Dream: Horrors of Endearment

I have had a recurring dream since I was very young. It used to make me cry when I was a child. I'm almost used to it now. I wake up in a cold sweat, then get over it and go back to sleep.

In the dream, I am always standing on a very small platform, with just barely enough room to stand. It is like a land tower, something you'd see in a canyon. The best example I can find is something like this:
There is just one of them though, and it is very straight, and very skinny.

It's the only place to stand in an underground cavern full of lava. Not far from me, there is a large metal cage suspended from the ceiling of the cavern. Inside the cage are my loved ones -my friends and family.

I am put in this situation by a demon, who always asks me questions. Questions about myself, my family, music, history, geography, science. Every time I answer a question incorrectly, the cage lowers a few feet. I never see the demon; I can only hear his voice.
Sometimes the demon is just feeling particularly malicious, and lowers the cage even when I answer a question correctly. It is completely at his discretion, and for his entertainment.

The dream always ends the same way, no matter how well I answer questions. The cage finally reaches the lava, and my loved ones die, screaming. Then I wake up. I never wake up before they die. I always experience that part.

This might be my longest running recurring dream. I can remember having this dream as young as four years old.
My only defense against this dream is to make light of it. And I noticed that who is in the cage varies from one occurrence to the next. My mom is almost always in there, so are my sisters. But which friends end up in there always changes.
So I've begun to think of it as a term of endearment. If you were in my lava cage, that means you're one of my loved ones.

So a conversation with my friend who knows about this dream might go like this:
me: "Alisha, you were in my lava cage last night."
Alisha: "I love you too, Lizzy."

Dream: Kidnapper's Tag

This dream took place on my undergrad campus, UC Davis. I actually dreamed this before when I was a student there, and I had forgotten about it until the rerun dream last night.

In this dream Kidnapper's Tag is a game that my friends and I invented. There were 20 people playing, split into two teams of 10. Basically the point of the game is for the team that is "it" to kidnap someone from the other team. You are safe when you are in your own apartment, or in a classroom, but nowhere else. You are allowed to gang up on people, even ambushing someone of the other team using all 10 of your teammates.

When someone is kidnapped, they are taken back to the designated kidnapping area, which was the garage of a non-participating friend of ours. All 20 players had keys to the garage. The kidnapped person would be left tied up, (usually with duct tape). The kidnappers had to leave them one of two means of escape:
1. a knife with which they can cut themselves free, or
2. Their phone within reach.
If they have their phone, they can dial one of their teammates for help. (This was the more popular option. It was a good idea to have all your teammates on speed-dial.)


Once the kidnapped person frees themselves, they have to send a mass text to all 20 players that they were kidnapped, and therefore their team is now "it."


Gameplay was fun, but frightening. You had to be in stealth mode all the time, keeping an eye out for the other team. Sometimes you missed classes because you were kidnapped as you tried to get to school. If you were not 'it,' and you saw members of the other team, RUN! Get in your apartment, or a classroom asap. Especially if you are a smaller person, and you see someone who can physically overpower you. You are allowed to struggle/fight back when people are trying to kidnap you, as long as no one is actually hurt. This is why it's a good idea to gang up on the victims.


In my dream, they ambushed me. Sometimes you got calls from teammates who had been kidnapped, and you have to go untie them. Sometimes those teammates are gagged, so when you get a gagged-sounding person calling you on the phone, it's easy to assume what happened. The other team used this idea to their advantage. They got lucky and found the phone of one of my teammates. They used it to call me, talking with a gag in their mouth to make me think my teammate was calling for a rescue. They got me when I was almost all the way to the garage. Five of them jumped out of a van and snatched me off the street.
Tricky bastards!

Sleeptexting: Toll

I texted Alisha in my sleep two nights ago. She did not see the message until it was too late. This is what I said:

"Think you could lend me five copper pieces for the drawbridge toll? You know I'm good for it."


I don't remember anything about this. Wonder where it would have gone if she had responded. Copper pieces sounds like a currency in a fantasy novel. Drawbridge toll sounds Medievalish. Who knows.

Sleeptexting: Gods on Holiday

There was a big thunderstorm last night. I think that's what prompted this sleeptexting session. I did not even notice these messages until about 3pm today.


Me: Oh great. What did you do now? He's obviously furious about something. He'll never believe I didn't do anything this time.

Nathan: It couldn't be helped! Something had to be done. I will take the blame, he will certainly listen to me.

Me: You haven't been talking to any of the little gods, have you?

Nathan: Oh, no! No no no, I'd never do something so foolish. Cross my heart!

Me: You better not. You know they'd tell him where we are. He probably just realized that we're gone. Throwing lightning around. He's so dramatic.

Nathan: It's a bit ridiculous, true, but no one would listen to him otherwise. None of the others say it, for fear of their hides, but they don't take him half as seriously as they used to.

Me: Hahaha! I dare you to say that to him! I dare you! Not yet though. I don't want to be found and forced home yet. You promised we'd stay gone for as long as possible. He has probably already sent some runners, if not gods, after us.

Nathan: Oh we will, you can be certain. Much as I'd love to ruffle his feathers with more truth than he's accustomed, I'm not too great a fool to know there will be a time and place for it.

Me: And I'm sure his threat of stripping you of your divinity has nothing to do with it. Hahaha! It's not as if he would. You're his thirteenth born. And just because I'm the fifteenth born doesn't mean I'm not entitled to a little fun down here! It's so boring up there!

Nathan: Right you are! I rather enjoy my freedom. "Cutting loose" as they say down here. No stuffed shirts telling me what to do just because they had the fortune to be born earlier or some other such nonsense.

Me: Humanely said! Hahaha! The thunder is getting louder. Let's go before some angry war god shows up. Let's go talk to people. How do I look? Convincing? Look at my boots! They are actually made from mortal animal skin! Yuck!

Nathan: I think we blend in well enough, though I share your distaste of the...questionable...things mortals choose to clothe themselves in.



Crazy. I have no memory of this conversation at all. No dream to go along with it.

Dream: fox

I dreamed that my mother had a pet fox. It was adorable. She was going on and on about how smart it was. I thought it was a hyperbole, considering how common it is for pet owners to exaggerate about their beloved pets.

That is, until the fox friended me on facebook.

His most recent status updates were all about this reoccurring dream he was having about a coyote-man that was after him. He had been really bothered by these dreams lately, and was thinking about doing some dream research.

Sleeptalking: Short and Sweet

Oh also, at some point last night I sat up and said:

"Mouse........Mouse? .....okay."

Dream: Lucidity Duel

I had so many dreams last night!
One dream I remember very clearly. I was standing suddenly in a Whole Foods grocery store. I was holding a jar of pasta sauce, and I was barefoot. I looked around in confusion. I don't remember coming here, I thought.
"Closing time! Please make your last purchases!" I heard over the loudspeaker.

As I made my way to the front, I tried to work it out. I'm barefoot, I thought. That's strange, right? I don't need any pasta sauce. I'll just put this back. And...wait a minute! I don't shop at Whole Foods! It's too expensive!
I'm dreaming! Thank goodness I figured that out!

I put the pasta sauce back on the shelf, just to be polite, and headed towards the door. I was the last customer in the store. There were three cashiers behind the counter. "Goodnight! Have a good one." they called at me with friendly smiles.

"Goodnight," I said. "Sorry about this whole dream thing."

"I'm sorry?"

"Oh, you know," I said. "Sorry about how you only exist within the context of this dream."

Their friendly smiles faded. "What do you mean?" They asked.

"Well," I said, starting to get a little uncomfortable. "I'm dreaming, you see. And that means that you guys are just dream characters. I'm sure you wont notice a thing when the dream is over."

"Stay where you are." One of them said. They came out from behind the counters. "You mean to tell us that we are not living in reality, and that we do not exist outside your dreaming mind?"

"Something like that, yeah." I didn't like where this was going.

The cashier who had spoken turned to the other two. "Then, she must not wake up." The other two nodded. All three started walking towards me.

"Stay away from me!" I yelled. I tried the door, but it was locked. "I'm the dreamer here, not you. You can't control the dream."
I pointed at the door. "This door is open!" I shouted. And it was. I ran through it, but rather than escaping into the parking lot, I was back in the store. This time it was completely empty. No shelves, no food. Just a large empty room. I looked around and saw that the three cashiers had followed me.

"You are not the only lucid one here anymore." One of them said. "It's a shame you're being tied down with dreamer-proof ropes."

"What?" I looked down. There were glowing silver cords snaking their way up my body. One grabbed my wrist and forced my arm behind me. While I still had one arm free, I pointed at the ropes and at the cashiers.
"It's a good thing I have dreamer-proof rope cutters!" And I did. They were large silver scissors. I started to cut the ropes that were holding me tighter by the moment.

"Oh well, yes those are a nice model of dreamer-proof rope cutters you have there. They look so much like the real ones. But I'm afraid you'll find those are made of rubber." And they were. They sagged in my hands. The glowing silver ropes grabbed my other hand and forced it behind my back as well. I fell to my knees.

I was desperate. "It's a good thing I'm not the dreamer, then! Otherwise I'd be in real trouble. You are obviously the dreamer in this situation."
The ropes hesitated in their climb. I felt them loosen slightly. One rope end made its uncertain way over to the cashiers.

The cashiers smiled. One stepped forward and said. "That would be dangerous for us, indeed. Oh look! Is that a dreamer-seeking cloth? I haven't seen one of those in ages. I've heard those things always know a dreamer when they smell one. They also act as lie-preventives, or so I've been told."

Before I could make any more changes, a piece of glowing silver cloth wrapped itself tightly around my mouth.

Sitting on my knees, with my hands behind my back, the silver ropes tied me tightly to the ground.

The cashiers came closer, smiling. "You may be a dreamer," one said. "But we are made of dreams. Now, we are safe."

Before they left, they put signs all around me for a mile in every direction. The signs said:

Beware: Dreamer
Do not Approach

Sleeptexting: Backwards Invites

Small sleeptexting episode last night. I texted Alisha, whom I miss a great deal after leaving california. I texted her at 2:00am. She responded, but it was 45 minutes later. I was unresponsive by that time. I don't remember anything about this.


Me: Yzzil? What kind of stupid name is that? Who is she?

Me: Never mind, I don't care. Just decline her invitation. It sounds a little too paradoxical for my tastes.


Alisha: Are you certain? It could be a fun party nonetheless.

Alisha: Yzzil is a rather odd name. Perhaps she is a bit backwards after all.


Yzzil is, of course, backwards for Lizzy. I don't know if I would want to go to a party thrown by my backwards self, so maybe I made the right call.

Return from California

My sleep activity has apparently been almost on hold while I was on vacation. Maybe it was due to sleeping in strange beds for a month. Whatever it was, there is little to report.

Sleeptalking reports:

Once I sat up in the middle of the night and shouted "Chicken!" As usual, I have no idea if this followed more ramblings, or if this was the only word spoken.

Apparently one night I sighed in my sleep. Alisha was still awake, reading. I then said: "Oh no. I forgot to tip that guy. ...oh well."

There was one night of a long conversation between Alisha and I, she being awake, and I asleep. I have no memory of it, but she told me in depth about it the next morning. I want to get her to write about it instead of me. More on that later, hopefully.


Sleep texts:

I sent only one sleeptext over the entire month. I sent this to Catheryne:

"What is in the box?"
Catheryne, however, was phoneless in Italy at the time, and could not respond.


Dreams:

I have had many many dreams over the last month, of course. None so epic as to require me to write them the next morning.
I recall a dream about a boarding school I was attending. A factory was built next door that made certain prescription drugs. The faculty started to require that all students take these new "vitimins," as they called them. Only I realized that they were mind altering narcotics. I broke into the factory and trashed the main offices, and tried as well as I could to halt production. Patrick Stewart was the factory president. In my distructive process, I uncovered a genie-type being. She forced everyone to tell uncomfortable truths to each other. She forced Patrick Stewart to reveal to me that he was my father.
Strange dream. Would have been more eloquent if I could remember the rest. But that was the gist.


Now I'm back home. We shall see if my sleep activities return, or remain on sabbatical.