sanity is relative

I was having trouble with a lot of crappy dreams in a row, and at one point I was in a building that had empty rooms and long hallways. The room I was standing in had a door near one corner (where I was standing), and another door on the exact opposite side of the room. The door I was beside led into a long hallway that might have had some doorways along it (I forget now), and half-way down had another hallway that branched off to the left. The walls were all a dingy white, possibly with some stains in places, and the floor and ceiling was white too. There was someone else with me, but I don't remember who.

I realized for just a moment that I was dreaming, and I thought, "I want Pyramid Head to be in this dream!"

Then I heard the loud, scary siren that heralds the arrival of Pyramid Head (from the Silent Hill games/movies/mythos), and it sounded twice. I looked down at the end of that long hall... and saw him standing there. Suddenly I completely forgot that I was dreaming, and also decided that Pyramid Head being there was a really, really bad thing.

So, I and my mystery-buddy ran across the room to the other door, which led outside. It was dark, and there was a large open grassy area bordered by a high chain-link fence with barbed wire curled across the top. We ran for the fence and apparently had superpowers, enough to jump the whole thing in one leap and keep going.

I looked back to see Pyramid Head tearing across the yard after me, and gaining in speed. He would reach my friend first, but surely that wouldn't stop him for long. For some reason, Pyramid Head was half his normal size and also missing his sword, but was just as terrifying. I kept running in mindless fear...

...and woke up.

(This is apparently what happens after I spend 3+ hours on Skype talking to someone I met via Cry's video game livestreams, before going to bed. That someone would be Hiro, who you will be seeing here shortly. O.o )


I was playing some kind of coop multiplayer Amnesia-like game with Hiro via both the game client and chatting with Skype, except that instead of normal Amnesia: The Dark Descent with its medieval castle interior, the concept was to run around a modern day mental hospital plagued with monsters (the zombie ones from the Amnesia game) and avoid being caught by them or the regular staff while looking for books. Hiro's character was an Asian boy in his early teens and I was a girl with long-ish blonde hair; I think I'd gone with Alice for my character's name.

The building's layout was bizarre for an actual hospital. Hallways were ridiculously skinny, had maze-like branches all over the place and interconnected rooms, and you couldn't do anything about the lights that were always on. Everything was painted white, so there was no real chance of hiding anywhere in the open. Not only would the monsters cause you to pass out if they caught you, but doctors and nurses also wandered the hall and any of them including the monsters catching you meant waking back up in your room. I can't remember if the rooms were locked by default, I just remember it being so much backtracking that you didn't want to get caught, plus there was a feeling of impending doom like something bad was going to happen if you couldn't escape the place in time.

The point of the books was that they somehow unlocked doors. The books were hardcover, red, and had gold filigree designs on the covers that were all the same. If I remember right, they all had a four digit number on the first page while the rest of the pages were blank, which had to do with how they opened the doors. Some books were fakes and only the right ones would actually open a door at all, and only the door they were meant to. The books could be found in closets or refrigerators that were otherwise empty of anything else, and if you had one that worked with you when you opened the right door, the door would just automatically unlock itself.

I remember being in a small room that had a fridge and two closets, and Hiro took a book out of the fridge while I grabbed one from a closet. At this point it was becoming real as opposed to a video game, although I still had some odd fuzzy concept of an inventory system so that I wasn't literally carrying the books around (I had several by now), they just vanished but I still "had them." I remember hearing a monster grumbling out in the hall right at that moment. The hall went around the room outside past two different doors on opposite ends. Hiro told me to go one way and he'd go the other and distract the monster.

I didn't like this idea but he was already out the one door so I ran through the other. I realized somehow that he'd been caught by the staff and I kept running, as for some reason they were assuming Hiro was the only patient not in his room. He'd bought me some time, but now I had to figure out how to put it to good use and if I stayed in the halls I still ran the risk of getting caught at random. I found a nurse's bathroom and hid under the sink. The idea was to burn some time so the staff would get complacent and maybe enough would go to sleep after-hours so I could finally escape.

Logic really started falling apart at this point (apparently if you stay in one place in a dream for too long, small constant changes start building up into ridiculousness). What started as a long counter with sinks in it and one big cupboard area underneath with several doors (my hiding spot was as far into the corner opposite the entry door by the far end of the sinks as possible), slowly turned into just a counter without the cupboard underneath, and then finally the counter had some kind of tablecloth which hid me better. I remember spending a lot of time trying to make sure I was as squeezed into the corner as it got, and that the white dress I was wearing was staying hidden with me instead of flared out partly so it was visible from beyond the counter.

This whole time I was dreading that someone would actually come into the bathroom, and yes, eventually a nurse and a nurse's assistant walked in, both women. For some reason, they had a bunch of dirty dishes on a two-tiered rolling metal cart. The assistant started shoving dishes under the counter and it was obvious she could see me, but I sat there and thought "You can't see me, you can't see me," over and over. At this point I vaguely understood that I was in a dream and that logic had broken enough she shouldn't have seen me right off the bat.

She didn't say anything to her superior who was blathering on about various gossip and directions for the next shift or something, and I realized it wasn't because I was desperately trying to insist in my head that she couldn't see me. The assistant wasn't evil, and knew this place was way more than just some honest asylum. She kept glancing at me but only crammed more dishes under the counter (I could hardly move for all the dishes). Suddenly the nurse in charge started saying really crazy things, like she was hallucinating and what she saw was no longer what anyone else in the room saw. The nurse stood still and started staring off at nothing as what she was saying rambled to a halt, and the assistant looked at me and mouthed the word, "Run."

I managed to extricate myself from the dishes without making any noise and ran out of the bathroom, not noticed at all by the crazy spaced-out nurse. I found a new hallway that led to a large closet, and inside the closet was a whole lot of hanging lab coats. I couldn't see the back of the closet, so I kept pushing through and the lab coats gave way to winter jackets and I found myself suddenly breaking out of a very thick display of such coats in a clothing store at a shopping mall.

There were tables just beyond, possibly for a cafe in this same store (logic, what is this concept? we don't do logic in dreams). There were randomly dream created family members there who recognized me and greeted me only like it was any old day, not like I'd been locked away in the funny farm. They didn't know, and I myself wasn't even sure how I'd gotten locked up there now. While they asked me mundane questions I said something to the effect of, "Listen, I've just escaped from a mental asylum up there on the hill," and pointed off in the general direction of where the hospital was (you couldn't see it from inside the mall).

They were all like, "Yeah right, very cute ha ha," and I said, "No, I'm serious, and I'm not even sure that I'm really out of there at all." I had a bad feeling that I was still somewhere in the asylum while hallucinating what I was seeing now, or somehow had my "spirit" split between the places and maybe I could actually tell these people something useful before waking back up in the asylum. I just hoped I was still hidden somewhere instead of stuck in my room again. I remember one dark-haired guy who was a random family friend looking off in the general direction of the hospital, he was starting to be convinced there was more to this.

Then I woke up.

I was Riddick in a prison on a world that seemed to be half futuristic technology and half medieval. The immediate prison area definitely looked ancient, floor and walls of old-style stone and some of the cells were open behind walls of black iron bars and some had wooden doors and proper stone walls. The lighting wasn't very good, and I had an almost modern-day Earth orange prisoner jump suit on. My cell had a wooden door, the cell to the right of me was larger and the more open-style. It also contained several prisoners, while I was alone.

I don't remember how I unlocked my door, but I do remember watching a guard who was taunting the prisoners in the next cell. The guard had punkish black leather clothes almost like he'd walked out of Mad Max. I had some kind of vaguely-sharp metal instrument and managed to get close enough to the guard before he noticed me, and slit his throat. Bad day to be a guard.

I looted his pockets first while the other prisoners made entirely too much noise congratulating me on my feat. I wanted to take the guard's clothes too but I was afraid there were more unfriendlies on the way, so I gathered up the miscellaneous stuff I'd found on him so far. But since no hacks showed up in the next few moments I pulled the guard's pants off as well while still holding the stuff (dream logic was failing very badly here, physics be damned). Somehow I also managed to get dressed at this point. Yeah. Oh, and I had this odd jacket thing on now, that was only like leather straps on the front in an X and on the back was the British flag embossed in color on leather. There was the thought that I'd already had that in my possession, though.

Now I needed to hide for a minute and found what seemed to be some kind of janitor's closet nearby, though it had a small window in it. I shut the door and dumped the stuff I'd acquired on a wooden counter. There were a couple more-useful knives, some odd almost surgical-looking knife things that had short round-ended blades with serrations along the ends as well, and other stuff that skipped my attention for the moment. There was a light in the room, a glass lantern with a bright candle-like flame in it, and I didn't want the light attracting attention so I opened the lantern and tried to blow out the flame. For some reason there remained a very slight, tiny blue luminescence where the flame had been, just floating there.

In the stuff the guard had, there was a small clear box about 2 inches wide by 2 inches tall by 1 inch deep. I was able to trap the light in the box, and then stepped out of the closet long enough to chuck the thing in the general direction of the other prisoners and said something to the effect of "Enjoy." I figured I was better off with the distracting light over by them, should other guards show up.

Back in the closet-room I was about to look through the stolen stuff better when I noticed the stupid light was back on again and just as bright as it had originally started.

Then I woke up.

It started with thinking I'd woken up from the previous dream. I was in my bed in my place except it in no way resembled my real bed/place (yet my brain was convinced it was all normal). My kid sister showed up and wanted to play a complicated card game with me which at first I said I didn't know the rules to, so she said she'd teach me or show me, and then later seemed more like some sort of "magic trick." So she was dealing the cards and making piles out of them and asking me to pick a card and kept doing whatever it was she was doing. I was so out of it, I felt like I was really doped up on medication or perhaps I was still trying to hold on to the feeling of sleep.

My sister suddenly admitted as she combined most of the cards together again that it had been quite a while since she'd actually made sure all the cards were there. She dropped a card and said something like, "Oh mannnn" as it slid between the bed and the wall. I said I'd get it, and I think she said not to worry about it right away but I was determined to do it. I followed where the card had gone with my hand, then the bed was further away from the wall for some reason and I could keep following the route down to the floor which I did with my entire body. (Now that I think about it, the bed was sort of hospital-institutional with nicer bedding.) On the white-tile floor now, under the bed looking for the card (which was nowhere to be seen) and then I saw a length of thin chain (larger than necklace chain but smaller than the sort of chain you'd chain a gate closed with... the individual, round links might have been about 1/4 inch in diameter or maybe a touch bigger).

I wanted the chain, and I remember my sister saying something that I should leave it alone or get back to what she was showing me but I didn't care. There were other bits of chain too, two of them but in the end I stuck with the original one. It was at least two feet long and one end had a clasp, like a basic round jewelry clasp except larger, the same size as the links. I was out from under the bed by now and made the chain go around my right ankle, securing it there with the clasp and letting the other end trail. For the moment I let it drag on the floor and left the room, going out into the hallway. I don't really remember the hallway very well except that it was long and there were other doors leading into it, like a dorm floor or perhaps a hospital. There was a lot of white. I think one reason I'm having trouble remembering is because at this point I realized I was dreaming and I wanted to make the dream interesting.

I had been looking left down the hall but now I went right, starting to run a bit, holding on to the end of the chain so it wouldn't trip me. I wanted to get away, I wanted to escape, I didn't want to be here anymore, and I was thinking it's because I'm crazy and I'm in an asylum but I know this place is actually evil and I have to get out! Have to run, have to try. As I was thinking this stuff trying to convince the dream to take that plot concept, I could see the hallway ahead of me literally merged into a different-color hallway, sort of dingier with some sepia-tone to it and it seems like some puke-green color. There were wheelchairs and I knew that I could run into it and the dream would change properly.

So I did, still with the chain around my ankle (which as the plot went now was something I'd been secured to my bed with and had broken). As soon as I was in the dingier hallway I was completely in the mental hospital, and it wasn't really very easy to run or think because of the medication I was on... that had failed to keep me properly in bed. Up ahead the hallway got wider before going back to normal size, and in the middle of the wide part was a room that I couldn't see any details about except that its walls were made of the same painted-over cinder blocks as the hallway walls. There was a man sitting against the hall wall on the left on almost the far side of the room-thing. I knew he was a patient too, but I remember thinking I shouldn't trust anyone in my little escape attempt and then it seems like I remember another patient who was a friend (or at least someone I kinda trusted) saying this guy was bad news... that he sided with the staff.

Then a nurse came out of where there was apparently a door on the left side of the room-thing and I panicked because I didn't want her to see me. She was going to talk to the man or something, and although I thought for sure she'd see me I managed to go to the right without her noticing. Although the hallway continued I knew I couldn't go that way at least right now, but there was a smaller hall where I had headed to the right, and there were a couple of little staff-related rooms there, one to the left and one to the right.

I was totally lost because I'd never seen these rooms before (I'm not sure I'd seen much of the hospital before). It seems like I realized there was someone on the left side, meanwhile the lady back out in the hall was heading my direction so I went into the room on the right and at this point was only really looking for somewhere to hide. It looked like a storage and equipment room, things laid out on shelves, some of which had no backs and were spaced out in the middle of the room. I kept along the right-side wall seeing that it had a nook in it in the corner (that went right again just a little) where maybe I could hide.

Diagram time! Mostly because if anybody can see what the heck I'm talking about by now, you're doing good.

,--,______,   ,
|                 |
|                 |
|                 |
---------------
The open space on the upper right is the door I came in from, and the nook is in the upper left.

When I got there I noticed that there appeared to be a door on the right side of this nook (when standing in front of it with the main room's left wall to one's left as oriented in the diagram above). It looked like a very ordinary door, a bit worn and uninteresting and painted white like the rest of the walls in the room. It wasn't locked as I opened it, but right behind was a very obviously not normal door. It was a light brown color and had no door handle. I was scared now that the nurse was going to show up any second, and I had no idea if there was some sort of special trick involved in opening the second door. I tried just pushing on it, and it actually just pushed inwards. It was almost like it was a very light piece of wood that I then had to hold onto so it didn't fall because it wasn't attached to anything. Maybe it was broken... because it had sure seemed like the first major sign of "things aren't right here in supposedly-honest asylum land."

So anyways, beyond that things were a whole lot less finished-looking, either like creepy Silent Hill mode in one of those games, or a very unfinished basement. I could hardly see, it was so dark, but I was still thinking the goddamn nurse is going to find me if I don't do something fast. For some reason I couldn't do anything about the first door I'd opened, and dream logic was failing with the second door barrier thing as it was turning into a much smaller piece of plywood. How was this supposed to help block off the doorway? Then there was a second piece, and I remember trying to prop them up one against the other in an inverted V shape and hoping that would suffice.

For some reason it did, and the doorway was completely blocked again (which makes no sense considering the two pieces of wood came up to about my waist), as if I'd just shut the first stupid door in the first place. Either way, the dream was happy to be convinced I'd succeeded at least in that step, so whatever. It was even darker now with the door properly closed, but after a moment's confused thoughts (yay meds and fear) I realized that this was a place people went and it should have lights. There was a light-switch box to the left of the door and I turned it on. I saw that the little passage I was in went to stairs downwards shortly, wooden steps that still had that very-unfinished and old look to them.

I think I then realized that having the lights on was a bad idea, as staff would guess if they showed up that someone was there that shouldn't be. So I turned them off again and moved towards the stairs. I could now see a little better as further down the steps was a large open area that was again very much like an unfinished basement. Uneven dirt floor, concrete brick walls, very high indications of perhaps windows because of little bits of light, daylight! But I knew that I wasn't that close to freedom yet. Closer, but going to those light sources wouldn't do me any good, they just helped me to see right now.

At the bottom of the stairs, to the left was some more shelving and stuff and it didn't seem like a useful way to go. The basement opened up even further to the right, so I went that way. As I was working my way along very uneven ground that looked more like I was entering the very beginnings of a subway construction sight or something, I heard people shouting behind me. They knew I was there, and also that I was quite possibly on the correct route to get out of there. I was trying to move faster, the chain still there, but as I dared glance back (even with my brain screaming don't waste the time looking back) I saw there was already a nurse about thirty feet behind me.

I kept running (or trying, I was having issues running as I seemed really tired and the air really thick) and glanced back again after another moment and I saw that the nurse was wearing red (maybe it was a different nurse, or the dream decided to change her on the fly). It was more like a fancy red dress. I had only glanced at it though, back to running, and suddenly I had a memory of someone saying the lady with the red dress was the worst possible nurse you could encounter, that if she was on your tail you had no hope. It had the feel of a hospital myth, like some people didn't believe she even existed... and yet it appeared she was now chasing me. Well, whatever, I wasn't going to give up. Another glance, oddly enough, showed the nurse's skirt was red and maybe her collar, while the rest of her outfit had turned back a more normal white.

I managed to get myself corralled into a corner finally, choosing the wrong direction to run once I got closer to the far side of the huge bizarre area. I was so close, the other way had gone to a door but meanwhile I had one very big nurse ready to sedate me. She already had the syringe in her hand and even though I begged her not to hurt me she was very determinedly going to inject me. There were a couple other nurses in her wake as well. She moved to strike and suddenly I asked her, "Are you crazy too?" and she said, "Yes." The look on her face as she said it was a brainwashed/insane but determined combination. I thought I felt pain in my neck, but then she was still holding the syringe and I was still feeling the same, not getting sleepier.

The other nurses were now standing around, and it seemed like they had sort of decided they weren't sure they wanted to be doing what they were doing anymore. They were talking about the head doctor though, and how it was pretty much impossible to cross him. I don't remember if I encouraged the thought of breaking loose, but they decided to give it a shot, and now there were other patients who had apparently followed us down here. Someone opened the door I hadn't gotten to and we all filed outside, straight out into bright, warm sunshine. We found ourselves in a little walled-off sunken area with metal steps and a catwalk leading out of it, so we followed that.

We knew we were now free, and following this path would take us to further freedom. I stopped part-way across the catwalk though. I said something like, "What about the other patients in the hospital? They don't deserve to live like that. We should try to get them out." Some people didn't want to risk their freedom by going back in there. I thought we had a chance, if we worked together, whoever wanted to go, and I did say that I understood if people didn't want to risk it, but that whoever wanted to go back in should give it a shot. Also, the dream suddenly decided that maybe some of us had Heroes-like powers. There was one teenager who looked like he could have been in My Chemical Romance the way his hair, makeup, and clothes were, and he said he had some sort of ability (I don't remember what it was). He wasn't very confident in it, sort of like a minor thing he could do as opposed to something truly impressive, but he was volunteering to go on the rescue mission if I wanted him and I definitely did. One of the nurses agreed to help, and a handful of others were thinking about it.

Then I woke up.

(This entire dream was animated as if it were Japanese anime... and happened around 6am on January 6th, 2007. Warning: the following text contains graphic violence.)

It was a futuristic world, and through the bustle of it all poured a soft, female voice, bringing words of peace, obedience, control. Martain had more important things on his mind, he was a freedom fighter and knew that under the surface of this glossy world, corruption and evil dominated. He was going to break into the main base of the War Force and do as much damage as he could, unlock their secrets for the world to see.

He went in disguise, right up to the main gates, attempting to join one of the public relations tours about to begin. But the guards threw him out, thinking him a cloaked homeless beggar, nothing more than street trash. At least they hadn't realized who he truly was; he probably only had one more shot at this, they'd get suspicious next time. The rest of Martain's allies were dead or missing, and the authorities were looking for him. He had to make this one count.

When he returned to the outer perimeter this time, his hair was long, golden, and wavy. His body-tight suit showed off his trim figure, with a hot little miniskirt hiding what he wasn't willing to give up. Pert breasts that didn't exist were accentuated by the round green cups built into the suit, and the whole outfit of pastel green and white seemed to gleam like the rest of him. But he looked female now, and it was time to act female. Martain no longer existed, only this new self had a chance to succeed at the self-imposed mission. And her name was Faliah.

Faliah virtually sparkled as she walked up to the gate. The guards immediately invited her on the next tour, which was starting momentarily. They looked sorry they had to remain at their post as she disappeared with some other upper class citizens into the complex.

The first part of the tour was a command room where two senior officers greeted the group. Both men were extremely taken with Faliah but one outranked the other, and the lesser-ranked man was obviously jealous as his superior chatted with the charming young lady. The chatting quickly became overt flirting and the higher-ranking officer said to Faliah, "I'm not actually looking for a woman right now, but I can assure you I have two right hands." (LOL... yeeeah... I think this was supposed to mean that he didn't have "two left feet.")

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the base, a very big ugly part-human mostly-alien guy lost his temper with some officials and went berserk. His large bulbous body, built-in weapons, and freaky biotechnology-covered spiderish legs wreaked havoc, and he stormed into the hallways killing everyone in sight. One of the hallways he found himself in also happened to contain the tour Faliah was part of. The group fled, diving through a security door just as it closed, the monster behind them firing wildly. Nobody noticed that Faliah, the last one through the door, was actually hit in the leg by one of the bullets but it glanced off without even a scratch.

Enraged, the bad guy threw all the firepower he could muster at the door, rockets and bullets eating into the heavy steel and sending chunks of metal flying. The door wouldn't hold much longer... then it opened and Faliah stepped through. Before her ugly assailant knew what was going on, all the shrapnel and bullets lying around came flying at him. He was stunned, dying, but Faliah took no chances and approached the monster, prying open his armored helmet to expose his oddly-shaped brain mass. She pulled it out and ripped it in half, flinging the pieces away.

* * *
It was bright, sunny, cheery, the upper class of the city dining comfortably in the wide open space of an exclusive open-air restaurant. The high commander beemed with pride as he toasted the young couple on the landing below him, officially announcing his son's engagement to one of the fleet's fastest rising and most highly decorated officers. The son was none other than the officer Faliah had flirted with on that fateful tour so long ago, and of course she was the one to be marrying him. Naturally, unknown to anyone, Faliah had no intention of marrying the man who was now a captain, because Faliah was really Martain, and his plans to subvert the entire organization were coming to fruition nicely.

Then I woke up.

I was with a little girl, and it seemed like she was a very close friend even though she was so young. She might have been about seven or eight years old. I was my normal age (27). I'm not sure where we came from or what we'd been doing, but somewhere in the dream I posted just before this I had gotten scissors from my Mom, and I was playing with them. I remember they were little sewing kit type scissors, two metal pieces of the right shape connected by a single tiny screw, which was rather loose. I wanted to fix them so they cut better, and managed to take the screw off. I put the pieces back together wrong, and put the screw back on. After fiddling with it some more I finally fixed the darn thing and got the screw snuggly in place. I'm not really sure where I was while I was doing all this.

The part I do remember very well was arriving back at the little girl's room in her parents' house, as if I'd been there before and was staying there for a while. I think there were a lot of people staying in the house, sort of a family reunion or something (but in reality nobody I know in real life was there, but in the dream it made sense). Anyways, the little girl's room was laid out like the following diagram:

             ----------------
             |              |
window -->                  |
             ___________    |
             |       |  |     
             |  bed  |  |       <-- door
             |_______|__|___|

(Note that the head of the bed was actually where most people would put the foot of the bed; in this room it was near the door instead of the far wall. I drew the pillow in there to help illustrate. The bed had a wooden headboard as well, and I think there was a footboard on the window side of the room.)

It was bed time, in fact I think it was way beyond bedtime, and we'd been in bed talking for a while. Apparently I was sleeping in the same bed as the little girl, which didn't seem weird in the dream. I still had the scissors I'd gotten from Mom. Either I or the girl found a loose strand of hair and I cut it. Then I found a very long strand of golden hair, it was really pretty yet really odd. It was thicker than normal hair, almost like thread. And it honestly looked like gold. I was thinking it must be from something or someone special (I was thinking of an elf, like Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings), and both of us were a little afraid that we had something like this in our posession. I was thinking about cutting it but something felt wrong with that idea, like it would bring some sort of danger upon us.

Then the hair was tied together at the ends, I don't remember doing that. Did it do it on its own? Now that it was a loop, I looped it back on itself until it was three or four loops, and the whole thing was much smaller now that it was looped more. I then held all the loops together by pulling it tight between my fingers and twisting it so that it made a thick cord. I told the little girl to cut it while I held it so that it didn't fall apart. She didn't seem sure about this, I think we'd discussed that it seemed a bad idea to cut it. But I think we knew we'd set something in motion and we were gonna have to go through with it. I also remember thinking I should be the one cutting it, but I let her do it. It didn't cut completely through in one snip, it sort of frayed weirdly. But after a couple more snips it cut through.

I said something like, "Alright, we've completed your spell, do what you will," to the air in general, thinking that whatever wanted us to do this thing would hear me. Nothing happened at all for a few moments. Then we heard very slow, soft thuds coming from the hallway behind the closed bedroom door. The little girl got very scared and I held her tight and watched the door from behind the headboard. I stared at the doorknob, which was a normal gold-colored doorknob, waiting for it to start turning. Even though it was shiny I was confident that I could see it turn, plus I thought it might shake very slightly when touched (I knew it was slightly loose).

I noticed at this point that the pattern on the door was a sort of latticework of wood that'd been made into a diagonal crossing pattern inside squares, a vaguely oriental look (this pattern came from the Splinter Cell Chinese Embassy levels). Then suddenly the doorknob had a very similar pattern on it, but just one square with the diagonals crossing inside it. Plus it had changed to a sort of cream color, like it was made of ivory or enamel. At least now I would know for sure when somebody turned it. And it was at this moment that I realized I was dreaming. But in my lucid moment I decided to wait and see what happened, as the dream plot seemed interesting enough without messing with it just yet. So I sat there holding the girl and staring at the doorknob.

The doorknob started to turn. Then the door whooshed open fast and I and the little girl screamed really loud (and I promptly forgot I was dreaming). But it turned out to be a guy who was staying at the house, and the girl's mother. The guy was a cop of some sort. He said something like, "What's wrong?" We apologized fast saying that we were scared it was someone or something else at the door. He accepted that and said he was there to take the little girl with him on some sort of bust because the police department did that sometimes as some sort of... educational thing? I have no clue now, but in the dream it made sense, in that I knew it was a normal thing, although I didn't feel it was very safe, even if they said it was.

The girl's mother seemed to be very pleased that her daughter had been chosen to go this time. But the girl didn't really seem to want to go, I think she wanted to be with me. There was still the thought of the golden hair and whatever cutting it might have done. And it was like the adults expected her to accept the invitation to go on the police thing, as if not wanting to go would be a horrifically outlandish thought. I'm not sure if she said she would go or not.

I don't remember any more.

( dream symbol analysis and thoughts )