Overflow

Instalment 12 – Overflow – Wednesday 26^th June 2013

Have you ever read the book Carrie by Steven King? If you have, then this dream will seem perhaps a little familiar. The dream was at least courteous enough not to completely rip off the story from start to finish, but still… I guess I can’t have original concepts incorporated all the time. For those who you who have not read this particular book, think bottled up angst wreaked teen bubbling over the edge, and perhaps throw in a few mental issues with recently discovered telekinetic powers.

I have no idea what the girl looked like in my own dream, it was not kind enough to give me a descriptive preview, instead I saw everything through her eyes, but at the same time I knew I was not her. I like to assume she was an average looking girl, perhaps a little awkward, like she had not yet mastered the use of her newly growth spurt acquired limbs. I shall leave you to create your own mental image of her… Ready? Got one? Alright then, we shall continue.

Irrespective of the image you chose, this dream began in a foreign way to me, in a place I have never been, but had seen and heard of a lot, an American style, locker covered school corridor. The girl is quietly seething whilst watching her fellow peers through blurred eyes. Every now and then the surroundings disappear from sight completely when her emotions become too much and overflow. This pattern continued for a while, tears ebbing and flowing.

Instalment 13 – Overflow – Sunday 04 August 2013

The girl is an emotional wreck, teetering on the edge of a breakdown, her whole being overcome by panicked, angry desperation. Her gaze is drawn down at her school books, strewn across cheap laminate flooring, bending down she attempts to reclaim her lost items, hindered by her treacherous sweaty palms. Defeated she slumps to the floor and closes her eyes, a tear escapes and rolls off her face and lands on her patent shoes, it’s waterproof coating shatters the tear into smaller salty droplets.

For what seems like an age I explore the dream from the confines of her eyelids. The same tear impacted over and over again, sometimes overlapping at different depths of sight, like electric impulses the effect spread through her body, awakening a new her. The crack broke away, allowing a single beam of light to pour through her body, redefining and recreating her. A new her, which was never meant to exist.

When the lids finally lifted the world had been transformed, her hair, now moving as though under water obscured my vision for the most part, bringing parts in and out of focus. The previous blurring created by sorrow had long since passed, her eyesight was now perfect. Beyond perfect in fact, as my eye trained on the people now scattered around the hall, I noticed I could now see every water molecule moving around their bodies. With each subtle movement from the girl, the water stopped, shook and continued and if nothing had happened at all. I could feel her assessing this new scenario, I watched her experiment with twitches of her fingers and the consequential actions of the water noticed too by her.

I felt her smile creep across her place, her hands were brought to eye line, she looked carefully at her hands and touched each one as if it were the most fragile object in existence.

Her fist clenched hard and the effect was immediate, she drowned each and every one of them from the inside out…

The lake

This work has never been edited, it is a raw, rough draft.

Instalment 8 –Lake – Wednesday, 07 November 2012

In the form of a proper rarity, this dream actually occurred no where I can consciously remember being. It resembles nowhere near my house, nor any of our families usually frequented places. This, if you had shared in all of my dreams with me we strike you as a little odd, perhaps it was only possible to have this dream as I had been a little older the time, in my early teens I would think. My dream self may have finally figured out how to transport me to places neither of us had been, her imagination had evolved.

So, my dream began in this poorly specified location, made up of parts of places I may or not have been. It was night of course; I am seriously beginning to think that I may be incapable of day time settings, having never been able to recall even one set in the day time. To give myself some early indication that I was in fact dreaming, dream self decided to dress me in my pyjamas, therefore right from the start removing any possibility of it feeling at all real for me. Perhaps dream self felt I could not handle a new environment as well as a sense of reality, and she would not want to startle me awake before she had her fun. To add some comfort to the situation she was kind enough to allow me some slipper footwear and a woollen hat, right before turning out most of the light and giving me a cue to the plot, the first cue being, you are lost… and I don’t think you like it… and scene!

 

Instalment 9 – Lake II – Monday, 19 November 2012

Being lost is not exactly my favourite feeling in the world, possibly one of my biggest understatements; on the contrary, I am horrible at being lost… I panic, and have absolutely NO sense of direction. This situation, sticking on true form, did not lead me to overcome my short fallings and “be the hero” rather, to sink into an overwhelming, unjustified pit of alarm. She knows me so well for an unconscious decision making entity, she certainly deserves more credit for very simple, yet genius ingenuity.

My surroundings, perhaps a little cliché, tall foreboding trees, dressed sparsely and casting lengthened shadows across the dirt path where I had been deposited. Every time I am outside at night I think of all the people who are obviously hiding in the undergrowth, waiting to “get me”, a ridiculous notion as I cannot imagine even “weirdo” people would enjoy stalking from bushes on a cold night, logic usually escapes me in these instances. I could see a lake in the distance with a thick, apprehension inspiring fog settled close to the surface, exclusively, rather obstinately. The dirt path on which I was stood meandered down towards the lake, each side of the path completely enclosed by the trees and foliage, forcing directions to one of two, towards, or away.

Neither choice was particularly appealing, which one leading to the aforementioned lake, and the other to complete darkness. Utterly alone, but sensing that there were others like me around, which were “part of my group” I was being forced to decide which way, which would ultimately decide whether I would be led to a reunion of my  fellows or a not yet descript “evil”.

An amount of time passed whereby I simply stood there, more producing more panic rather than cool decision making prowess; usually I am none too bothered about the art of decision making, with my interest in it being directly proportional to importance or danger. On this occasion, perhaps because I was acutely aware of the dream state, the importance did not outweigh the panic.

Luckily, I never had to make that decision, realising that this dream would be dreadfully dull being as I would just stand there the entire time in some kind of wimp freeze, dream self gave  the “choice” instead. About 6 foot away from me was now a large pebble, a pebble begging to be kicked, it needed to be, at least that was the sense I got, there was no way I could not, so towards the lake it was! With the freedom of decision making taken from me, I was a lot more settled, calmed and all round in a better state to proceed.

Still a little disconcerted, but soothed by my reason for moving that direction, the lake drew closer.  My journey down the hill was oddly uneventful, either that, or I did not notice the previously programmed events on account of my infatuation with pebble kicking, not a single ghoul or ghost unceremoniously presented itself, an odd concept far from my usual fear on fear approach. The walking/”kick-run-and-kick” took longer than it really should have, considerably so.

Instalment 10 – Lake III – Tuesday, 20 November 2012

Another anti-climax it would seem, I had built myself up to find lord knows what, and here I was, staring at… well… a lake. The lake, as creepy as it was, did not quite live up to my self-inflicted hype, slightly disappointed and a little annoyed at myself for all the fuss, I resigned to assessing the lake up close. The same oddly smoke machine looking fog, the same sense of foreboding, but with none of the aforementioned fear. Sure the water had become darker, the light dimmer, but so far, so boring. I began to think maybe I had turned up late, or early, the latter thought sending a shiver up my spine, why on earth was I here, normally it did not take this long to get some kind of reaction from my dreams, a limit of a couple of seconds peace at a time was normally all she could muster. Staring at the traitor rock, which had obviously taken me the wrong way, I cursed the in-animate object and delivered one final swift kick which spun it off towards the water.

The rock hit the water and fell through with so much as disturbing the water’s surface, not even a ripple. Intrigued, I picked up a few smaller pebbles nearby and looked at them in my hand… and then at the lake, without further ado I threw another in…  No splash. I then lobbed the whole lot into the water with as much force as I could manage, with the ultimate result, no effect.

With intrigue rapidly changing to annoyance I pick up a large stick and tried to swirl the water around manually, for all the help that was, the water may as well have not even been there.  It looked like water, but it certainly did not behave as it, with no obvious explanation as to why. I’m not sure why this exasperated me so much, but it did, I was aware it was a dream, but my wake self still needlessly clung to a need for normality, I wanted it to behave correctly. Although, with hind sight; this is more than likely precisely why it did not.

Not accepting that it just was, rather than it should be, I flung the stick down and plunged my hands into the water, instantly a shock drew through me. I was consumed by burning, my nostrils were invaded by smoke and my eyes stung. Bewildered and temporarily blinded I stumbled backwards, tripped, and found myself sat on the floor rubbing my eyes furiously. I peeled my eye lids open; I could see nothing, as if someone has planted a layer of Vaseline, or I had very swiftly developed cataracts. Even though I could not see clearly, I could tell that the area had become a whole lot brighter; an orange glow was all that could penetrate the thick haze. This worried me slightly, if the light could be seen through something so thick, surely it was not in the least bit a good to be near with hindered senses.

At this conclusion I pushed backwards and forced myself into the bushes behind me, scratching myself  as I went, moving and breaking past the plants until I was sure I must be far enough out to escape whatever danger lay where I had just been. With the spiny confines of the bush now creating a physical barrier I was able to finally regain some of my vision; slowly the world came back into focus.

What greeted me? I had awakened into a more violent feeling world; a world set ablaze, the skies clouds replaced by burning infernos, tornados, ignited were visible in the distance.  Not knowing where to go now, and knowing the fire was closing in I did the only thing I could really do, head back to the lake, being as it was the only part of my vision peripheral or otherwise which was not on fire… just what I wanted *sigh*. Begrudgingly getting back up and forcing my way back to the water was the only thing I could do, my lack of enthusiasm would have been glaringly apparent to anyone, if there were anyone around to watch, perhaps “she” counts.

When I reached the water’s edge I sat down, perhaps with a little more force than was necessary, had I actually been really sitting down I would have considerably bruised myself. This is the point where I just stayed sat down and just watched the trees burning, but oddly not burning down… just as if they were merely covered in fire. That was when I realised; I could not even feel any heat from the fire, was it even there? Did it only exist in a state similar to the water? I could see and hear the fire, but why could I not feel it? (Once again the logic that I was in a dream, and therefore, may not actually be able to feel any fire escaped me). So, I did the only “reasonable” thing to do, I touched the blaze.

My assumptions were rewarded, I was indeed right; the fire was no more actually there than I was, or the water, although maybe not in the same way. This was apparently all the fire needed to extinguish, no sooner than I had realised, the fire was gone. Ok, back to square one, to recap, a lake made of non-existent water and trees that do not burn in a fire with no temperature. The fire weather also seemed to have calmed down; only pieces of ash gleaned any evidence of its wake.

Installment 11 – The lake IV – Thursday, 06, June 2013

Perhaps I spoke too soon concerning the weather, in a blink the entire lake froze solid and the earth around me exuded a likeness to permafrost, though understandably without the associated latitude. My breath filled the air and billowed disproportionally across the lake, renewing the eerie haze hovering but a foot above the frosted glaze the lake had become. The ash froze shortly after and the remaining pieces glistened like diamonds, they descended to give the whole dream world a dusting, capturing and highlighting every object, fashioning a utopia of ice.

The wind swept in, and with it, it brought them, and it brought them in droves. All I remember are cloaks and teeth, no faces, no other discerning features but their fangs, dream self had brought me vampires. These vampires needed not a bat like form to fly, rather they used my breath to command their flight, if they moved but a couple of meters higher than the fog the vampires unbalanced and dipped back towards the lake. I watched the characteristic bobbing and swooping and noted another important fact related to my own safety, they could not move outside the confines of the lake, when they reached the edge they were met by an invisible force and immediately about faced. Another point I noted was that the vampires could not see me, could not get to me, or maybe did not care I was there. Either way it appeared I was safe for now.

For some reason I unexpectedly became bored by the vampires, of course, them being the most interesting part of my dream to date, of course I grew tired of them. With this in mind I started up the path away from the lake and did not even look back.

A boy stood in the middle of my path, and yet he became my destination. He looked scared, bloodied and emitted a sense of urgency. He spoke, what he spoke I will never know, it is likely that he was regaling me with tales of his adventures and how it was he came to be here, with the possibility of help pleading, I did not hear any of it. All of my focus was directed on one simple object that did not belong, sat atop his head, was a multi-coloured propeller hat.

See? I knew it was a bed

This work has never been edited, it is a raw, rough draft.

Dream 3

Instalment 4 – See? I knew it was a bed! Friday, 02 November 2012

One of my more odd imaginations, there is really no real point to this dream, a random series of events. Some dreams feel the need to leave you a confused mess of mind jumping madness and segmented story. The dream self knows what it is doing, but it feels no need to clue you into it at all, perhaps it finds amusement in your perplexed wake self.

One of the few which actually begins in a location other than my living room, it actually sets me down inside the woodwork department of my secondary school. The room was a lot bigger than it was in real life, a lot wetter as well, on account of it being flooded in two foot of water, people were still sanding their woodwork projects though… odd, apparently, masses of water are not a detriment to these woodwork enthusiasts.  The increased room size was probably for dramatic effect, making the flood look like a scene from Alice in Wonderland, waves and all. One of the tech teachers stood on the far side of the room explaining to anyone what would listen about the burst pipe in the hall, which may, or may not have been influenced by the large axe he was rather unsubtly “hiding” behind his back… suspect activity I think.

Instalment 5 – See? I knew it was a bed! II-Sunday, 04 November 2012

So there I was standing in this rather large volume of water, apparently now wear a set of galoshes, which I was certainly not wearing previously, useful none the less. The lighting in the room was a little odd, the normally florescent tube lighting fitted as standard in schools had been replaces with tiny fairy lights, making the ceiling look like stars in the night sky, reflecting off the water within the flooded workshop, and glinting off the saw blades fitted to the benches. The water began to rise slowly, I knew it would not drown me, I knew because this was not where I was supposed to be, I felt a pull to the door at the far side of the room. Deciding the most efficient was to travel would be to swim; I plunged into the water with no temperature and gazed around into my new underwater world. The space under the water was even larger than the room I had left, spreading as far as I could see and filled with marine life, in particular sea anemones, disproportionately sized of course. The anemones presence made perfect sense to me even then, we had own a variety of fish tanks in our home, usually salt water aquatic, stocking shrimp, sea anemones and several breeds of fish. This is a moment when real life and dream life combine, I saw one of the very shrimp we owned in my new water world, he was chopping off the little anemone stingers and using them as food for himself, something our shrimp had done in our own tank very recently.

Naturally this did not please me, in real life or the dream life, I remember being so angry at our shrimp, it made no sense; he was always well fed, being a child made the cruel reality of the natural world hard to understand. So lost was I in my annoyance for this good for nothing ungrateful, murderous shrimp, that I failed to notice that I was no longer under the water, and I was now outside, in fact I only noticed because the neutral temperature dropped and I began to shiver.  I understand that changes in temperature in dreams seem a little odd; maybe someone opened a window in the house, a draft perhaps? Regardless, that is what happened, ignoring the obvious “as if” moment. Outside a layer of mist settled on the surface of the water, apparently the woodwork teacher’s suspect activity had flooded the entire neighbourhood, of course it had, and that seems perfectly plausible. At this point, despite the previous glaringly obvious clues I did get a slight inkling this may be a dream… by no means hundred percent sure, but close enough for my wake self to get suspicious.

Some dreams I have had, must have been so convincing to me that I would not realise until I experience “déjà vu”, only the participating person/s will have no recollection, at which point I would be forced to accept that the utterly convincing dream must have been just that. Simple dreams are more likely to convince than the more complex, simplicity being directly proportional to believability in my experience. This dream however, with its blatant weirdness and odd happenings, does not sit in the category, the longer the dream commenced, the less believable it became.

So being that I was now wading in now much shallower water outside, my surroundings at changed somewhat to better match and create a more convincing lie. I was, as usual closer to my home, but only as far as our local shop, which must have still been a “Forboys” judging by how long ago I had this particular dream. Now it is just another co-op, we really do not need any more of those at all… the recession having destroyed what was left of most of the fairly original chains, leaving behind only the large corporations which can afford to undercut others prices… not that this is the case with co-op,” overpriced to the end” or “you pay the convenience” should be their new slogan. The area was fairly similar to that of real life, with exceptions to the extra tree that had sprouted for dramatic effect coupled with the mist water. Apart from these things, it was fair true to reality, the same street lights giving everything an unfavourable orange glow, because, of course, it was night, at least my dream self is consistent.

Instalment 6 – See? I knew it was a bed! III – Tuesday, 06 November 2012

Perhaps to punish me for my realisation of my dreams selves lie, I was no longer wearing those galoshes so kindly given, and was instead standing exposed in now knee high water. The owners of the shop felt this to be their prime time to become pirates, the stood atop the shop using a telescope to check for “brigands” and other such immoral people that may steal their buried “ATM gold”. They were dressed the part naturally, though they seemed to be a little confused as to what pirates do… surely they should be trying to rob the ATM, not guard it. Not that these “pirates” were in any way an important part of my dream, they were likely just there as an environment filler.

The focal point of my dream was easily the giant green apples that had materialised around me, like a huge game of apple bob.  Apples littered the water as far as I could see in any direction; several people were guiding their path through the water from perches using long sticks, creating a kind of apple procession, simultaneously shattering any indication of normality, and completely destroying the dream illusion. On this occasion, the complete loss did not result in the dream changing direction to the morbid and terrifying, but to the wonderfully weird and amusing. The men guiding the apples through the water were hardly dressed appropriately, their clothing resembling pyjamas, to the point where by I was almost sure they were, they even wore the hats. When I noticed their slippers I was completely sure, these men were absolutely wearing pyjamas.  

Instalment 7 – See? I knew it was a bed! III – Wednesday, 07 November 2012

An odd choice of attire for such a wet place, and what on earth were they doing with those apples? I watched then for a considerable amount of time, not quite concealing the look of confusion spread across my face. After spending a great deal of time watching these strange people I realised they were moving the apples towards my house, makes sense as most of my dreams either start at, as I have mentioned before, or move towards my home, the reasons as to why were still very unclear.

The water I noticed had gotten a lot wilder, temporality submerging me every now and then. The apples bobbed enthusiastically up and down, and they became hard to the apple Sheppard’s to control, sometimes launching out from the water and splashing down again. It was then I realised, these were not apples, as if by cue every single apple submerged, turned over, and became their true form.

They were all floating circle beds. “See I knew it was a bed”.

As I said, it was definitely one of my weirder pointless dreams, but worthy of note none the less.

Wasp loop

This work has never been edited, it is a raw, rough draft.

Dream two

Instalment 3 – Wasp loop – Friday, 02 November 2012

This, is quite possibly the most simple dream I have ever had, I was even younger than the before dream, it may be my first I have committed to memory. It exhibits a looping structure, the actual dream short, just repeated. Like most sane people I have a good healthy fear of insects that wish to harm me, the worst of which being the wasp. The fear at this point was based on hearsay and their tendency to get up in your face whenever they fly by; I had never been stung, and neither would I be until I reached the age of 22. The attack was completely unprovoked, I was on my way into work, and it just stung me… for no reason, I was not harassing it, I was not running away, or doing anything else that is known to incur their wrath. The sting caused my arm to swell up and cause an amount of pain I had not even considered when running from them all those years… the irrational fear became justifiably rational from that point on. I had to visit the hospital for what they called “just a bad reaction”, and needless to say, I did not return to work that day, such a traumatic experience.

The fact that I had not experienced this yet served as no comfort to my dream self, she was more frightened of them than even my wake self.

Once again, the dream took place in my living room, the focal point this time being the round coffee table, to which I am not even sure if we have ever actually owned. Under the table was a round mat, a rug, the kind that people used to have back then with the floral pattern and borders, a circle in a circle. The only other feature I remember vague is the fireplace, painted to look pewter, a nice effect actually, the pretend gas flames in silence.

I was wearing a white button up dress which came down to my knees and my hair tied loose. I wore no shoes or sock, bare underfoot, I could feel the carpet beneath me. My parents were sat, on what I do not know; details of dreams rarely stay with me. Every time I wake from a dream I try hard to commit it to memory, each one precious to me, like it is a piece of my life I loose, I want to lock them in a box and keep them safe inexistence. Small things, details, which I so desperately cling to, always slip away as the morning light intrudes. When I try to write, some details flood back to me, help me to understand and fit them back together, disappointing when this does not follow, losing them forever, a part of myself.

I do feel sorry for people which have never had, or remember any of their dreams, they are missing out on one of life’s greatest treasures, and exploration of their mind in a way their wake self could not. What are you true fears? These are usually realised best in dreams, they show them for what they are, corporeal or internal. To sleep, and awaken hours later from hours of blackness seems lonely, secluded.

Anyway, the wasp, being the little useless git it is, chases me around a table… again and again and again. Around the table, never over or under… around…the whole dream. Not terribly exciting, but worthy of note as it is the first I can remember, not all dreams can be exciting fun fuelled adventures. Damn wasp would not leave me alone. I don’t remember the wake; I assume it happened; otherwise I would still be there now in a perpetual torturous loop of wasp filled hell. For that not being true, I am glad.

Nanowrimo – well, the intention was there

This work has never been edited, it is a raw, rough draft.

 

Dream one;

Instalment 1 – A disturbed laugh – Thursday, 01 November 2012

This particular dream I must have first had at the age of 8 or 9? Now understand that the average 9 year old will not have seen much in the way of horror movies, due to the wisely chosen choices of their parent, and I was of no exception. The scariest thing I had probably seen was likely Bambi’s mother getting “shot”, off screen, with heavily implied death connotations, or following in the Disney theme, maybe Mufasa falling into a heard of stampeding buffalo… Or whatever animal they were. This nightmare frequented my sleep for at least of couple of years… Perhaps because it is hardly the sort of thing a small child could forget, despite desperately wanting to. I remember waking up after the dream “had ended” (aka. Startled awake in a feverish sweat) and the first thing I did, perhaps cruelly, for venting purposes, was tell my little sister all the lovely details. After which I would spend a good half an hour thinking about pretty, happy things like unicorns and puppies, to trick my brain into somehow starting a new dream that would be infinitely preferable. I am fairly pleased I no longer have this dream, as it would likely scare the “begeezers” out of me even now.

So, on with the dream! This dream… like many of them starts in my house. As usual, most of my family are there (although this rarely happens in real life, being the busy, scheduled people that we are) in the living room. I believe at this point in time my living room will have been some paint experiment gone wrong or my mum’s, she had painted the walls this pinkish burgundy colour and then used a sponge to plaster over in a mottled effect some yellowish paint… Yeesh, not the best choice for interior design, but at the time my Mum seemed quite proud of it. Anyway, my point was that what the room looked like exactly is lost in some kind of “dream fog”. I can only recall the blinds over the large window at the front of the house, the kind that string together and can be adjusted to let more, or less light in etc. These blinds have since been thoroughly destroyed by our new “puppies” Charlie and Alfie, who feel in is their sworn duty to destroy anything necessary, or that will make a large mess when ripped to pieces, exhibit A; our late beanbag.

So, it was night time, as with all scary dreams, my all the family was in the living room with me watching something on TV… Could not tell you what at all… It’s a dream; it would probably not even have made sense anyway. So we were watching this non-specified TV show late in the evening, for unknown reasons, as with most of my dreams, I decided to look out of the window (Which in hind sight, is probably why I remember the blinds over the window so vividly). Outside, was what I could only assume to be a homeless man, just standing outside of our gate, walking in very small circles and he looked to be muttering to himself. He was dressed in a ridiculous number of layers of clothing, and had it been real life, he would probably not even have been able to move, let alone walk in circles. His skin look so dirt smudged, and in some places grey, that had I been near enough to touch his mysteriously stained clothes, he would have stank something fierce. His boots, in true movie homeless fashion were open at the ends and toes could be seen through the holes of his socks… This part is particularly memorable for me due to my extreme, inconsolable foot phobia at the time.  His toes were yellowed, infected, and generally vomit inducing, this must have been one of those occasions in a dream whereby you can see more than you were ever see in real life. My eyesight is truly terrible, (although by no means blind) and I would never have been able to see his feet… But my nightmare “thought” it would zoom in on those particular features for me, presumably for “shits and giggles”. This phenomenon can also be seen in daydreams, I always used to have the same daydream where I would be on a seesaw, and the seesaw would never work properly, and no matter how much you will it to, your brain rebels and makes it go wrong in an infuriating loop.

 My concept of time became at this point, a little skewed, that “dream fog” rolled over again, which at this point, really did look like fog. (And thus the mystery f the origin of my coined term “Dream fog” had been located… actually only just now; writing really helps to piece these things together). My dream self assumed that an hour or more must have passed and with it, the TV show ended. This is the point in my dream where the whole mood shifts, an all enclosing panicked tightness took over, a feeling of dread so severe I didn’t know whether to run, or just throw up. Visions span around my head, knives, jagged and “evil” looking as well as a quiet disturbed laughter which sounded oddly far away. My eyes trained to the gaps between to the blinds to track our lurkers progress, my parents and siblings (Karl, Stephanie and Christopher) were strangely un-phased by these obviously suspicious developments, no one else had even noticed the dramatic shift in mood, nor were they yet concerned by the “homeless” man’s presence. The man, assuming that was what he was, now had a beard, I’m not sure if this is because my dream self found him more scary with a beard, and therefore felt the need to make things worse for herself or what, but regardless the man was now un-shaven and standing on the front lawn.

A patch of the grass was emitting a purple glow, similar to smoke, but with a more pulsing quality close to the entrance of the garden behind the “man”. The purple formed an aura around a bundle on the ground, which upon closer inspection was moving. My family had now also noticed that something was not right, they had joined me by the window, the man was now holding the bundle carefully, and the purple glow had disappeared, although he had not moved from his spot on the lawn. The man un-wrapped the bundle to reveal the face of a baby, a normal baby by all visual aspects, but still… still… something was wrong. An expression of love filled up the man; he stared at the child as a mother would of a new born baby, stroked its cheek and walked from the garden slowly. At this point I felt relief this creep was leaving, but I was not worried in the slightest for the child’s safety, he would not hurt it, of that much I was sure.

My relief was short lived… 4 foot outside the garden fence he stopped and stood perfectly still, as though he had forgotten something. I just wanted this man to leave; the more time went on the more I was convinced he was not a man… I did not know what, but human… no.  My dream self slowly began to realise this may be a dream and I now saw myself as though I were a spectator, and no longer through my dream selves eyes. The cue shot to my subconscious that the rules had been broken; there was no longer a need to keep the pretence of reality alive. I am not sure if this is the case with all people, but, when I dream my subconscious feels the need to trick me, take away my ability to tell fantasy from reality, keeping the dream tamed down and more convincing. Once this pretence has been broken and the illusion shattered, the subconscious is free to create whatever wills it. Usually, this translates to making the dreams becoming extraordinary nightmares, when it comes to my dreams I would rather live in the delusion. I will myself to wake.

Foolish of me really, the dream rebel will not let me wake, is the dream rebel me? Or something else beyond my control, I wonder if the subconscious really is separate from you, or is the real you… Not that I will ever know. Of course I stayed asleep, to wake me would have been a convenience, and I would not want to make things easier for myself, would I? So I remained asleep, despite my efforts to wake, the dream world took hold. I have no clue where my young mind conjured the events from that unfolded.

The disturbed laughter I had previously heard from so far away was now coming from the mouth of the homeless. He no longer seemed just dirty, but foul and rotten, his teeth, broken and blackened into stubs, small stubs, like new baby teeth where suddenly it’s most prominent feature, his un-shaven face now appeared to be moulting, shedding, leaving cleaner hair free skin behind. The skin looked younger underneath, smoother and it had regained the elasticity that the rest of his skin lacked.

He was now cooing at the swaddled baby, intermitted by the occasional eerie laugh. For some reason unbeknownst to me, someone had opened the front door, exciting the homeless man. He took only one step towards the door and stopped, back away again and looked inside his jacket pockets, clearly searching for something. He rummaged for a short while, muttering, and brought out an item that glinted in the ugly orange streetlight. He looked to be debating something of importance, starring at his partly concealed item, before nodding and bringing his eye gaze to mine. Normally at this point in a dream you would fear your own safety, on this occasion I was not scared for myself, but rather what he would do, this unsettled man seemed to unpredictable. Uncertainty has always unnerved me, in the same way the dark frightens me, the not knowing allows your imagination to run wild and conjure the most unlikely but horrifying circumstances, coupled with my rule of illusion being broken, allows for the creation of the worst scenario.

Instalment 2 – A disturbed laugh II -Friday, 02 November 2012

The visions swimming around my head had evolved, I now saw mainly curvatures, flashes of silver, glistening lights and reflections of my own eyes. Translucent, creating a film over the dream images, the man blurred and perfectly still, paused, ready to proceed when my dream self became ready to give him her full attention. My mind wandered, still in a futile attempt to change the course of events, to redirect the outcome. The vision fog was lifting; a new bubble of dread took hold in its place, moving up my throat and catching there… Movement resumed.

The item now concealed in his sleeve, arm dangling, the remaining arm cradling the infant, eyes low and hair concealing his face. A breeze visited, the temperature dropped considerably and I felt the coldness travel up my spine and transform to a shudder. I was now highly aware that I was no longer in the safe confines of my home, but stood shivering in the night air, my protective aura for my own safety lifted. The bubble in my throat burst and spread to every fibre of my being, moving down every vein, every nerve, taking over. I wanted to run, wanted to, but my feet firmly rooted me to the spot, terror gripped me there. I was more afraid of this man than I could comprehend, my feelings distorting by the minute.  

His item was now in view, it became grossly apparent he was grasping a knife of sorts. The blade looked ornamental, certainly not a practical shape, the sort used in fantasy movies today, not practical, but no less sharp. He moved it up and inspected it closely, testing the sharpness with his thumb, cutting as though it were a cold blade on warm butter. He seemed reassured by this and nodded to himself and sucked his bleeding thumb. Content for a moment, he continued cooing to the baby, he was rewarded with a happy gurgle, breaking the grim mood for but a second.

Pleased by the infant’s reaction to his “love”, a grimace of a smile stole over his face, his mouth would have convinced no one, but his eyes spoke volumes. The message was clear; he would do anything for this child, anything within his power, for he was her guardian. Her… Yes it was a beautiful baby girl, a terrible beauty rarely seen in children, yet, here is was in this pre-child.

The blood from his thumb was now running down his arm and pooling in a fold of his rag-ish clothes, the stain spreading in fabric lines, forming horizontals and verticals which temporarily filled my sight. Fabric became skin, spreading through the creases like an ink blot spreading, filling voids, canyons, as big as they had become. He smudged the pre-untouched journey of the blood, and my sight was returned to me… no longer obsessing it, but with no relief. My childish mind wanted to cry, no tears would come, I could not hide behind them, close my eyes and return to my bed, the dream world had me, and it intended to keep me… at least until it was done, it… she… me.

He pushed down the flap of skin he has created, stemming the flow somewhat; assessing then rejecting it.  He scouted his visible skin with the blade, gliding softly, stroking ever so gently. A demeanour shift, his face hardened, the ornate blade rested on his cheek, the clean supple renewed skin reddened against the cold metal, hairs puckered upright.

Determinedly he pushed the blade harder against the skin… a trickle of blood escaped, dripped and splashed into my dream fog, filling a sink basin, the drop changing the clean water to a pink hue, polluting it…the symbolism would have likely meant nothing to me. The man, either did not feel or care for the wounded he had inflicted upon himself, the hard expression remained constant.

By the time the dream fog has dissipated the man had cut a massive piece of flesh nearly completely from his face, exposing his blacked baby teeth and filling his mouth with blood, the basin was now saturated, I was attempting to mop it with a cloth, succeeding only in spreading it around. He tore the piece from his face, the knife impeding his progress abandoned in half buried by grass. He stored the piece of flesh tucked in his hand holding the baby, stain spread to the blanket. Moving to another flap created by the knife he viciously tore another piece, taking with it a great deal of the under muscle… he laughed.

His laugh became a louder… he shrieked, “Time to feed the baby!” he shrieked louder, moving the blood soaked skin to her mouth. All I could hear was his laugh, his deranged laugh, the dream blackened… I woke.