sanity is relative

(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 an Asian woman (possibly in Korea?) somewhere before the Industrial Revolution, in the town square of the small village where I lived. I was holding a young boy who couldn't have been more than two years old, who I think was a friend's child I was watching for the day while they were away. A European-style carriage came into town and stopped in the square, and everyone getting out of it seemed very nervous. Also, people around the village were now also acting scared, but I didn't understand why. It was like they all "got it," and I didn't. And yet, they weren't doing anything but standing around worriedly.

I asked the people near me what was going on, and they gave me wary looks for even asking. One lady came closer and whispered very quietly in my ear, "Shao Li." I knew then that this was a fearsome warlord who was known to leave no survivors. I think everyone around me didn't expect to get away, and were thus waiting to hope for mercy or a quick death. Uhh, whatever! I turned around and booked it for the far edge of town, keeping a tight hold on the little boy.

There were some trees beyond that and then a deep valley with hills afterwards, and as I started crossing the valley I heard gunshots ring out from the village. So much for mercy. I was worried that maybe the warlord used dogs to find any stragglers, but would they pick up my trail or just be confused by all the scents in town? If I could remain unseen, nobody would know I was out here. I followed just to the left of a creek cutting its way up the far side of the valley, and could see some encroaching shrubbery that made a nice tunnel along that waterway with room to walk on the side I was on. This also led into deeper forest.

Logic was breaking down by now. I remember looking back and seeing a modern-day freeway with a few cars going by, on the back-left side of the valley behind me. I reached the sheltering overhang and kept running along the waterway, and eventually out into some more grass broken up by rocky outcroppings and more bits of forest. Things started to fall apart worse when I tried to feed the little boy something, and I know in the meantime it did seem like there were enemy scouts out looking for us, or guessing there was someone who had escaped.

Although I woke up before any sort of resolution, we at least stayed free for the duration of the nonsense.

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.

I'm already forgetting a lot of this, but it started somewhere in trying to find a movie theater I was supposed to be going to with my randomly dream created friends. I'd gotten separated from them and was trying to find them again in an area like an outdoor shopping mall. It was starting to get dark as I neared the movie theater itself, and then something huge and flaming crashed down from out of the sky. Logic didn''t handle this very well, I'm not exactly sure where the thing landed but I do know it killed a lot of people in the shopping area. Also it seemed this death-from-space was a preliminary attack for aliens invading, but the dream plot didn't really do anything with that detail and I never saw the aliens (as if they stayed in orbit waiting).

I survived, and saw that the people who were left seemed to be turning into zombies. Some of them actually looked like zombies while others were normal looking people acting all "Braaaains"-ish without actually going far enough into cheesy horror tropes to say that. They also didn't talk, whereas the few non-zombie survivors were pretty much screaming their heads off (and making nice targets for getting eaten with all that noise).

Some of the dream seemed to happen out of order, and I also woke up in the middle of it and went back to sleep, straight into the same dream though it seemed to have backed up some. I am fairly sure that before I woke up the first time, I and a couple of guys who were possible military types managed to secure an old mansion and created a home base in the basement. There was a radio broadcast that helped me find them, one that was dangerous to produce but they did it every day just in case there were more survivors. It would also seem that the meteorite and zombie infection thing was more widespread than just our area.

There was also a kid who was maybe fifteenish at the most who had holed up in his family's van down by the beach, and had no idea anyone had survived that was not a zombie. I had his point of view for a little bit. There was a character who was basically Hurley from ABC's Lost who drove around looking for survivors during the daytime, and missed the kid because he hid thinking everyone was dangerous.

Meanwhile, one of the military-esque guys and I were going to go do the daily radio broadcast and I think that was the point where I woke up. Back to sleep again, and the plot had returned to previous to actually gaining the house stronghold (which sucked, that was a nice place and had taken some work). So we had to do that again, and it was noticeable now that there was nobody around on the surface during the day. Apparently the zombies didn't like sun (heh my subconscious was ripping off I Am Legend and this logic-broken version is still better than that POS Will Smith movie xP ).

We were trying to actually locate the mansion, a lot of the city and surrounding town was wrecked and a mess and we were still careful of zombies whether there were any showing or not. We ended up underground for some reason, I think raiding a weapons stash the guy with me knew was there, and we found a zombie lady who didn't actually try and kill us. She could talk, and I think we might have asked her if there was any way she could help us, if she wanted to, maybe like by spying on the zombies or something. She wasn't really sure what she could do but she wandered off to try.

My point of view switched to Hurley who was back out at the beach a second time, and he saw the kid who tried to run away. But Hurley convinced him via the usual overly-honest humor that he wasn't a zombie and told him about the rest of us and the hideout we were going to make, and that it was going to be much safer there. So the kid hopped in whatever vehicle it was Hurley had and they drove off.

Then I woke up.

I don't remember how I got there, but apparently my subconscious thinks Hell is a series of dark tunnels randomly patrolled by trolls and ogres. I was trying not to get discovered, and I noticed that the guards had these long yellow sticks or rods with little floating stars on the end (5-pointed yellow star shapes a little bigger than a silver dollar, one per improvised torch-thingy). The stars were bright enough to give decent lighting, but they were attached to the ends of the rods with tiny chains about 6 inches long. I realized they were sentient, and were being forced to light the way for the patrols.

At some point I found a star that had managed to get free of its rod (where the heck the ogre went is beyond me). The rod glowed slightly while the star was a lot brighter. I think I told it to try and get to the surface while I continued investigating. Maybe I was going to try and save more of the stars... (maybe I had no idea how to get outa there). Right after the star left (it sorta... floated?) another patrol showed up and I tried to hide the slightly-glowing rod behind my leg while attempting to stay in deep enough shadow.

I'm going to guess they saw me, because the next thing I remember is running, but now it seemed like I was outside in a spread-out town with a lot of grass, but I still remember the area feeling like it was underground. I don't remember looking up, so who knows what was up there... maybe lighting that'd make it look like real-enough daylight where I was running. I was trying to find a building to hide in, and saw ahead of me a church. I was thinking, a church in Hell? WTF... but I ran inside anyways; the bad guys didn't see me go in there.

I was lurking around in the church, which sort of made sense layout-wise for a large Catholic-style church, though the lighting wasn't great. There were two men somewhere in the building and I was trying to stay out of sight since I thought they'd be enemies just as much as the guards were. I overheard them talking, however, and it seemed to be an actually "good" church for some reason, that it was tolerated and maybe even necessary to properly balance out Hell. I remember being worried that the ogres might come search the church but it sounds like they weren't allowed inside.

So I finally decided to talk to these guys, and they said I was welcome to stick around. We started playing Nintendo Wii of all things, all three of us, I don't remember what we played... though I do remember messing around with creating Miis. Then I think they got tired and passed out on the couch there by the TV and I decided it was a good time to try and see if I could get out of Hell. Outside the building I realized I still had my Wiimote but I was running by then and figured it was too late to take it back.

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.

I started as myself. I think my kid brother and some random child were playing with toys that were a mix of Union-side civil war soldiers and feudal Japanese samurai, ninjas, that sort of thing. The Union soldiers were the good guys and the Japanese were the evil side. I commented on the strangeness of the battle mix, finding it nonsensicle but amusing.

Then the battle was real and I was in the thick of it. I think I was some sort of female, high-ranking officer (or at times, a generic soldier) on the Union side, and we were trying to hold a much-blasted fort on a beach. The sky was overcast but for the moment it was daytime. We were doing pretty badly, and it seemed like reinforcements were coming on the bad guy side. Not only that, but the Japanese were allied with Nazis... the Japanese were just the first wave. There was a general feeling in the air that we were so very screwed, especially if we couldn't last through this first wave.

By nightfall things had gotten so bad we were literally split up into single-combat against the invading force who were very much inside the fort walls now. I defeated my opponent but didn't kill him, and apparently he was someone important because all the other bad guys stopped fighting and watched. I told them all to leave, and they did, and then more samurai showed up. A bunch of the other guys on my side were freaking out, thinking this was yet more battle and we were so trashed the odds were very good this was it for us.

I was watching carefully and I realized as these guys marched right into our fort that they were a gift from the guy I'd defeated. How nice! They were here to fight for us, and it seemed like the other people we'd been fighting had withdrawn completely. The new samurai would answer to me, apparently, but just then we saw in the distance, far up the beach, what was surely a Nazi landing party. A lot of lights... gods, they had brought vehicles of some type. Samurai presents or not, we were so far outdated and outclassed, this wasn't going to work. (This sounds like an episode of the Twilight Zone or Outer Limits or something lol.)

The initial front of Nazi troops looked like it was going to be scouts on motorcycles. Since they were still far off, we decided... to hide? Dream logic decided there was no more fort, troops besides me, and the samurai squad became a bunch of non-armored asian people, like a small family. At least I was still a soldier but, seriously, what the hell? Alright, so yes, we're definitely opting for "hide" at this point. Except we're in the middle of a very large beach... yay, lots of damp, grey sand. At least there is apparently a large amount of fabric (randomly) and so we hide under it and try not to move.

I'm thinking the pattern on the fabric (a lot of white and colors) is going to still be waaay too obvious... plus, one of the people under this thing is a little girl who's scared and making too much noise. I start singing very softly, someting totally random and wordless. This works, so now it's just me singing softly and for now, the Nazis on the loud motorcycles won't hear it.

Dream logic may have had some go by us, and then... reversed things... so the bad guys were again far away. Meanwhile the other adults under the fabric moved around a lot for some reason. After they stilled again, I remember looking up from under the fabric, thinking this is such a very bad idea and noticing that the motorcycle headlights were still really far away, and not coming nearly as fast as I'd thought. And then I realized the only people left under the thing were myself and the little girl. The nerve of those others, leaving us behind like that! Especially the kid. That's so low I can't even...

Anyways, at this point I figure it's time to bail. I pick the girl up and carry her piggy-back style as fast as I can towards the non-sand which seems still too far away but we make it. This area has a lot of grass, some random thin, branchy logs, and very little brush that would be so very nice for cover at this point. So I'm obviously still not happy with the situation, and I'm trying to keep down enough that I'm almost crawling sometimes, using my hands to speed my progress along as I run as fast as I can considering the conditions.

There are random single-motorcycle patrols here. I avoid them for a few minutes but one finally finds me. I... think the guy asks me something? I'm not even sure we speak the same language. (Memory of this encounter is fuzzy.) I think he told me to stay put, that he was going to go get some sort of commanding officer. Oh. Right. Sure, I'll sit here really nice. Yeah, this girl here, and me, we're just scared (and stupid) and sure mister! As soon as he's far enough away I'm running with the kid on my back again.

Then I woke up.

This started out feeling yaoi-ish. I was a young boy hiding in the top of a belltower in an ancient gothic church; there was just one huge bell in the top of this tower. Below I heard the evil master (of me?) and as he climbed the tower steps I hid in fear. Hiding worked, he didn't find me...

The next thing I remember is Spider Man and someone who looked a lot like the Green Goblin fighting on top of a very tall skyscraper. The villain was threatening to blow up all of New York with a nuclear bomb (and ironically I think that's where they were fighting... you'd think he wouldn't stick around for the explosion). Spidey is getting his tush kicked and escapes, and now I'm the villain and I dive off side of the building, hurtling towards the street far below. (The logical side of my brain is hoping I can fly at this point, but as I get closer to the street, I seem only adept at falling.) I manage to catch edges of decoration on the building, grabbing them just long enough to slow my descent. I arrive at street level slowly enough to not die...

...and then I become Vicky Vale (from the first Batman movie). I'm here to see a couple specific things in the city and I think take some pictures. (The logical side of me knew that this Vicky is from the past and not supposed to be in the timeline at this point; something odd must have happened in the space-time continuum. Also, Vicky and Spidey are supposed to become an item, but with time messed up, it's unclear what will happen now.) Anyways, Vicky-me stops a guy in the street to ask for directions (he looks like the reporter dude from the same Batman movie, the guy she sort-of works with).

I ask the guy where my hotel is; all I remember now of the hotel name was that it included numbers. He says it's quite a ways away, and I say, "Oh darn" and ask if he knows where some church is... I think it was called Saint Sepulchres. He's not quite sure what I'm talking about, but I see a huge, old gothic church not far past him and figure that's it (it's the same church I started the dream in). I point to it and say, "Ah, that's probably it, thanks anyways." He says goodbye but seems disappointed that I didn't stick around to talk more. It was getting quite late at this point, as the whole story began after nightfall.

I walk into the huge front doors of the church and find another copy of myself. And there's not just one... there's a bunch. They explain to me that they're all from different parts of the timeline, trying to fight the Joker who is here in the building. Some of the other-me's kick serious ass, and some are more ordinary girls like me. They're planning on trying another assault right now, as so far they've failed and it's like they're trying over and over on the same point in the timeline, but with more copies of "me" every new attempt.

I'm not really sure what the heck is going on, I just decide to go up the stairs towards the belltower (the area below the belltower gap is a large cylinder with one staircase winding up to the top). Suddenly, white sharp things made of porcelain formed into strange shapes come flying at me and I get lethally stabbed by one. Apparently this was part of the copies' plans, I was little more than cannon fodder. A few others are also slated to die while the rest try and kill the Joker. Yay, wonderful, I'm gonna die for this craziness?

Then my alarm clock woke me up.

I dreamed I was part of the main group of crash survivors in the television show Lost. I've since forgotten the first half of the dream but I think it may have included the initial plane crash or at least the following chaos. I was some sort of adult female character (not myself), perhaps with military background because I knew how to survive in the wild and was more confident in that environment than most of the others. I was also very physically fit. (Yeah, definitely not my real self lol.)

I remember at some point the Others arrived and started capturing and/or killing everyone. It had something to do with an outbreak of the disease that is rumored on the show but yet to affect anyone in the main cast (that I remember). This was on the beach. Those who were close enough to the trees ran into the jungle, and it was everyone-for-themselves. I was the furthest ahead and before long the only one they hadn't caught. I reached the edge of a swamp that I knew probably had gators in it but I hoped I'd get lucky and waded right in as fast as I could. There was dry land on the other side.

Half way across the swamp water there were several gators very close to me but I sort of ignored them hoping they'd feel I wasn't afraid of them and they'd ignore me. One of them rushed me but lost interest before it reached me; they all went back to their lazy gatory business. Not only was I thrilled to live all the way to dry land but I'd done something the Others hadn't expected. I had a little time, they wouldn't think I'd be crazy enough to cross the swamp until they couldn't find me anywhere else.

I found some sort of outpost manned by one of the Others, but this person didn't know that there was a supposed outbreak of the disease. It's like she had been at her station for so long without contact that she had no clue what was going on, maybe even how weird the rest of the Others were getting. The place she was hidden in was a small white cement-brick building with a bunch of plants around it, down in a hollow area below the surrounding jungle floor. I found it only because there was a microphone or similar device hooked up to a plant in the jungle and I followed the wire to the building.

The woman came out of the building just as I reached it. She was wearing a white lab coat and looked kinda surprised to see me but not concerned. She said she was just going to make her report to her higher-ups. I tried to tell her that crazy things were going on and we needed to run away or hide. I figured the rest of the Others would probably kill this lady as well as me... she seemed to be clueless to their plans, and not evil like them.

Then I woke up.

(Possibly inspired by reading The Art Of The Matrix and a short conversation with my kid sister about stealing cars.)

I don't remember if I saw the actual invasion or if I just heard/knew about it happening. An alien race of high technology was taking over our planet. They were enslaving millions, killing those who would not surrender (and killing lots anyways). A few of us managed to hide, but we knew they were coming. There were two groups, I (as myself) was in the first group with my real-life mother and sister, and the group seemed to consist mostly of women and children. The second group was all men. We did not know at this point if the second group had survived. I figured if we waited around we'd get killed.

So I spoke to the people gathered around that we had to go to the source if we were going to have a remote chance in hell to fight the aliens. It was blatantly obvious that aliens existed, so that meant that our government really did have a crashed alien ship in their possession (viva la conspiracy theories!) and they were probably researching and even using the technology from it already. I told the people around me we were going to Area 51. (For some reason I thought it was in Arizona throughout the dream, though that doesn't make sense upon waking... but I guess the dream logic figured that was close enough. Plus, my group was located somewhere near Washington D.C. so Arizona was just as far away as New Mexico considering at the moment all we had was our feet to travel with.)

I looked out of the warehouse we were hiding in, and there was a car in the dusty parking lot, baking under the hot sun. I ran to it and found the keys in the ignition. It started and someone said it was wrong to steal and I said it was our only chance. The owner might be dead anyways. So everyone else piled in (there might have been two cars, I forget) and we drove off. It seems like we had to switch vehicles at some point when we ran out of gas, and it took us longer to find cars with keys. I remember thinking that if the human resistance lasted long enough, someone should set up usable car hubs for people fleeing but especially for resistance group members to move around the country. Take a car, drive it to the next hub, get a new one.

The next thing I knew I was suddenly a member of the second group, a random white male character. This was the all-guy group, and we were on foot. We knew the aliens were not far behind and tracking us somehow. It was somewhat snowy and we put logs and big sticks across our path at random points. It seems like we knew the aliens had trouble getting past these (or some metal-like alien-made machine did) so at first it was worth it. We heard the aliens making annoyed sounds at our previous roadblock (we were on a path though, not a road). This caused some satisfaction in our group but I figured they were too close for comfort now and we had better just run.

I told the guys to be careful so they didn't fall, to run steady and not too fast. I was in the lead and made my way over some wet, potentially slippery rocks, and beyond. I remember thinking we were trying to catch up to the first group, and I remember something about the first group trying to figure out how to leave behind some sign of where they were going without giving the whole thing away to the aliens.

Then I saw a black guy in a car (seen from like a camera angle or perhaps from the perspective of one of the second group members). He'd stolen the car and it seems like he was a key resistance leader, maybe even the top guy. He looked like Samuel L. Jackson but a little younger. He was pulling up to a corner to turn left.

Then I was him. I don't think I was going anywhere specific, probably just on the run. I was driving casually and this seemed to be fairly normal, other people were driving along like there wasn't some huge alien invasion going on. I saw up ahead a bunch of cars driving closely together, and too slow. I felt like it was a trap, they wanted me to pass and the aliens must know where I was. There was a dirt road up ahead on the right and I took that instead (still driving somewhat casually). As I took the turn I noticed a huge semitruck come up into opposing traffic in the space I would have been in if I'd tried to pass the cars. As if in a movie, I heard the aliens or some people working for them (or the aliens could shapeshift to look human) saying over the radio "He didn't take it."

Now I was driving down the dirt road with an open field on the right and a dead-looking corn field on the left. I knew I was in potential danger but figured the aliens hadn't planned on me going this way, so I had some time. But then up ahead I saw an ambulance, two cars right behind it, and another ambulance following right behind the lot. Damn radios, they were able to move fast because of the communication. I think they might have been hoping that I'd think they were real ambulances and pull over to clear the road. I was definitely not stopping for that. They pulled into my lane, heading straight for me, and as I slowed down they stopped completely. I could see a big (red?) pickup truck coming up behind them fast, essentially blocking the opposing lane of traffic and there wasn't any more room to drive past the cars and ambulances.

A woman who might not actually know what's going on at this moment was now beside the closest ambulance. There was a big, somewhat-evil looking man near her. The pickup almost hit the woman but the man pulled her out of the way at the last second. I'm not sure what happened to the pickup after that (although it's angle would have put it in the field to the right).

Meanwhile, the road was thoroughly blocked now by even more vehicles. Well, I wasn't going down here. I opened the car door and bailed into the cornfield. The corn stalks didn't even have much in the way of corn on them, and they were tall, dried up spindly things that didn't give much cover unless I had a lot of distance between me and my attackers. The aliens chased me, except they were human looking or humans in league with them. I have a feeling some of them were actual aliens, some were converted humans (mind control?) and some just hired people, maybe even innocent and thinking they were working for honest humans, not aliens.

Several times various people got close and each time I sprayed bullets their way (yay for instant dream uzi's... maybe I got one off a soldier, some of the people chasing me appeared to be in the National Guard). I realized too many of my pursuers were too close and I dove to the ground trying to hide. Some part of me knew that the cover here was too scant but I thought as hard as I could "they can't see me" and it worked. I was able to move ahead slowly, barely crawling along.

Ahead were two people arguing about trying to find me. One was a white woman, she had a uniform on and seemed to be in charge. The other was a black woman, a hireling of some sort, maybe a mercenary type, and she was saying that I'd "just... vanished." The black woman was scared. She thought I might be some sort of legendary evil spirit or something. She said "Naga" like she was even afraid of saying the word. She refused to keep searching even though the woman threatened her, and walked off. (Maybe the white woman killed her for such insubordination, maybe the black lady managed her own vanishing act, I don't know.)

I couldn't keep hiding forever and on a mad dash they spotted me and shot me with some sort of tranquilizer. As I fell I rolled into a clearing in the cornfield. I fought the drug in order to stay conscious, but I didn't move. I lay still with my eyes closed so they wouldn't know I was still awake. I was lying on my chest and felt horribly heavy from the drug but I figured if I had one chance now, it was to keep hold of reality. Maybe I could find the right moment to run... if I could still run...

The bad guys came and one of them held me down with his knee in my back while the others surrounded me with guns pointed down at me. Someone came up and lifted my head a little. I felt fingers opening my left eyelid and I saw a nurse (a very stereotypical, outdated looking nurse, who was probably a shapeshifted alien who'd watched a little too much 1940's earth television). She used the little finger on her left hand to poke lightly at my eyeball. I remember being worried about her fingernail. I moved my eye only a little but still thought she might notice I was awake. But she seemed satisfied after a few pokes and let go of my eye. Just as I was thinking I'd succeeded in keeping at least one small advantage I felt a prick somewhere in my back and a very powerful dose of some drug sent me to unconsciousness.

I was instantly dreaming, I knew it, but it was unlike any other dream I'd ever had. The world was in shades of black and white, and even the sound in the air around me seemed foreign. I was breathing and could hear it like a controlled rush as I stared out what must have been some sort of helmet. I was looking at the corn field, the clearing I'd fallen into, but the scene had been surreally transformed into perfect right angles. The corn was no longer a mass of spindly stalks but featureless flat hedge-looking things. I was standing in the clearing, and it made a hallway between these odd flat wall-hedges that stretched out in front of me, before it ended in a T junction that led to thinner passages to the left and right. I felt rather than saw tubes coming from my helmet into my suit (some sort of space suit?) The helmet must have been large, because all I could see was the glass/clear protective surface before me that curved the secenery at the very edges of my vision. I realized that I was an alien now, a real alien, somehow connected to it, but I honestly felt like I was the alien. The end result was frighteningly realistic, but in effect redefining "real" because I wasn't human anymore.

There was nobody in the clearing ahead of me. I turned and saw someone behind me... it was the old me! The me I had been before this terrible dream. He was just standing there with an odd, somewhat stupid smile on his face. I felt such an intense and complete hatred for this man that I immediately reached out and grabbed the human face and head in my hands. (The alien hands were suited up almost like a typical astronaut in a space suit, only less bulky, and the gloved fingers and hands were human shaped.) I squeezed the man's head and crushed it, killing him. I dropped the body and turned back the way I'd originally been facing. I walked to the end of the corridor, all the time hearing the terrible breathing... my breathing...

There was bright light above me and I looked up, raising my arms in the glare and feeling a strange mix of familiarity and total exaltation. I felt my body being sucked up into the transporter of the alien vessel not far above me, like I became a digital painting that streaked upwards, first from my fingers and helmet and continuing quickly down until I was completely transferred to the receiving pod inside the ship.

The next thing I remember is a great, dark space, like the interior of a huge ship. A sinking feeling that I'd been asleep all this time and woken up who-knows-where under complete alien control told me that I was myself again... at least. But I wasn't sure how I was seeing what was before my eyes. It was like the ship I was in was transparent or at least the bulk of it seemed to be to my right and a little above me. Ahead of the alien ship was a pulsing beam of light that flexed a little like a frequency wave turned 3D. The ship was travelling along the light beam like it was a travel route; it disappeared into the front of the ship somewhere and I'm not sure if it continued out the back of the ship... it may not have.

The ship was going slowly and the whole time I could hear a loud, metallic, and vaguely deep voice saying over and over, "You are here. You are here. You are here." This vision didn't last long, as I moved almost involuntarily, trying to figure out if I could move at all, or where I was in all this. I felt sheets, the solidness of a bed below me, a very human feeling after such an alien experience. I was sure I'd seen the previous scenes, but had I been asleep and only just now woken? Had I been able to unwittingly access some sort of alien viewing system with my mind? Had I connected telepathically with the alien who I'd envisioned... killing me in the corn field? Had my death only been some wish or delusion on the part of the alien? I was obviously still alive... and in a bed somewhere... in alien custody, right?

Then I realized I was awake, truly awake, and this had all been just a dream.

( dream symbol analysis and thoughts )