sanity is relative

I started out as a male character of some sort running through dark streets with a female character. There were zombies around, and as they started chasing us, I noted they ran as fast and as well as we did. The girl was caught, but I kept running because there was nothing I could do (also I think my character might not have been the greatest person during this part of the dream).

I lost the zombies, mostly because they were distracted by lunch. There was a logic-fails bit where I met up with another guy who I knew and apparently hid out with him a lot. At this point the dream decided my character was female, and probably about 12. There was a hideout of some sort behind a wall, accessed by a small opening through the back of a partly-destroyed bookshelf that was sitting on the outside of the building. I handed some scavenged things through the opening to the guy who was already inside the hideout.

The opening became less and less useful as the dream had trouble holding onto the concept (that was already ridiculous to begin with, it's hard to explain how this opening looked) and I realized I was going to need to hide somewhere else. There was a dresser nearby, basically on the sidewalk, and I think my brain was trying to force it into a more useful shape of some sort, like a wooden box of roughly the same size so I could at least hide and maybe even get some sleep.

I'm not sure how the transition happened but the next thing I knew, I was entering a shopping mall where a survival gang of people with military expertise were doing something. I'm not entirely sure what they were doing because they were getting ready to leave. I found some office supplies and said I was going to scavenge useful stuff, and dumped a bunch of them in a reusable grocery bag that I basically produced from thin air. I noticed a more organized container of some sort with a lot of office supplies in it that I remembered I had put together at some point before, but the team said they were leaving and I decided to leave it there and take my bag of randomness with me.

I was trying to convince the team to take me with them as they left the building, and it was now daylight. We had to push our way out through an angry crowd of people who were trying to get in, and the place we were leaving had suddenly become a police station. There were police officers around keeping the people from getting into the door we'd just left. We were able to continue on through the parking lot, and I was now a woman in about my 20's.

We were all running at this point, and most of the team was faster. They were heading for vehicles on the far side of the parking lot. Running near me was a black lady with her two kids, one in each hand. One child was a girl who was maybe 4 or 5 years old, and the other was a boy who couldn't have been more than 3. The kids couldn't run very fest, so I offered to help and took the little girl in hand. I ended up picking her up because I could run faster that way than leading her by the hand.

A car was driving through the parking lot nearby, and I got the sense as it came closer to me that the lady in the car was the sort of person who would buy children for nefarious purposes. Unlike the character I had started the dream with, I wasn't going to even think about that, but that meant I was in potential danger if the person in the car decided to come after me. As it was, I made it to the vehicles the team was getting into, and they did let me come with them.

As we were driving away, I mentioned the shady lady in the car. Someone made a joke about if we thought she wasn't the sweetheart she was in some other show (as if two different fictional characters had the same actress, which made sense in fail-dream-logic that was a massive hint we were all not in "real life" but some TV show plot).

We were driving through a somewhat wooded area when I saw we were being followed by a man on horseback. He was wearing a uniform that was somewhat police-man-Canadian-mountie themed, and he was leaning over the saddle so badly I wondered if he was injured. The car we were in wasn't going very fast at this point, and he was able to keep up and follow the car right behind us. He sped up enough to follow the car on the passenger side, and the person riding shotgun opened their window and started talking to him.

Turns out he wasn't injured, he was just really worried about some kind of qualifying test he had to do that day, something that would advance his rank in post-apocalyptic law enforcement or whatever it was he was doing. The guy talking to him said something like, "You'll do fine," and as a good luck charm, handed him his own patch that was the reward for that test (he hadn't sewn it on anything apparently).

The guy went off some other direction and as our car pulled away from him, I remember thinking that guy was probably doomed and the dude who'd loaned him his patch was gonna get it back under unhappy circumstances.

Then I woke up.

I don't remember much about this dream anymore, other than I was a random girl character who was working with Dominic Toretto (aka Vin Diesel's character from the Fast & Furious movies). I was at a huge garbage dump at night, and he was mad at me because I'd done something to betray him and he'd caught me. He told me to stay where I was for a minute because he had to do something.

I wasn't being watched, so I took off across the dump and escaped, eventually driving a car in typical high-risk movie getaway style. The rest of the dream fell apart from lack of logic.

So... why is it that the first time in ages I've had a dream about a Vin Diesel character, the dream plot has to be trying to get away from him? >.<

I was Jet (from Cowboy Bebop) for the first part of the dream, and while Spike went off to do something else, I was tracking something down with a picture. I showed the picture to someone and they said it was Whidby Island. So I went to Whidbey Island and matched the picture up to the Seattle skyline (pretend that makes sense... nevermind that Seattle looked just fine and this is supposedly Cowboy Bebop era of post-apocalyptic Earth). I remember the sky being close to dark, and night fell as the plot continued.

Somehow I deduced that the place I was looking for was under the water. So I started swimming, only to see Spike up ahead on a small rowboat. Apparently he was following the same trail and didn't want to tell me about it. So I caught up and we decided to solve this thing together.

The dream plot now insisted we were trying to rescue some lady from inside an underwater lair. We put on breathing helmets and dove down where we could see something below and the place ended up being a huge rounded tower thing with a lot of stuff sticking out the sides of it. There was something about getting too close to the windows being a bad thing, related to explosives in the water around the tower... but memory is fuzzy there. There were a few windows in the side of the tower as well.

My point of view changed to Spike now, and as Spike I found an interface device further down the tower's surface which was obviously the way to get in. It looked like I had to put my hand inside a hole next to it, and I could feel a hypodermic needle device get very close to my thumb. So, if I screwed up the code, it would inject me with something nasty. The code screen ended up being a game of tic-tac-toe. While I was stressing out trying to remember how to beat the game via the usual trick, three moves into the game, the x's and o's rearranged themselves... and there were more squares to fill in around the edges of the usual 3x3 grid.

I said, "F*$# this," and pulled my hand out. If they were going to make it so complicated, why didn't they just use a regular number keycode? I vaguely remember being able to communicate with the girl inside the tower somehow, and we were going to use the explosives to blow a hole in the windows and get her out...

Then I woke up.

I was Riddick, but the time period and setting were rather strange. I think it was supposed to be in the past at first, medieval China. I had a "friend," some handsome guy whose name I can't remember, who I think I was a bodyguard for or something. I went with him to see this rich guy who collected ancient artifacts. My friend did this as well. We both knew the other guy was up to something shady but at this point we were seeing what we could without ruffling feathers, and the dude was nice enough to show off some stuff in his mansion.

That night, I went back and snuck around after dark and found a document and a shard of pottery that were major clues and a ton of information (I don't remember what it was related to, though). This was in a large gallery room where a lot of the artifacts were kept under glass or in displays. I went out a door and the next area on my way out was a huge indoor cavern almost, and to the right there was ancient ruins I couldn't see very well into, but there was some kind of ritual going on.

It was like the "bad guy" (the dude who was showing us around earlier) was having some kind of cosplay fantasy thing and pretending that the princess he was obsessed with was finally returning his attentions. It sounded a bit like a theatrical production, in which he and whoever was playing the girl sang a mix of "Hellfire" from Disney's Hunchback Of Notre Dame (especially the final line "she will burn!") and the part of Disney's The Little Mermaid where Ariel gives her voice to the sea witch.

Weird... so I headed left, as I knew that was the way out, and the bad guy's servant was just leaving the ritual and I could still hear him singing but he cut off as he saw me leaving. Oops. Not long later I hit the last door to the outside and surprised a guard coming through the other way, so the jig must be up. I pulled the guard through the door and he lost his spear in the process. I can't remember if I fast-killed him or not, I was more intent on getting the eff out since I had already been identified. I was also not worried about having been identified even though I was known to be working with my friend. I guess it was okay by the mission's parameters, like he could say I went rogue and he had no idea what I was doing (or maybe with the document it wouldn't matter).

I ended up in a large courtyard and found a quick way onto the slate-tile roofs that rimmed that courtyard. There were guards with bows and arrows but with the darkness and my speed I was able to take the short route along the roofs and leap off the far side without getting hit. There was some question in the dream logic at this point as to whether I'd hurt myself in the fall; I ignored that bit and kept running and the dream forgot about it.

At this point I "remembered" I had a wild black stallion who was my horse and was currently running free through the hills so I summoned him with a whistle. No saddle or anything, aaand off we went. Mission accomplished. There was some weirdness about chilling with the horse after and eating tomato sandwiches, in which my character was no longer Riddick but some random guy.

Then it was the next morning and I was seeing things from a pseudo-movie perspective. It was now modern day (dream logic fail) and my friend was walking around a small factory or workshop that I think he owned, somewhere in the US (New York perhaps). He was thinking, and in his thoughts made a reference to the fact that Riddick had "pulled it off nicely" last night. So yeah, it was like there were currently no repercussions against my friend.

The friend was then on his way to a party that hadn't started yet, and arrived there where this blonde lady who was fairly caught up in being properly fashionable told him her hair was a wreck even though he complimented her on it. Apparently she'd had it dyed "blonde-black" which was some sort of light blue-silver color in the end, and had to tell her hairdresser to redo it. So it was looking a bit fried but at least generally blonde again. She was tasting hors d'oeuvres coming to her from the kitchen for the upcoming party, and some kind of savory thing (a mini-pie or quiche maybe? can't remember) went over very well but not a single-serving coffee cake.

Then I woke up.

This started as me watching a movie in a theater, and during one of the previews I noticed that the music was the theme to Raising Arizona, the one that plays during the opening credits. I said as much out loud, but nobody seemed to care. I wondered to myself if this was just trailer music or if they'd actually use it in the film. Then the movie proper started, and the first identifiable character was Bill Pullman playing someone who worked on a farm, or so it would seem since he was riding a tractor. Perhaps he was the son of the farm's owner, the feeling was that he was more than just a farmhand. The time period seemed dated, perhaps the 1930's or 40's.

Then he was walking along an orchard path with two girls, one probably in her mid 20's right next to him and the other, a teenager perhaps 14 or 15 following behind. I became the girl who was following. Bill (let's call him that because I have no idea what his character name was) and the other girl were talking, and it was obvious she was trying to be sweet on him. He seemed to be acting a little bashful over that, but wasn't being totally sweet back at her. They had very distinct southern accents, perhaps even a bit overdone (as Nostalgia Critic would say, "I'm acting!").

My own accent I knew was far different from theirs, "normal" in my opinion but an outsider here, me being a city girl from up north just visiting for the summer or something. I'd visited before, these people were family friends, maybe distant cousins... and I also liked Bill, but I wondered if he even knew I existed in that sense. (I had an inkling here of the grander plot that my character wouldn't know, that I might be surprised how much attention he actually paid me, but that he might not guess at my thoughts due to my age and not being there all the time.)

There were a lot of bright yellow flowers on the trees we were passing, and some other trees were more like tulip trees with I think pink flowers that were bulkier. I picked one of the yellow ones, it had a lot of soft petals and I smelled it as I kept following the others. I picked a second flower, and then the girl sounded like she was going to break into song. I remember thinking something like "Is this movie a musical? I had no idea..." and was hoping it wasn't going to be sucktastic (I like good musicals and well I didn't like this woman so my opinion was already a bit tainted at least of this number... nevermind that there was still the floating thought that this was a movie even though it was becoming more and more that the movie's plot and world were the real world completely).

The song ended up being something that I sang in tandem with her, and it started with the first verse of "These Are a Few of My Favorite Things" (from The Sound Of Music). It would seem we'd practiced this to performance level, for a local talent show that we'd already done. I had the melody after her, and a made-up bit of completely original tune and words (which I can't remember now) and then she had her own bit after me. We even did a bit of almost folk-type dancing together, and as this was going on... the setting went from broad daylight to night without my noticing any great flaw in the logic.

Our path had taken us into a hayfield or something similar, and the section where we were now as her song part continued seemed freshly mowed. Due to how dark it was, I was feeling uncomfortable about the odd mown layer of grass-like clippings on the ground over the inch-high remaining stalks. I think the singing stopped, and I was wondering to myself how safe it was to be out here this late, perhaps we should go back...

I was a bit further ahead of the others, and suddenly my head started to hurt. I put my hand to my forehead and fell backwards, at least the ground was kind of soft and I don't remember that being an issue. What I do remember is saying, "It's happening again!" like I'd forgotten about this but was now remembering that something had happened before. I could hear the others sounding concerned in the distance, Bill I think shouted something, but all I could really do was look up at the clear night sky with its billions of stars.

Suddenly all was completely silent. I think I said something like, "Is someone there?" and my voice sounded weirdly echoey, like I was suddenly in a completely different space I couldn't see. I could see my own reflection slightly, a little bit above me, which didn't make sense, but there it was. Then there was a bright blue-white light that seemed to come from nowhere in the stars and got bigger and brighter very fast, coming straight at me and engulfing me and I screamed in fear and tried to raise my arms up in front of my face.

I felt a strong pull and knew that whatever it was, it had captured me. It was too bright to see but I had the impression of a great deal of speed and travel upwards into the sky and beyond. Once I could see again, I found myself in a very strange, smallish... room-thing. (Being as this was a time period when space travel didn't exist, along with a lot of established sci-fi conventions, "I" was very confused by a layout that wouldn't be all that unconventional for a modern day mind.) If I had been able to move properly, I might have been able to touch the sides of the grey metal shaft that I seemed to be at the top of, and the front and back would have been barely in reach. The walls to the left and right of me didn't have a sharp corner up above, but a more gentle curve up to a flat ceiling not real far above me. I think there was a window to my right, where I could see outer space, but I was too afraid to be distracted by that.

I was being held in place by glass inch-thick plate-like separators that seemed to extend from the walls horizontally and had holes in them to fit my neck, my chest at about my elbows, and probably a couple more points down lower. I couldn't really see what was down below me. Being stuck like this was frightening but it didn't really hurt because I was technically floating. I didn't know if something was supposed to happen to me, or had already happened to me, but I knew I couldn't remember anything so detailed as this from before and wondered if I was more conscious than whoever this was... aliens... thought I was.

The plates started to retract away from me, having even splits in them and pulling into the walls, and then part of the wall in front of me slid down, revealing a window where behind was a boy maybe my age or a little older. He was wearing a grey jumpsuit and had brown hair that was roughly shoulder-length and in an unconventional style (vaguely emo-ish). We stared at each other for a moment, he looked just as confused as I'm sure I did, and then I realized that I was being drawn downwards by an unseen force.

He started banging on the window and shouting, "Let me out!" as the force became faster, and I could tell he wasn't yelling at me, more at whoever was doing this. I lost sight of him quickly though and suddenly couldn't see, the world growing very dark. I felt a strong push backwards, very strong, the same unknown force that never actually seemed to touch me. Then backwards became down, and fast, as if that direction had always been down, and I felt like I hit something soft so fast that it stunned me.

I realized my eyes were closed and most of my body unresponsive, but I could move my left hand and felt around. I was recognizing my own bed (not my real-life one, but this dream was continuing to supply built-in-past facts as needed). I concentrated on waking up, though I knew what I'd just been through wasn't a dream, and I had no idea how long I'd been back, what the others had seen, or how my return had been explained to my parents in the house below, or if they even knew I was back. I had a feeling they did, that somehow what had happened could be explained away and that they'd call me crazy or over-imaginative for telling the truth... which I was going to to anyways. Meanwhile I was able to get up finally and felt really fuzzy, like my body was still half asleep.

I got off the top bunk of the bunk beds I slept in and knew I had to draw what I could remember. I was also thinking about the boy, wondering if he was trapped there indefinitely and wondering if there was some way to save him. Plus, he was cute, and I had to wonder if we'd met before but I just couldn't remember. I tried to find paper and a working pencil, also pulling down the blinds and closing curtains nearby thinking that the aliens might still be watching me and might not want me to be able to remember so much of what I'd seen this time. I had trouble with the curtains, and eventually called it good and tried to turn on a light to see better, but that barely did anything at all (and I remember saying out loud, "oh, so it's going to be like that," as a reference to lights not working properly in dreams, but I didn't catch this thought well enough to make it a true lucid dream).

I ended up leafing through a large newsprint-like sketchpad and finding a half-cut-up scrap and an ink pen. I drew the top area of the ship I'd been trapped in, just the general shape of it and without the concept of the window(s) or the boy. I drew it really badly, I seemed to be having trouble getting the concept of drawing to cooperate, but by the end of it I had at least the shape and the idea that it had a lot of rivets down on paper. I tore the drawing out of the sketchpad and headed for the door.

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.

The first dream was rather long and I barely remember any of it, but it involved zombies who passed on their disease by biting. They could also make zombies out of animals, and although the animal bites didn't make the disease contagious to a person, they were vicious and obviously getting any sort of injury doesn't help one's cause in staying un-zombified. For part of the dream I was indoors and I think underground, which was bad because zombies did better in the dark. The end of it had me and a guy who would be like the main or almost-main character in a movie (if I were the main) outside in the sunlight, with some kind of supposedly-protective circle of branches around us.

The circle was probably a good thirty or forty feet wide, so there was a good amount of room to move, and I think there was only one zombie beyond the circle at the moment but there were a lot more animals. I remember specifically a squirrel or two, and one of them managed to get into the circle and bite me on the back of my right hand (OW yes it definitely very much hurt). There was a third guy with us I think, and I was yelling at him that this circle thing wasn't keeping the bad crap out like it was supposed to and realized right around then that he'd been zombified just now. The whole thing was going to hell and I'm not really sure how it ended, but I woke up really scared and realized it had been the first nightmare of that type I'd had in quite a while (the typical scary-nightmare or horror-movie inspired thing). I was disappointed I'd gone through the whole thing without realizing it was a dream, because if I had, I could have woken myself up.

Well, I went back to sleep because I was way too tired to get up. I went almost immediately back to dreaming. I was in my (randomly dream-created) house, with my (randomly dream-created) boyfriend and family, and it was night time. I was afraid the zombies would attack, as if part of the old dream had carried on to this new dream. Suddenly my boyfriend revealed that he was one, and I ran out of the house. I remember very little of this dream and I wish I could because I'm pretty sure it was epic-scale. I eventually met up with a slightly overweight middle-age lady with a kindly face and medium-length, kinda-curly brown hair. She knew who I was, and told me that I was very important to stopping the evil.

I think I was telling her about what had happened so far, and as I was going over the beginning, the dream sort of flowed into my narrative and thus ended and started to repeat. This time I was back in my house at night where I'd started (though the house had changed) and my boyfriend was there again with my family. I think I was telling them about the first dream, as if I'd just had it or something, and I told them we needed to lock the doors and windows to make sure the zombies didn't get in because I didn't think it was just a dream. Then one of the zombies I recognized came to the front door, I could see him, and as I was freaking out I began to realize my family and boyfriend were all zombies and they were saying something like "she's not ready yet."

I'm not sure what happened to the zombie outside (I think they let him in) but he wasn't out there anymore and I ran outside to get away from them all. I ran left along the sidewalk and I remember thinking it was important I stay under the stars. I looked up and saw what looked like a yellow glow-in-the-dark sword-shaped mouse pointer in the sky pointing to a specific star, so I ran that direction (which was sort of the way I was already going, to my right a little but for the moment I was staying on the sidewalk instead of crossing the street).

An expensive black luxury sedan that I think was a BMW suddenly seemed to be swerving at me or chasing me, so I had to change directions. I silently begged the sky for more help and saw the sword was now on a star further to my left now and right on the horizon, leading me onto grass to my left that dipped down a hill and into some forest and stuff. I was still near the top of the hill as the car stopped and two black people got out, a guy and a girl, dressed nicely and I remember the guy had very short hair.

They asked me what the heck my problem was, and I forget what reason they were actually there but I begged them for a ride. They asked me where I wanted to go and I forget where I said (San Paulo?) and they were cool with that. So I got in the back seat of the car which was now for some reason a convertible, and I had a pillow in my arms when we drove right back past my house so I hugged it and looked away from the house hoping they wouldn't recognize me but at this point I knew I had red hair and I had a bad feeling they would... but we weren't chased immediately. There didn't seem to be anybody at all outside the house as I peeked back at it when we'd gone past.

The couple said they had to make a stop, which was uncomfortably only a few blocks from my house up a side street, but I had barely started telling them about the zombies and I don't think they believed me. The lady they met was going to give them some food they'd ordered, I think they'd found her through some kind of internet service. It was the lady who I had met in the first dream, the one who said I was important, but all I knew now was that she was somehow important, I just couldn't remember why. We were all out of the car as she gave the people their food, and then asked me, "Do I know you from somewhere?"

I answered something about not being sure, and she asked me what my name was. I said, "Shane..." and then it was like it was really hard to remember my last name, it was like I knew the one I had was wrong, and that there was another name I was supposed to be known by. So finally I got it out, "...Dawson" (ahahaha my brain must be taking inspiration from YouTube, even if I have wanted the name Shane for years before running across Shane Dawson). She was sort of looking at me a little funny, like she might be figuring something out, but the other people were saying we had to go now so I left with them.

A few blocks later we suddenly got rammed from behind by another car (and now our car was back to being a sedan). The guy driving finally believed about the zombies, and was wondering how they'd found us so fast. There was some dream illogic behind my response ("They're editing the video!" as if there had been video footage of us going by, and access to fully processed video feed for editing meant they... somehow had all the information they needed) and now it was a car chase.

As if this were a bad Ed Wood movie, we found ourselves in heavy city traffic in broad daylight a few moments later. The zombie car was still too close behind and now they had a large, odd tractor thing on their side as well. I kept telling the driver he needed a wide open road, this kind of car should be able to go really fast and this was totally the wrong area to try and escape in. The girlfriend of the guy agreed with me, and even suggested it might be better if I took a cab instead as those guys could drive fast.

I think we heard on the radio or something that there was an actual ghostbusting service being advertised. I asked the people if they knew about that, they didn't really but the girl drug out a phone book and handed it to me, it was supposed to be the White Pages or something, and she apologized saying it might be harder to find in there. She also gave me her cell phone to borrow, and I dialed 911 while I was looking through the book trying to figure out what the heck section ghostbusting would be under. The operator wasn't honestly sure she believed what I was trying to tell her about the zombies and all, and was fairly sure she couldn't help me. The last thing I asked her was if she had any guesses as to where the ghostbusting number would be, and she said to try the services section. Conveniently, there was such a section, and it wasn't huge.

In that section of the phone book (which was difficult to read because reading is often difficult in dreams), I finally found a page with spiritual services, a lot of occult-related stuff though too much of it seemed like it was places that just sold stuff and had fun-houses and maybe palm readings or fortune tellers if lucky. Still, that had potential and an ad I saw for a place was one I wanted to go to but wasn't sure how to get there, and was about to mention it. The girl suddenly tried handing me a very slim "phone book" that she said was the Yellow Pages with a warm, triumphant smile like it was way more what I needed... but I still wanted to go to the place where the ad was and was about to ask again.

I noticed the shops in the area we were in were a lot like the section of the phone book I'd been looking in. Then the guy said something like, "What about this place?" and suddenly he was pulled over right by that one shop I'd seen the ad for, and in the window there was a sign for "Horror House" though the windows hadn't been cleaned in a while and the whole neighborhood looked really dumpy.

Well, it was the place I wanted to go and we were sitting ducks with the zombies still too close though it seems like we'd temporarily lost them. I said sure I'd go in and begged them to please stay and wait for me in case I had to run out fast again. I grabbed Teddy (my actual teddy bear) who for some reason was in the car as if he'd been with me the whole time, but I left my purse with them as if it was somehow safer to do so (??) and also left the door open even with the zombie threat because I was that worried I'd have to run right back into the car. Also, right around this time there was another person in the back seat of the car, an Asian young lady who the dream plot just sort of threw in like she'd always been there was well.

When outside the store before this conversation, I'd seen some of the employees through the window. Now as I went into the store, the layout changed (baaad dream logic, bad) and also I no longer remember having Teddy (baaad dream edit? lol). I sort of recognized the employees (a guy and a girl in toned-down punky haircuts and stuff) and well it was the same kind of store so I just went with it. I walked past the main customers and those two employees, feeling that the help I wanted wasn't in that area, and I would know the right kind of person when I saw them... if they were there at all.

I saw a lady behind a different counter, she was older and I think she had longish light-colored hair. I could see in her eyes that she held wisdom and knowledge of the sort I was looking for, or something very close to it, so I walked up to her and said I needed help. I forget exactly how I phrased it, possibly being under attack from darkness I was afraid to talk about in public, but at the end I said, "and I'm not looking for help from 'god'" and I even used air quotes.

She nodded, seeming to understand, and then I realized she had totally vanished while I'd... stood there staring for a moment? The Asian girl from the car was now with me (she'd come to check on me I think) and I said, "Wow, she's good." I knew the older lady was going to either talk to someone before talking to me again, or was fetching someone else... possibly because she'd told me. I forget.

It was only a moment or two later that a short, elderly Asian woman walked out from a back room and guided me to go sit nearby with her on a sort of round booth-like seat without a table. I sat down with her and the other girl who was with me, and started telling her about the zombies. I really don't remember what all I said, but this all seemed to make sense to her and she was saying something back to me, I'm not sure what, but as she did so her eyes started looking past me. I looked behind me, back the way I had come, and the area there was totally obscured by almost living darkness.

The old lady got up yelling some kind of curse or something at it (I forget, words of banishment probably) and stretched out her hand. From it came a yellow-white stream of magic with a thick orange-red cord through the middle of it, and it made a long line as it struck into the darkness. A male voice said something from inside the darkness, I don't remember what it was but probably something about the futility of her standing against him. Then I could see a man in the darkness there, and I knew it was one of the zombies, but now it was like I also knew they were actually vampires. Could be that was part of the dialogue, I wish I could remember it better.

The man countered the magic with his own power (which I don't remember what it looked like), and the lady shriveled up and fell backwards, dead. The other girl by me tried to get in his way as well and I think she also either died or got zapped into unconsciousness. Then I was on the floor as well, passing out because he'd hit me with some of that power next, and as everything went dark I heard the voice of Vampire Hunter D asking a very short question. Sadly, I can't remember the question now, though I do believe it had to do with asking where I had vanished to. I realized that perhaps I had disappeared off the floor completely, perhaps with my female friend too, and maybe the lady who I had seen in the previous dream had done it? Perhaps all hope was not yet lost?

But I wouldn't find out, because then I woke up.

(This was actually from several days ago... and I apparently didn't save the chat log I had hoped to use to remember more bits, but oh well.)

I had Riddick's baby, but Riddick didn't seem to be around. The dream started after the giving-birth part. The baby had normal eyes and as a newborn was already trying to keep its head up without help; I noticed because I was holding the baby upright and making sure to help with the head thing and it was like... okay wow, baby is strong! (Or stubborn.) Anyways, it was a girl, but I don't remember any name for it.

Then I knew, somehow, that Riddick was dead. And it didn't bother me at all. WTF. It was just like "okay, plot point, moving on." I also knew that aliens were supposedly coming to check on this baby at some point... a sort of friendly hello / checkup /whatever. (Did I mention this dream makes no sense? More so than normal...)

The next part I remember, it was past sunset on a beach and getting quite dark, and there were a lot of teenagers goofing off in the water. I was worried about them because the current was really strong and they didn't seem to be paying attention. Then there was suddenly this long metallic leg thing that went into the water, and I looked up and saw a big spindly metal creature with a small top bit that had a blue light coming out of it. The light was finely-focused, and it seemed to be looking around with it.

Well I figured this was one of the aliens that was supposed to come see how the baby was doing. I waved at the light as it went by me but it didn't seem to care. I was just kinda going, "Oh... that's odd..." and didn't really care either, sorta watching it. Then I got a bad feeling that maybe this was an evil alien, and it was actually here for the baby for some reason and just hadn't figured that out yet.

So I started walking off down the beach away from the alien and the other people as well. Then the blue light fixed on me and I knew this wasn't good. I ran as fast as I could but something happened and I fell forward. I was so worried I'd hurt the baby, but it seemed to be okay beyond crying. I couldn't really move, like I'd been stunned or shocked by the alien. Then the baby was gone, just gone, and I knew the alien had taken her. The alien was gone too.

There was a nondescript structure nearby and someone was hiding in the shadows next to it, some Hispanic teenager. Somehow I knew he had something to do with all this, that he was one of the bad guys. I started beating him up to get information out of him, I was so upset about losing the baby. Then some of the other people from down the beach started coming over to see what had happened, see if I was alright. I told the guy to stay in the shadows because I wasn't finished with him yet, then tried to go tell the people I was okay or something.

He didn't stay put, coming out where people could see he was all banged up. They were like, "Uh, what's going on?" He finally confessed that he had something to do with this, but all he knew was there were clues hidden back at my and Riddick's house. He said he'd show me where. I think I knew a couple of the people on the beach, but they were just kinda random dream-made friends. We went back to my house (random house of dream illogic) and the guy showed us a corner and said it was under the floorboards.

By this time it seems like I'd kinda forgotten about being upset over the baby. (Sort of like not caring about Riddick being dead??) We pulled up the floorboards without any delay and started pulling things out from a small hidden area that was probably a good 4 feet deep but not very wide. One bag that came out of a decent size, someone said was diamonds. That went nowhere, apparently... it just got set aside and the dream forgot about it. We were, after all, looking for clues, but WTF. xD

There were a bunch of screwdrivers, little ones, that were supposedly a puzzle. If we could solve it, we'd know more about the grander mystery. Again, logic failed and we also failed the puzzle just as badly. Meanwhile the evil teenager kid is just sorta sitting around and I really don't remember caring about the fact that he was there or what he did anymore. (Also, at this point, it seems like we were going through not Riddick's, but Vin Diesel's stuff, and I hadn't had his baby and I didn't know him and it was Vin's house... but yeah poor Vin was still dead. GAH.) Then I found some ziplock bags in the bottom of the hidden space that had what looked like SD cards in them (the little digital camera data storage cards). I figured there was probably data we could pull off them, something that would explain hopefully at least in part what was going on.

Then I woke up.

(Stefan Richter, the roleplay version, actually belongs to Stefan. The early-1800's version is a very much alternate-universed character, the original being Lord Recluse from the MMORPG City of Villains.)


First off I was myself at a play, watching in the audience. It was a sort of high-school production it seemed, and the play was set in a very upperclass London home or palace around the late 1700's (think big wigs, tons of lace, and foppish guys). Then towards what seemed like the end of the play, I was lounging around near the stage, and the spotlight turned to me. I was now one of the actors in the play, and fully dressed up as an older woman, the matriarch of the play's family.

I got up and made my way to the head of the dinner table, since it was mealtime in the story. I was playing this very overdone and overbearing character, and I remember two of the other characters messing up their lines a bit. We went with it though, and the audience really seemed to be getting into things.

Then it wasn't a play any longer (nor was it dinner time but definitely evening), and I was actually this matriarch character in an upscale London home. I was greeting guests at the door, highbrow women and at least one of them had the hopes of marrying my son, Stefan (more on that in a minute). I remember either calling for him or sending a servant to fetch him, and he arrived just as my point of view changed to one of the hopeful-ladies who was actually pretty damn ugly but haughty in all her finery.

So now I'm ugly-chick being led upstairs into a better sitting room for this occasion... and then it seems like I wandered off a bit. The character was changing again, looks and attitude becoming more like someone I'd rather be if I was a girl stuck in this sort of situation (a bit more like my character Shane who in the roleplay universe for this version of Stefan, schemed up a way to get back at both their socialite parents by basically marrying under false pretenses... as both had no true interest in marriage and have very devout relationships with their own lovers).

I found a room where it seemed like Stefan must have been before he was summoned. There was a cheery fire going in a white marble fireplace and a small writing surface on the floor with a letter or document being written and a book open beside it. I think at this point Stefan showed up, having escaped the more social engagement, but I don't remember what he said. He didn't seem to mind that I was there.

Then I became him, and I was alone in the room, glad to have gotten away from the stupidity in the sitting room.

Then I woke up.

I was Dominic Toretto from The Fast & The Furious universe. It was daylight, maybe heading for evening, very overcast and raining. Some Asian guy challenged me to a race. We picked a certain stretch of road that left from a freeway off-ramp and went into some smaller streets. He went first, it was supposed to be a timed run so I waited. He called in to the group of people now hanging out near my car when he was at the midway point, which he seemed to think was great progress and I knew he was slow.

When he finished I got the signal to go, and away I went. Someone else was keeping track of the time. The first corner on the offramp was insane, but I took it fast with drifting. I did a lot of drifting, and hit that area where the other guy had called in before very long at all. I knew I was way ahead, no problems at all, and then shit! Cops! I almost wondered if the other racer had gotten pissed already and called them on me.

With cops on my tail I shot through the underpass where a flare marking the race's end had been shoved aside. I wasn't about to leave the race unfinished and I'd definitely won, whatever was going on now. As the road straightened out I could see cops trying to cordon off the streets ahead. This left me with one option, a gravel parking lot I could see an entrance to on the right. I wasn't happy about being further boxed in, but it was the open choice at the moment and the lot was huge. Lots of cars. If I moved fast and the cops got overconfident... for one thing I'd be hard to find. Plus, it was suddenly the dead of night.

I'd lost my tail for a moment while pulling into the lot, but I knew the cops had a general idea of where I was. I looked for somewhere to park fairly deep in, wondering if I could get away with not being spotted indefinitely but nah... nor did I want to try this crap on foot. I found a space near a red race car whose make didn't matter to the dream for the moment. Now I could see the cars from the outside, as if from a movie camera perspective. The car Dom was in was orange and black, and I swear to Eris it looked like a cross between a Bugatti and a Prius. I have no idea what the dream actually thought it was.

As Dom bailed out of his car to go hotwire the red one, I became Chess, my original character created for the F&F universe and Dom's very gay boyfriend. I was now half-aware that this transition, as cool as it was, didn't fit the earlier plot, but already the dream was starting to accept that there had been a passenger with Dom the whole time, and that he'd won the race even with more weight in the car.

Dom had gotten the red car's doors unlocked somehow, and I hopped in the passenger side and asked him what sort of car this was, as it was unfamiliar to me. I asked if it was a Lamborghini, but that didn't quite seem right. He said, "It's a Corvette," and finished up hot-wiring the car, slamming the door and pulling the vehicle out of its spot. I was rather surprised at the answer, as the body kit seemed a far cry from a typical 'Vette. I made some comment about it having come a long way from the oldschool look. (And now that I think about it, the thing looked more like a Lamborghini crossed with a... you guessed it... Prius. I need to move somewhere where I can car-spot for real, dammit. The greater DC metro area is garbage for that.)

Now the trick was to get out of the lot without anyone recognizing Dom as the driver. I remember being worried about this momentarily, but we made it past the cops and drove off for freedom.

Then I woke up.