The octo-Jesus & attack of the snakes.

I had a strange dream last night:

I look up for a moment and notice the sky is a light blue and not a cloud is in the sky yet a haze seems to fill the expansiveness of it.  The late morning sun gives off a cool light; the high altitude only adds to the coolness of this summer day.  Short burst of gunfire split through the otherwise static air and I look ahead and take cover by a large rock jutting out of the pale desert sand.  My friends position themselves similarly and we give each other the nod, quickly stepping out from cover and running forward, rifles drawn.

Almost without transition, the landscape is literally rebuilt before our very eyes.  Day turns to early night, water bubbles out of the ground , forming a very small lake – the sides of which are walled with a very polished kind of concrete.  People appear from thin air and others crawl up from the ground but everybody is laughing, talking and enjoying themselves.  There is an air of festivity here, one hell of a contrast to the earlier tension that permeated the mountainous desert landscape.

I quickly walk to one of the cliffs on the far side of the pool and attack a well-armored soldier, pulling him from his small roofless hovercraft.  I hit him on the side of his mask and realize how foolish it was since he is wearing a mask.  My knuckles throb and I shake my hand quickly but before  he can retaliate I charge at him, throwing my shoulder into his torso, knocking him off the cliff.  I quickly turn around to handle his comrade, grabbing him by the collar of his body armor off the hovercraft and hold him at arms length.  I am caught off guard upon realizing I am looking at Jesus Christ – a heavily armored Son of God, actually.  He changes shape into an octopus/Jesus hybrid and tentacles slither out from the back of his head.  I grab a fistful of them and wrap them around his neck, spinning him around and kicking the back of his knee out, sending him stumbling off the cliff.  He falls much faster than the other soldier did and explodes into a mushroom cloud when he finally hits the hard ground hundreds of feet below, turning my sight to third person as I walk back from the cliff and the mushroom cloud billows up behind me, turning me into a silhouette.

Their hovercraft reminds me of a paddleboat and I curiously step up into it.  It slowly moves forward and I lean back, causing it to rise in altitude.  For the next hour I toy with this vehicle, repeatedly flying over the lake and everyone below.  I manage to fly high but there coms a point where a ceiling is built in accelerated real-time above my head and I am not permitted to go any higher.  I test my height a few more times but I get the same result.  I dip down to a foot above the lake’s surface where my ma and my little nephew are playing in the water.  My ma tells me that the hovercraft belongs to her and she wants it back but I am not about to give it up so easily.  I play hard to get, soaring over her and flying past her, enjoying the feeling of flight.  Nobody else at this lake seemed to care about the craft I was on which made me even happier that I could be left alone to fly as I wished.  The only exception was my brother, who asked how I got it.  I told him about the Jesus octopus mercenary and his friend and my brother just shook his head, laughing, causing midnight to set in.  Millions of stars glowed into existence making the constellations impossible to make out.  Finally, I brought the hovercraft as high as I could and leaned all the way forward, plunging it into the lake and dramatically exploding out from it again as if I were in a movie.

The ground begins to tremble slightly and everybody becomes a bit more quiet.  A loud rumbling breaks through the newly muted conversations and we all look up, seeing…something in the sky trailed by fire.  Almost everyone in the lake manages to escape before this object slams into it, throwing water everywhere.  The tail end of this object looks similar to a grouping of stalactites and the water around the object boils giving off an aura of steam. Random groups of people gather around the lake, picking up the debris and inspect it.  Two men begin to yell orders to everybody there in an attempt to take charge and secure the site, though they were civilians like everyone else.

I ran to the side of the lake closest to the object to further inspect this thing and the sound of impacting water erupted, followed by two large glossy black tentacles quickly wrapping themselves around a handful of people about twenty feet away, pulling them in despite their screams and protests.  Panic set in around the lake, causing lightning to flash in the sky and connect some of the stars with lightning bolts.  A humming noise rises up from the water as people foolishly gather at the site of the “monster kidnapping” but I don’t join them, I am too busy running along the lake trying to leave this area.  As I sprint, I see black snakes slithering in the water, rising and falling next to me.  I scream across the lake for my brother, ma, and nephew to run to the exit and wait for me.  They seem to be in a daze and do not respond, causing me to scream even louder for them to get to safety.  The rocks and rock walls around me begin to move, turning to snakes as well.  By this point, snakes are slithering everywhere, small snakes and other snakes the size of limousines made up of snakes wrapped around other snakes, forming these enormous ones.  A brightly colored green snake rises up in front of me and lunges forward to bite me but I swat it aside and keep running.  I get to the exit, two tall gray slabs of tall rock that give way to a bridge built on the ground that keeps disappearing and reappearing made of wooden planks.  I take one look back at the mayhem unfolding and see a bright red flash and everything then goes black.  I wake up.

I had a strange dream last night:

I look up for a moment and notice the sky is a light blue and not a cloud is in the sky yet a haze seems to fill the expansiveness of it.  The late morning sun gives off a cool light; the high altitude only adds to the coolness of this summer day.  Short burst of gunfire split through the otherwise static air and I look ahead and take cover by a large rock jutting out of the pale desert sand.  My friends position themselves similarly and we give each other the nod, quickly stepping out from cover and running forward, rifles drawn.

Almost without transition, the landscape is literally rebuilt before our very eyes.  Day turns to early night, water bubbles out of the ground , forming a very small lake – the sides of which are walled with a very polished kind of concrete.  People appear from thin air and others crawl up from the ground but everybody is laughing, talking and enjoying themselves.  There is an air of festivity here, one hell of a contrast to the earlier tension that permeated the mountainous desert landscape.

I quickly walk to one of the cliffs on the far side of the pool and attack a well-armored soldier, pulling him from his small roofless hovercraft.  I hit him on the side of his mask and realize how foolish it was since he is wearing a mask.  My knuckles throb and I shake my hand quickly but before  he can retaliate I charge at him, throwing my shoulder into his torso, knocking him off the cliff.  I quickly turn around to handle his comrade, grabbing him by the collar of his body armor off the hovercraft and hold him at arms length.  I am caught off guard upon realizing I am looking at Jesus Christ – a heavily armored Son of God, actually.  He changes shape into an octopus/Jesus hybrid and tentacles slither out from the back of his head.  I grab a fistful of them and wrap them around his neck, spinning him around and kicking the back of his knee out, sending him stumbling off the cliff.  He falls much faster than the other soldier did and explodes into a mushroom cloud when he finally hits the hard ground hundreds of feet below, turning my sight to third person as I walk back from the cliff and the mushroom cloud billows up behind me, turning me into a silhouette.

Their hovercraft reminds me of a paddleboat and I curiously step up into it.  It slowly moves forward and I lean back, causing it to rise in altitude.  For the next hour I toy with this vehicle, repeatedly flying over the lake and everyone below.  I manage to fly high but there coms a point where a ceiling is built in accelerated real-time above my head and I am not permitted to go any higher.  I test my height a few more times but I get the same result.  I dip down to a foot above the lake’s surface where my ma and my little nephew are playing in the water.  My ma tells me that the hovercraft belongs to her and she wants it back but I am not about to give it up so easily.  I play hard to get, soaring over her and flying past her, enjoying the feeling of flight.  Nobody else at this lake seemed to care about the craft I was on which made me even happier that I could be left alone to fly as I wished.  The only exception was my brother, who asked how I got it.  I told him about the Jesus octopus mercenary and his friend and my brother just shook his head, laughing, causing midnight to set in.  Millions of stars glowed into existence making the constellations impossible to make out.  Finally, I brought the hovercraft as high as I could and leaned all the way forward, plunging it into the lake and dramatically exploding out from it again as if I were in a movie.

The ground begins to tremble slightly and everybody becomes a bit more quiet.  A loud rumbling breaks through the newly muted conversations and we all look up, seeing…something in the sky trailed by fire.  Almost everyone in the lake manages to escape before this object slams into it, throwing water everywhere.  The tail end of this object looks similar to a grouping of stalactites and the water around the object boils giving off an aura of steam. Random groups of people gather around the lake, picking up the debris and inspect it.  Two men begin to yell orders to everybody there in an attempt to take charge and secure the site, though they were civilians like everyone else.

I ran to the side of the lake closest to the object to further inspect this thing and the sound of impacting water erupted, followed by two large glossy black tentacles quickly wrapping themselves around a handful of people about twenty feet away, pulling them in despite their screams and protests.  Panic set in around the lake, causing lightning to flash in the sky and connect some of the stars with lightning bolts.  A humming noise rises up from the water as people foolishly gather at the site of the “monster kidnapping” but I don’t join them, I am too busy running along the lake trying to leave this area.  As I sprint, I see black snakes slithering in the water, rising and falling next to me.  I scream across the lake for my brother, ma, and nephew to run to the exit and wait for me.  They seem to be in a daze and do not respond, causing me to scream even louder for them to get to safety.  The rocks and rock walls around me begin to move, turning to snakes as well.  By this point, snakes are slithering everywhere, small snakes and other snakes the size of limousines made up of snakes wrapped around other snakes, forming these enormous ones.  A brightly colored green snake rises up in front of me and lunges forward to bite me but I swat it aside and keep running.  I get to the exit, two tall gray slabs of tall rock that give way to a bridge built on the ground that keeps disappearing and reappearing made of wooden planks.  I take one look back at the mayhem unfolding and see a bright red flash and everything then goes black.  I wake up.

Mariah Carey cameo, Satan as the Joker and pre-apocalyptic body snatchers.

I had a strange dream last night:Late afternoon had set in and my family and I were on the way to dinner.  My brother was bringing a guest: Mariah Carey.  My two sisters became excited and my brother appeared with her almost instantly.  I sat next to her in the backseat, wondering how he even knew her but not caring for too long because she was wearing a very short skirt.

We arrived at the restaurant and I took my seat at the head of the table, my pop at the other end and everyone else between us.  I had wanted to sit close to Mariah so hat I could make her laugh but I quickly forgot that she was even there due to her boring dinner conversation.  An Indian couple that I knew from my dreams was present as well and I gave up my seat for the male so he could sit next to his wife.  Within the blink of an eye, my surroundings changed and I found myself sitting with my brother and friends Dids, Tonya, B, Justine, and James on a couch outside in an industrial park by an elongated pool similar to the one that sits before the Taj Mahal.  We were watching the movie “The Other Guys” and I was high so naturally laughing harder than everyone else at it.

In the distance a man approached, walking unevenly.  The closer he came the more I noticed how grotesque and disturbing his face was along with a creepy kind of giggle he kept trying to hold back.  Piece by piece, kevlar plate armor appeared on my body accompanied by the sound of metal clashing.  Within seconds, I was fully donned and charged the creepy man who turned out to be the Joker as played by Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”.  For hours he and I fought; my strength grew the more angry I became with him to the point where I was able to pick him up and throw him through the air.  That wasn’t enough, I threw him into the elongated pool, which turned into a pier right before he hit the water.  A random man approached, watching the fight intently and decided to intervene.  I hit him in the face once and broke….everything.  Blood trickled out from a few different points of his face and he fell into the water and drowned.  The Joker laughed.  In fact, the more I beat on him, the less he cared–the more he laughed and the less it hurt him.  I pulled him out of the water and threw him headfirst into the wall and he collapsed into a heap, watching me the entire time.  He rapidly opened and closed his jaw, the sound of him straining to breathe could be heard over everything else.  He wasn’t trying to breathe, he was still laughing.  His bloodshot eyes turned jet black and he emanated such intense and reckless evil that it almost seemed like a physical substance.  This was not the Joker, at least not anymore; this was the devil.  I could recognize him from his appearance in my other dreams.  I grew a little anxious and angrier, lifted him up with one arm, repeatedly throwing his head into the concrete wall causing chunks of it to fall to the ground and crumble to dust.  He laughed repeatedly as I did this and his laughs turned into barks that you would hear from a Rottweiler.

The ground rumbled slightly.  I needed to kill this creature for good.  I grabbed him by his jacket collar, dragging him along the pier much to the horror of the people present (but had not been present before).  Shouts filled the air of how to deal with the devil but I walked intently toward a raised platform upon which stood an elevated metallic casket of sorts.  It was filled with boiling acid and without hesitation I threw the side of his face right up against the grate. A raspy scream mixed with more barking cut through the air but I would not release him.  I wanted to kill him and to make him suffer on his way to death.  I grit my teeth in anger and threw the rest of his body in and slammed it shut.

To the east a pale light filled the green swirling clouds.  The casket disappeared and it started to snow.  I was in the company of some soldiers like myself and we were quietly talking amongst ourselves as to where we should go.  Through the thick of clouds swirling above us, a bright circular light on the underside of a disc emanated fog and illuminated our position.  We grabbed our rifles and aimed but the disc would not stop moving around.  It seemed to roll as it moved back and forth.  I pulled my phone out and recorded this phenomena as a smaller light was dispatched from the disc and sped toward us.  It turned into a more cylindrical shaped object and latched onto the face of one of my comrades.  We quickly ran over to him to pry it from him but it zipped away before we could do anything.  His face was bruised and coated in some kind of fluid.  A loud, almost robotic exhaust noise filled the air and more slick and metallic objects in the shape of four legged animals with slightly elongated necks but no faces descended from the hovering craft and assaulted us.  They pinned down a few of my friends, “licking” them all over & covering them in that strange liquid as if they were marking them.  I tackled one and reached for my gun but it headbutted me, sending me flying a few feet through the air.  I was not sure how to harm these things as they had no face and no detail to them whatsoever.  They were smooth and metallic all over with no obvious weaknesses.  Simultaneously, they turned into globes of light and flew up into the craft, which quickly ascended and descended altitude over us.  I continued recording with my phone.  Within the blink of an eye, it was gone.

We gathered ourselves and checked each other over for injuries.  Everything seemed ok but we were slightly shaken up.  We were all wondering the same thing: what the FUCK just happened and what was that?  It wasn’t snowing anymore.  The clouds above us seemed impenetrable now but continued to slowly billow up and swirl around.  We moved out toward the cell towers on the other side of the bridge by us.  As we arrived, I noticed someone descending the tower the way a spider would.  I got the chills but also rolled my eyes at the ridiculousness of what was happening–so absurdly unbelievable it all was.  This “person” approached us, stern and cold.  It snatched one of my comrades, the leader, and he disappeared.  When the creature reappeared it asked us for our second in command.  I became nervous, thinking he might take me away, but everyone pointed to the soldier in our group that nobody was too fond of.  He was the unofficial second in command and gave a look of resignation to this creature and begrudgingly volunteered himself.  I slowly reached for my knife, intent on stabbing this creature to kill him and save my comrade but another friend of mind quickly grabbed my hand and shook his head no.  Another friend disappeared with the creature, leaving a bolt of horizontal lightning behind that lit up the clouds.  The night grew even darker.  We stared at one another with no idea what to do next, as this…..thing could seemingly be anywhere at any time. I woke up.

Urine-spouting Hermes wannabe.

I had a strange dream last night:

The cool white colors dominate the courtyard I am having lunch in with my friend, Brandon.  The cobblestone floor is slightly worn, like the walls, with bits of moss growing on the cracks.  The sky is clear overhead and piercing blue.  A chill goes up my spine, as it is early spring and the shade is far cooler than I would like.  I look out at the chairs in the sunlight and tell Brandon we are moving to that area but before we rise, a skinny, dark skinned boy with white patterns on his skin appears, standing on the tips of his toes, small wings beating furiously at his ankles.  He has no hair and no muscle definition; eyes colored red and glowing bright as fire.

Smoke appears over the walls off in the distance and gunfire cuts through the relative quiet in the courtyard.  This South American town is in utter upheaval and revolution.  The boy moves his arms and hands in an erratic fashion, causing his cheeks to puff out.  He stands on one foot and leans forward, his arms spread out and spits a watered down yellow fluid at me as if he were a fountain.  It hits me directly in the chest and from the smell of it, I guess it is urine.  Furious, I rise from my chair and run at the lad and he snaps into a fighting position and jumps at me, feet first.  Performing some kind of  Brazilian martial arts in slow motion, he knocks me off my feet and I crash into the stone wall behind me, my neck emitting a loud “crack” upon impact.  I become nervous, not sure how to beat him since I do not know martial arts.  Not deterred enough, I run at him a second time and land a solid punch on his left eye but he spins around and throws me back into that same wall.  He takes up the fountain pose and spews more fluid from his mouth and it hits me in the face this time, burning my eyes, making it hard to go after him.  I scream at him furiously, causing the stream coming from his mouth to become thicker; less like urine, and more like a citrus smelling fluid.

Everything stops for a brief moment–no sounds can be heard, nothing moves, everything is frozen in time.  When “time” resumes, he heaves as if about to throw up and his ankle wings beat at full speed, creating a high pitched humming sound, lifting him off a few inches from the ground.  An old man hobbles into the courtyard, unnoticed by this quasi-Hermes creature, and whispers to me to be still and raise my arms up and out if I want to save myself and banish the evil spirits in the boy attacking me.  I follow his instructions and the winged boy drops back to his feet.  He runs at me again but fails in his attempted attack.  He tries repeatedly to assault me but I keep my arms out and refrain from saying anything, staying calm as possible.  After what feels like almost an hour, the boy refrains from attacking me and instead paces back & forth impatiently.  A deep “crack” echoes up from the ground in the distance and he snaps his head to attention.  He smiles, holding his hand out to me, palm facing the sky and snaps his fingers, causing a flame the size of a grapefruit to appear in his palm.  Everything goes black.

I woke up.

1915. Negotiating for wheat. Europe.

I had a strange dream last night:
1915.  Early summer in Europe must look more beautiful than this.  Far off in the distance, bright yellow sunlight blankets the hills, however, here by my brother and I, it is dark overhead and the thick, potent smell of a bog permeates the fog that covers the ground–everything is tinted in a muddy green color.  We shoulder ourselves against large, colorless boulders for shelter and wait; you can almost hear the air crackle with tension.  I look down at the ground, brushing aside some dead grass and a glow catches my eye.  A quick whistle from my teeth brings my brother over and everything turns black and white.  Pictures form in the glowing object; tanks rolling through the country on the outskirts of a city, massive buildings still in flames, their white pillars turned black from soot & smoke, and a sequence that moves too fast for me to comprehend aside from noting a crescent moon and swastika in the confusion. 

My brother and I stare at each other; he holds up his index finger and I hold up my index & middle finger, both gestures symbolizing world war I and II.  The first war has ended and we have just entered the second.  Within the glow, a swastika forms again, absorbing it until no light is left.  The symbol then forms into the number  “70” and then into the head of an eagle, resting atop a shield.  It vanishes and an eagle flies overhead; we follow it s flight path to a glass box of a house a few miles ahead.  It looks about a quarter mile away from a river bank and I ask my brother how we can utilize the energy of the trees hanging over it.

Slowly, we approach the river bank, everything is in color again.  To the left is the glass house, no walls, with a man sitting in a throne-like chair in the center, motionless.  As we continue forward along the water, the ground begins to shift, slowly pulling a 180 degree turn; the house is further ahead of us now.  We walk toward where the glow had been coming from earlier, a handful of soldiers walking with my brother and I, carrying towers of ceramic dinner plates.  Without warning, a few of them break at the base, sending all of the other ones crashing to the ground in slow motion.  I quickly signal at the troops with me and we all dive further into the water, which is waist deep and has tall, dry grass growing up from the mud.

The man in the glass house stands up, walks through the glass and floats over to our location.  He opens his mouth to speak and wheat bushels grow out from his tongue and his eyes tint bright green.  He says that he cannot grow anything on his farm because of the war, that he is forbidden from feeding us.  I slowly rise from the water, making eye contact with him, planning on an attempt at negotiation.  The droplets fall from my hat in a slow drip.  His eyes narrow in on me, causing my eyes to fill with blue fire.  I grab the wheat from his mouth, telling him that he can do as he wishes, as it is his farm, and we are hungry.  Agitated, he steals the wheat back from me, balancing it on his palm and it turns to ash.  He tells me that my soldiers, brother and I have little understanding of what is happening and what the war is about.  I disagree with him, stating the specifics of what fueled the war and the desperation of Europe, causing him to close his eyes and point to the middle of the river.  My soldiers are out there, dead, in a heap.  My brother puts his hand on my shoulder and matter-of-factly states, “We will not die”.  Everything cuts to black.  I wake up.

Space’s Rosetta Stone & the desert facility escape.

I had a strange dream last night:

A low humming sound adds to the “spacey” ambiance of the room I become aware of.  There are two others sitting at the rectangular table with me.  In the center, some kind of chrome plated sphere hovers in the air, slowly bobbing up and down.  It almost sounds as if that is the source of the humming.  I scratch my head and look down at the black stone tablet, thin as paper and easy to crumple, but unfolds itself into it’s original shape if tampered with.  Printed on the tablet are white numbers, encased in two dimensional white-outlined squares.  A large celestial map sits in front of me, the contents of which alternate between the heavens, colored in indigo’s and deep blues, and an old world map, colored in brown and parchment tones.  I look at the others sitting at the table with me and they are hard at work trying to decipher the have similar tablets in front of them.  I touch the exact middle square with my finger and the chrome plated sphere emits an extremely high pitched whining, hydraulic sound and blinds me with a bright flash.

When I “come to”, I am in a desert, though the color palette of the terrain looks very washed out.  I am by myself for awhile and not sure where to go, as nothing is in sight aside from more desert and some mountains off in the distance.  Soon enough, a bus comes barreling down the dusty road and pulls over as it nears me.  A few small, one story buildings grow up from the ground as well as a stable filled with people in hospital gowns with shaved heads.  The atmosphere becomes malicious.  A man in uniform approaches me and states that I have been selected to work at a high-end, secret facility for cracking the code on the tablet.  My gut screams at me not to trust him, but having no other options, I board the bus in order to bide time.

We ride for hours and the landscape never seems to change, it only looks like the same few shrubs are placed in different areas off the side of the road.  A line of shuffling feet cuts into my anxious thinking and up come a group of identically dressed, shaved-headed individuals, holding their arms in such a way as if they were holding invisible rifles.  They look like they are in an extreme amount of pain & discomfort but cannot fight back or do anything about their current circumstances.  Intuitively, I am told that they are being trained to oversee the other people being taken to the facility, that they are being broken & brainwashed.  That put fear into me and heightened my senses; I go over ways to escape.

The bus is turned into a boxcar and all goes dark.  The door is rolled back and the sunlight slams into the wall behind me, rattling the walls and floor.  One by one, we are all taken to the ground and directed to one of the brainwashed individuals.  I am the last one; they grab me and throw me to the ground and kick me in my sides to rough me up and intimidate me.  It hurts but I am not intimidated, just pissed off now and more determined than ever to escape.  I approach my “overseer” and he looks insane, his eyes are wild and seems that the only thing that is holding him together is serious PTSD from his “re-education”.  He cradles his arms and bends his knees, sticking out his tongue and slobbering everywhere, yipping at me to jump into his arms.  What a balanced fella.  I run and jump into his arms two times and fall, making him laugh hysterically.  On the third attempt, he tries to stick something into my back to control me but I flip over his head, gripping it with both hands and, as hard & quick as possible, twist it, breaking his neck.  He crumples to the ground and the boxcars disappear along with everybody else and some more one story buildings grow up from the ground.

As fast as I can and barefoot, I take off to a shed sitting by itself on the far side of the road.  Inside are more guns than most people would know what to do with.  I know sure as hell what I am going to do with them.  Shots ring off in the distance followed by orders being yelled out; they are coming for me.  I strap myself like a one man army and kick the door open.  I run in the opposite direction of the shouts, desperate to get away to warn others of this place but ready to fight.  A bright flash whites everything out.  I wake up.

The moral opposites war of iron & leadership.

I had a strange dream last night:

Stretched across a worn, dusty, massive plain, 2 armies, both of which number in the millions, stand opposite of each other.  A soot-colored, gargantuan mountain breathing smoke sits at the heels of the evil army.  The sky has absorbed the mood, showing off a thick mass of  rolling, low-hanging clouds, dark grey and sickly green in color.  On the horizon to the west, a faint glow breaks the doom of the ominous clouds, a pale light lingers, hugging the ground for survival.  The smell of sweat, horses, and iron fills the air around me, whereas drifting from the other side comes the smell of rot and mucus.

I unsheathe my sword slowly and can hear my heart pounding in my ears, the sound of my breath magnified by the helmet covering my head.  My horse utters a brief “neigh” and I look to the west, taking notice of the pale light reflecting off of the millions of helmets stretching out as far as the eye can see.  I hear the men clearing their throats, coughing, and shifting their feet.  All jaws are clenched as the thousand yard stare ensues, both sides contributing to the tension that you couldn’t cut with a knife if you so wished it.  Everything cuts to black.

A thousand “clangs” mix with a great roar and, as if opening my eyes, I can see again.  I am on my horse, sweeping across the battle field & shouting orders, cutting down my enemies all the while.  A white flag splattered in blood surges up from the thick of soldiers under attack.  I give my steed a light kick and run full speed into the group, plowing my way to the middle, and grab the flag.  A scream erupts behind me and a grotesque captain from the opposite side charges me.  I wait.  Everything moves in real time around me but the enemy captain and I are stuck in slow motion.  The ground rumbles beneath his clumsy, large feet.  My horse bull snorts and steps forward, eager to take him on, it seems.  I hold the flag over my shoulder and my focus narrows.  Beads of sweat fill my peripheral vision and slide off to the sides of my helmet.  A tingling feeling fills my groin.  The adrenaline.  Fear mixed with excitement.  A feeling of dominance surges through me, insistent that I overpower this thing that is easily twice my size.  A mere 20 feet from me, enraged, out of control, swinging his oversized axe behind his waist, nobody stops him.  15 feet.  With all of my strength, I launch the pole-end of the blood-splattered flag at him and, within the blink of an eye he stops dead in his tracks.  I hear him coughing, gasping for air over the clamor of war.  Blood bubbles up his throat and leaks from his mouth and he stares at me blankly.  My horse half-turns back and forth, raising its head up and down and the captain collapses to the ground with an earth-quaking thud.

A raucous chant splits through the plain, grabbing my attention.  Tens of thousands of unarmed, but well armored soldiers called “bullies” march toward us.  Swords are useless, as are spears.  I take off to the east side of the battle, calling out for the archers in the middle and rear of the formations to take aim and fire on my command.  Word spreads like wildfire through the ranks as the bullies march closer and in unison, the sound of stress from the twine and the wood sound off .  Upon screaming out “UNLEASH!!”, the whittling and spitting noise of tens of thousands of arrows tearing through the air seems to dwarf all other noises.  A second volley of arrows only slow the bullies down.  I quickly realize the futility of another attack and speed further east, booming out for the immediate formation of the cavalry.

Thunder shakes the earth as they line up, coming out from a passageway that leads deep into the eastern mountains.  I cannot count them due to the greatness of their numbers and they are clad in deep, richly colored gold robes with lightweight silver armor plating.  Their helmets are rounded with small, silver wings covering the ears and short plumes of white and black on the top.  The eye pieces are slanted to give an angry and intimidating appearance.  These men are not to be challenged.  I point forward and “CHARGE!” reverberates from the mountain behind us and speeds ahead.  Right as the bullies approach the front lines of my comrades, we hit the first “thick” of them, plowing through them to the end  of their numbers on the western side with relentless determination, confusing, separating, and trampling them.  It serves as enough of a punch that the swordsmen/spearmen charge in to cut them down as they scramble to realign/reform themselves.

With the bullies broken, I ride to the eastern mountain passage to meet with a few hundred elite soldiers.  They arm themselves as they see fit, each specializing in their own art of killing that compliments the others.  I adjust my breastplate as I await their readyness and glance back at the carnage.  Two thirds of my brothers in arms, are being slowly overwhelmed.  None of the special forces before me seem concerned, so confident they are that their actions on the field will turn the tide back in our favor.  A bush rustles behind me and as the figure emerges, I immediately recognize him.  It is Gandhi.  He hobbles to my horse and asks me how I think he would handle this situation.  I pause to consider the meaning of his question and then ask him to back up.  He smiles and does so.  Refusing to bow to or use nonviolent means against the evil we are fighting, I make a speech to the men present (the full contents of which I cannot recall so will not post) and every time I end a sentence with inspiration, the last word appears in the air in front of me in large, bold, white letters, followed by an exclamation point.  The men chant each of those words back to me in unison.  At the end of my speech, I give each of the men a look of confidence; at the last one, several elementary schoolmates of mine appear, smirking & shaking their heads, thinking I am being overly dramatic in my speech.  I ignore them, seeing the successful effect my speech has on the men and understanding that my classmates knew me as a child but not as the leader I was becoming.

The specialists pull out their battle horns and the largest one is handed to me.  We line up at the exit of the passageway and take a few seconds to observe the sight in front of us.  It is so dramatic.  Poetic.  Historic.  Beautiful & tragic.  The forces at the foot of that terrible black mountain have no idea that we are about to unleash absolute hell on them and chase them until every single one of them is lying motionless in their own blood.  I look back at the men one more time, then to the west, whose dying light is rapidly becoming brighter.  My horse rears on it’s hind legs and I blow into my horn, sending a crack up the side of the black mountain to the north; it is echoed by the hundreds of horns behind me.  We roar ahead, chanting together as loud as our voices permit, causing another crack to split the ground a few hundred feet ahead of us, out of which, a spring of water bubbles up.  The blinding light fully breaks in the west, causing a great flash.  I wake up.

The possible duality of paradise.

I had a strange dream last night:

This feels like heaven, nirvana.  Words do little justice to the impression I am left with.  Such….peace.  Finally.  Finally I feel peace.  I can rest.  I care not about going any further or to something greater, as this does indeed suffice.  I look around……..off in the distance ahead stand silver mountains, dramatically pushing through the white, billowing clouds above & covered in greenery from the foliage and trees growing on them.  A light green carpet of grass stretches out in every direction, the simple, beautiful monotony of it broken by the occasional old, twisty tree.  I hear the sound of water.  I look behind me and a mighty river bubbles up into view, its current rushing along in slow motion, making every glint of sunlight reflecting off the surface seem like diamonds that have been suspended in time.  I have nothing to say, I don’t even shed a tear of happiness; the only feeling I have at this moment is peace.  Serenity.  I feel like I am home again.

I inhale deeply, the smell of flowers filling my nostrils, and I close my eyes.  Through my closed lids I detect a shadow come over me and I look up to the sun, now wrapped up in bands of clouds and it pulsates.  The clouds quickly engulf it and turn it into an opaque, throbbing ball but I am alright with it.  The air has a different sort of feeling to it, but it is still very pleasant.  Suddenly, the sun bursts forth from the clouds, turning them to steam, and I explode in flames.  I feel no physical pain, but am very aware that my entire body is alight, even my eyes, and I hear the roaring sound that usually accompanies a large fire.  I inhale slowly, deeply; a concentrated tingling feeling takes over my limbs & head and the heat is not unbearable-it is consistent but not uncomfortably hot.  I walk toward the mountain and, able to see in a 360 degree view, notice the prints I am leaving in my wake.  Although I walk with my feet, I leave fiery hand prints behind me, black ones that burn the earth.  Nothing smells like it is burning, quite the contrary, I can still smell the flowers everywhere.

Within minutes into my journey toward the mountain, I hear a distant whinnying and look up at the sun, which has now turned black but is somehow still as bright as before and notice a dark, winged creature flying out from it.  It takes only seconds to approach me: a beautiful black horse with wings.  It dramatically swoops past me, bull snorting out of it’s flared nostrils and takes off back to the sun, kicking it’s legs with every downward thrust of it’s feathery, black wings.  It eventually collides with the sun, instantly turning it into the moon, which causes the ground beneath my feet to split, leaving a gap in the ground of about 6 inches or so.  I wake up.

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air cabbie, a feast with the dying, and a desert lightsaber fight.

I had a strange dream last night: 

It feels nostalgic outside, the energy reminds me of my childhood. Bags packed, I walk across a side street to an abandoned gas station, curious of the fact that it is abandoned but everything in it and around it is brand new. The air is cooling from evening setting in and it smells like grass that has been cut a few days ago. In the shade that tints everything in a cool blue color and slowly envelops everything around me, I look back and reminisce about my time at the old wooden building I just left. The outside is splintered and weathered–more grey than any other color but the inside was so warm, so symmetrical and comforting. The lighting inside is soft but has no direct source.

The crunching of rubber on gravel snaps me out of my reverie and to my surprise, the cab from the intro of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”–cabbie and all, is sitting in front of me, engine idling. I throw my bags in the back seat and smush my pillows on top of them. As I open the door, the cab driver asks if I’m ready to go and I pause. I remember that there had been nobody in that wooden building and I should go back to find someone. I pull my bags and pillows from the back seat and tell him that he has to go without me, that I will call him when I am ready. He smiles and drives away and I make my way back into the structure that seems so weary and sad on the outside but is so serene and warm on the inside.

Right after stepping foot inside, the door seals itself shut with a thin, almost translucent light around the frame and it disappears. A long hallway runs on forever but it somehow contains a number of rooms in it that I can see simultaneously. The walls are a deep, rich, cherrywood color, the floor is tan, unreflective and seems heated from below. Before I am through my second step, a long wooden table grows up from the ground before me–chairs included, and the seats are occupied by cancer patients. The aroma of the food on the table is tantalizing, even for my picky tastes, and I walk to the head of it.

Half of the guests are wearing hospital robes and the other half are wearing some ancient looking, but plain robes. I ask them who they are but they are silent. With their thoughts they tell me that they are on the verge of dying and I am overcome with sadness-nothing dramatic, but very deep and slow. They smile at me and proceed to enjoy their last meal together. I want to ask them where they are from, who they represent, and one thousand other questions but I know they will not give me an answer so I take hold of an unassuming chalice, buffed so well that it seemed to be emanating it’s own light source, raise it to my eye level and say something in a language I have never heard before. In unison, everybody else repeats it, causing the light in the room to glow brighter and everything goes completely dark with a low rumble.

I am outside again and this time in front of a more modern looking building waiting to have the door opened for me. I notice that I am carrying a small Bichon Frise in my arm and immediately regret leaving my boxer, Thane, at home. I am walked inside and given a tour of the facility, finally led into the room where I am to take part in a dog grooming competition. The area is setup like a computer lab of sorts–each person has their own cubicle that becomes invisible when they wish to speak with others. I set my dog on the table and notice it’s body is missing; there is nothing amiss about it, and the dog seems quite content. I proceed with the hair cut of the dog head and finish quickly. The results are announced as soon as I am finished and I did not win. I’m not upset because I am told I have something waiting for me downstairs. As I walk toward the door to descend, everything slowly evaporates in front of me and I “wake up” in a desert.

Everything is black & white and all around me are broken, wooden rails and blown out stone columns like an old set of ruins. A fair skinned, dark haired woman is standing at the far end where the exit is. She is motionless as I approach her, my cloak billowing in the strong wind gusts. She pulls out the hilt of a sword and it makes the familiar sound of a lightsaber as the blade extends from it. I hold my palm out to face her and mine flips up from my belt into my hand and lights up in a bright red. We engage each other in combat relentlessly for what seems to be an hour. She pulls a second saber from her belt and I dramatically bellow something at her; that phrase turns my blade into a long saber-whip. The fight that ensued seems choreographed; nonetheless, I am very impressed with how I handle it so naturally. After defeating her, she states that the only reason I won was because of my whip-like lightsaber so I close my eyes and focus momentarily, turning it back into a blade and point it at her neck, keeping her from moving. She slowly steps aside and tells me that I have succeeded and may now go. Woke up.

The magical elephant portrait & baby rhinoceros chase.

I had a strange dream last night:

The humidity is rude. Rotting wood and stagnant water permeate the air around me. I notice it only slightly, so focused on this photo album I am flipping through. On each page is a portrait of something or someone with a caption stating “SAVED”, “NOT SAVED”, “YET TO BE” at the bottom of the portrait. I turn the page slowly and a warm gust blows in my face…..I stare at the picture and everything around me becomes quiet. The portrait of a young elephant is staring back at me, it’s face decorated in tribal paint. I nostalgically run my hand over it, able to feel the rough texture of it’s skin. The album floats away from my hands and hovers over the swamp. The elephant climbs out of the picture, using it’s limbs like a human would, and trots over to me, rolling onto its back. I hop down next to it and rub the elephant’s belly and it makes…….elephant noises (whatever those are called) and flails it’s trunk through the air, tickled by my rubbing of it’s stomach. It quickly rolls onto it’s legs and licks my face, which I find utterly disgusting, and it hastily stomps off into the haze ahead.

The lights flip on and I am in the bathroom of the house of 13 Lawrence Lane (where I grew up). My brother is in the kitchen, cooking breakfast but is is one o clock in the morning; I am getting ready for school, irrespective of the time. A crash erupts by the wall next to the bathroom door and the elephant charges in, laughing at the mess it made. I slam the bathroom door shut, intent on getting ready for school instead of playing with the animal but the door is crooked and there is a space of 4 inches between the bottom of the door and the frame, which the elephant slips his trunk through to rip the door from it’s hinges. We go back and forth, opening and closing the door for a good half hour and all the while, the bathroom faucet turns on and off in sync with the movement of the door. Eventually I become irritated and kick the door from it’s hinges and it lands in the kitchen. Before my very eyes, the elephant grows into an adult, rears it’s head and whistles, transporting me outside into a heavily wooded area with a large, green, sun soaked hill off in the distance.

Another animal sound grabs my attention, a guttural and chewing kind of noise. Behind me stands a baby rhinoceros, slowly moving it’s head up and down. I smile at it and run away. It makes a squeak noise and runs after me. We play a game of cat and mouse for a long time and I trick it by running around a large tree, keeping it between us. The rhinoceros becomes mildly irritated at the tactic, stops, rubs it’s little horn against the base of the tree, causing the roots to lift the tree up, allowing it to pass under. It charges at me and knocks me over, trampling over me. As it runs me over, I yell out to my brother that I am going to die. That just isn’t true, because I stand up unharmed when I am free from the peer pressure of it’s legs. The lighting in the sky changes abruptly and a loud sizzling sound precedes the sun as it slams into the ground. Everything stops moving, holding still as if a “pause” button was pressed. I wake up.