. It was the law that you could not hinder the doings of a lion. It was also considered extremely socially incorrect to even show that you noticed them at all by looking directly at them or avoiding them in any way. This was considered extremely prideful and arrogant, as if you are saying that you know God's will and think you can control it.

But, of course, these were lions wandering around the city, so they did very commonly attack people. When this happened, if it happened in front of you, you were expected to fall into a ritual prayer of thanks, or ignore it completely.

Also part of this dream was a back story that there is only one gun in the entire world. It was a pistol, and I had only ever heard stories and myths about it. I knew that people were always stealing it from one another, and the possessor of the gun always died gruesomely . There were groups of men who spend their lives hunting it down, trying to posses it. I had heard recently that it was rumored to be somewhere in the city. I wanted nothing to do with it.

One day, I heard that a lion had been shot. (in the indirect language my people used to discuss lions.) Later, in the marketplace, I had gone to get some supplies, and I was walking among merchant and lions. I looked into my bag for some money, and there was the gun.

Dream: The Sorcerer's Vision

I dreamed I was taking a nice relaxing bath. My drain stopper didn't work, so I was using a purple dishtowel to stop it up. I opened my eyes and noticed something purple floating on top of the water. I thought it must just be bits of fuzz from the cloth, so I scooped it out. It was hard to the touch. I examined it and saw that it was wax. Suddenly a huge ball of wax fell into the water from above. I looked up and the entire ceiling was like the top of an upside down candle. Where the light fixture had been in the center was now a flame shooting downward. Drops of wax fell everywhere. I went to get up, but found that I couldn't move. Most of the water in the bathtub had been displaced by wax, and I was stuck in it. The bathroom started to fill with melted wax, and soon it was up to my neck. Surprisingly, it wasn't too hot, and it did not burn my skin like melted wax usually does. I was panicking anyway. The wax was almost above my head. Suddenly, the candle flame in the ceiling snuffed out, and I felt the bottom of the bathtub move downward, away from me. I screamed and fought against the wax as I sunk deeper into it. Soon it was above my head, and I lost consciousness.
I awoke as I hit the ground. Apparently I had been falling. My whole body felt like one massive bruise, and I lay there moaning for a while before I opened my eyes. When I did I saw I was in a large room, with a fireplace in one corner and several ornate windows lining the walls. I remember the windows had wooden designs of celtic knots across the glass. I lay in the center of the room, still not wearing any clothing. Just as I was starting to pick myself up, I heard a small door in the corner of the room open. Before I could do anything, a man came in and caught sight of me.
"Good Lord!" he yelled and ran out of the room. I could hear him calling for someone. I saw a woolen blanket laying across a wide, wooden chair nearby. I snatched it and wrapped it around myself. Just as I got myself covered a woman entered. She smiled at me and dipped a small curtsy.
"This way mistress. Let's get you something to wear," she said gently. She led me into a small chamber adjoining the large room. In it was a large basin with water, and a tall freestanding screen to dress behind.
I heard movement in the next room, and the man called out. "I'm very sorry about this! All will be explained! You are perfectly safe, young woman!"
The girl, who said very little, handed me a dress made out of soft white cotton on the inside, and white and purple silk as the outermost layers. The dress was complicated looking and I gazed at it dubiously before the girl smiled at me and helped me put it on.
All this time I was panicking inwardly. I half-believed I was dreaming or hallucinating -perhaps I had slipped and hit my head getting out of the bath?
The girl brushed my hair as I fidgeted impatiently and asked her questions. Where am I? How did I get here? Who are you, and who was that man? Her only reply was that the master would see me as soon as we were done, and he would answer my questions.
She eventually led me to another small room that had the same ornate windows, and a matching beautiful wooden table. There was another fireplace in here. I sat down at the table, and the girl left the room. A boy came in, and set some soup in front of me. I tried to say hello, but he gave me a terrified look and practically ran from the room.
Soon the man I had first seen came in.
"I'm terribly sorry about what you had to go through," he said. "I have been trying for years to invent a less abrupt method of time transport. But this seems to be the only way, alas. For now, I can only apologize for the alarming nature of your arrival"
As I ate my soup, (having found that I was suddenly extremely hungry), the man explained to me that he was the king's sorcerer. "Sorcerer, wizard, mage, magician, call it what you will. It means nothing to me. All the king knows is that I have studied the magic arts, and all he cares about is what that can do for him and his kingdom."
He told me that the kingdom was at war with several barbarian tribes from the north. Apparently the tribes have banned together under one leader: Childrik. Chrildrik and his army posed a real threat to the kindom with their terrorist strategies. They apparently liked to capture enemies, skin them alive and send their severed heads back with one survivor as a message. If the kingdom and it's outlying areas were overrun with these barbarians, noone would be spared.
I wondered what this could have to do with me. My mind was boggling anyway at the whole thing. Time travel? Barbarians? Magic?
The sorcerer asked me to come with him, and we returned to the room in which I had first arrived. He went over to a table on which sat many strange objects: a hawks claw mounted on a stick, a deck of cards with strange colorful pictures on them, old books bound in very dark red-leather. He picked up a blue silk bag and came back to where I was standing.
"Hold out your hands" he said. I did so.
Out of the bag he took a small glass sphere. It was extremely delicate looking, and he handled it with much care. He placed it into my hands, and I nearly dropped it. It was much heavier than it looked. It felt very solid, and as if it was made of a very heavy metal, not glass. The sorcerer looked surprised when he saw how I handled it. We both stared at this glass ball, me wondering what was going on, he looking more and more disappointed.
Then suddenly, a tiny light appeared in the center of the ball. The sorcerer cried out as it grew brighter and brighter, until it was dazzling, and we could no longer look at it. I had to turn my face away -it was as if I was holding a tiny sun.
The sorcerer reached for the ball, and as soon as it left my hands, the light winked out abruptly. He placed it back in the bag, placed the bag on the table, and turned to look at me again with an extreme intensity in his eyes.
"You are she. It is confirmed." he said. "I have seen you. In my visions, I have seen you leading the armies of this kingdom. I have seen you riding before our enemies with this glass bauble shining in your hands. I have seen you face evil, and I have seen you trample it. I was right to bring you here. You will save us all."

Then I woke up. I wish my dreams would play themselves out so I can find out what happens. It's very frustrating.

Dream: Isolation

I dreamed that I decided that life was too difficult. There were too many terrible things in this world for it to be worthwhile. So I took my leave, and went where I knew I would be bothered by this life's troubles no longer.
I climbed the marble steps of the Temple of Isolation. Michael the Archangel saw me. Before the door could seal shut, he appeared in a shimmering blue light and wedged it open with his sword. He told me that before I finalize my decision, I must walk through the corridor. He pointed at two large oak doors. I walked through and followed the empty, unimpressive maze of hallways. Finally there were no more turns, only a straight corridor that expanded and the ceiling of which rose until it was out of sight. A massive mirror made up the entirety of the far wall.
I hesitated. My apathy wavered. I knew that if I looked into this mirror, I would see Truth. I sould see my decision for what it really was.
I walked towards it slowly, my eyes fixed on the ground. I stopped, my face only a foot away from the mirror. I looked up. In the mirror I saw first my own reflection, then the reflection of my decision. In the mirror I saw the most terrifying, the ugliest, the most horrifying creature. I awoke before I could run screaming from the temple, the blue light of Michael still in sight.

Dream: Magic Cafe

I dreamed that I had to commute a long distance to work once a week. The commute was through a large area of undeveloped arid land, with pockets of wooded areas here and there. My car would break down in the same place every single time, no matter what condition it was in. It always broke down in front of the only building for miles: a chocolate shop. It was also a cafe, with many sun rooms to sit in that overlooked the garden. The garden was full of amazingly colorful plants, none of which I had never seen before. After I had had some coffee and chocolate, and sat in a beautiful sun room for a while, I would try my car again, and it would work perfectly.
The owner of this chocolate and coffee house was an extremely eccentric woman. She was quite young, but she had curly white hair down to her waist. Her large eyes were pale purple, and her aged-silver glasses seemed to change design as you looked at them.
Eventually I began to plan ahead to spend time at the chocoalte shop on each trip. Whenever I planned this, my car would not break down.. I asked the owner about this phenomenon, and she looked at me sternly and said "Well, now there's no reason for it to break down, is there?"

Sleepwalking Poem: Tree of Golden Light

I wrote this the same night I texted with Catheryne the "Sapling" conversation.
I had forgotten about it because after I had written it, I folded it up and put it in the freezer.

First, let me describe the other sleepwalking things I did that night. I'm piecing this together based on my own very vague memories, and the discription of events given to me by Anjin and Chris the next day.
My roommate Anjin and her boyfriend Chris were still awake, in the kitchen. Neither of them had ever seen me sleepwalk before, so this was a first. First thing I did was walk out of my room, grab a bottle of olive oil from the counter, and went back in my room without looking at them. I appeared soon after, and I can't remember the exact order of events, but I made a little structure out of hangers, an empty tissue box, some candles that I have that are shaped like frogs, and a bunch of coins. I sorted the coins first, and layered them symmetrically around the box.
According to Anjin, I found a coin that just didn't fit in with the others. It was only then that I looked up at them. Apparently this really creeped them out, because they didn't know if I knew they were standing there. I insistently handed them the coin, and went back to what I was doing.
I think at one point I had a cd in my hand, and was trying to offer it to the cat...But I can't remember that too well.
Then at some point I sat down and stared at the table for a while. Then I said "I need a pen." Anjin describes my voice as having been high pitched and creepy, like a little girl's voice. Anjin got freaked out and said "We don't have any pens! Go to bed!" but Chris said "She's gonna write something!" And gave me a pen.
I stared at it for a while, then said, "I need paper." Chris got me music staff paper. He was probably hoping I'd write some music.
Instead I wrote a little poem between the staffs. Here it is:


I came upon a tree of golden light.
I met his eyes and let myself sink into them.
I saw my own body and spent the winter shaking
my head at the thought of my old ways.
I drank the sun and filled myself to the
tip of every leaf.
I loved for the first time, everything.


Having written that on the same night as the Sapling texts, made me think I was a tree while I was texting with Catheryne.

Dream: Scurvy

I dreamed I was a young girl in an Inuit tribe. It was probably around the turn of the century, and white explorers and anthropologists were starting to be seen by us more frequently. My tribe was small, but we were connected to several kin groups that lived within a few miles.
This group of missionaries came to our camp, and stayed in their own tent nearby. At first it was not a problem, they were a strange oddity that we girls were asked to stay away from. The old women were very amused by them. The men too, although they kept a close watch on them.
They spoke some of our language, and had the strangest habits. Their clothes were strange and obviously not warm enough. They shivered a lot. Their hair was the color of urine. I had never seen such hair.
They became more and more insistent in their ideas. They talked to the men for hours about something, I never knew what. What did affect me though, was that they were trying to change the way we ate. They insisted that we light fires and roast all the food we caught. They seemed to be shocked by the eating of natural meat. My people did sometimes cook food this way, but mostly we ate seal and caribou meat as it is as soon as it is caught, or frozen. If we did heat it, we usually boiled it for a short time. We began to roast the food. I did not mind, because meant we light fires more often, which I have always enjoyed.
After a period of several weeks, I began to feel sick. I started to get spots all over my body. My once pretty skin looked pale and thin. It hurt to move around.
We realized it was because of the new way of roasting the food. I realized (even though I couldn't' have known this exactly if I was an Inuit girl,) that I wasn't getting any vitamin C. There is Vitamin C in raw seal and caribou meat, but not if it is cooked. (Which is true actually. I remember talking about that in some class many years ago. I had forgotten about it though.)
I started eating raw seal blubber again. But it was too late, and I died of scurvy. I was the first of my tribe to die, but several followed me. The elders decided that these white missionaries were bad spirits, and they were driven out of our camp.