This morning I dreamt that I was something like lightning, and able to travel in between planets. A Thunderbird, maybe.

We were at a camp of some kind. We'd been doing physical labor to clean the place up... lots of trees and winding paths... near the end of the dream a big bus showed up that opened its side into a long ice cream stand. There were candies and syrups and all sorts of goodies.

I have been dreaming of bald eagles for two weeks now.

My grandfather hugged me in a dream last night.

I saw an alien craft in my dreams.

Yesterday I dreamed of trying to pull chewing gum out of my mouth so I could speak, but as I tried the gum stuck to the inside of my mouth, and seemed to multiply, as I kept pulling out sticky chunks but somehow there was always more stuck on my teeth.

My dream memories aren't strong lately, so I know I need to write down what I can remember.

Zombie

Last night I dreamt of a zombie apocalypse. We were having to fight our way out of my old house. I had a blade that was curved, and slipped around my hand, so that the blade curved out and away from my body.

Coyote

Last night I dreamt that I was calling quarters as I have seen an Incan Shaman do, opening a circle with a group of people, when someone spotted a coyote. I remember looking over and seeing him there, the trickster, he ran off when we noticed him. I remember getting a good look at his face though.

Lots of apocalyptic themes in my dreams lately, too. The old is truly passing away, another great shift is/has happening/ed.

Train Ride

I was on a train, headed towards school for the first time. Nervousness, excitement, melancholy over leaving my family. We file off the train and walk beneath little shade trees the couple of blocks to the campus. I am nearly walking through the gates when I realize I have left my purse back on the train. The train will leave without anyone finding it. I drop to all fours and run powerfully, my claws etching into the pavement and pulling me forward. My muscles burn with strength as I leap over people and cars. Once I reach the train station I find the terminal (or whatever those are called, at train stations)has been shut off, but this is no obstacle. I simply shift again and fly over. It is then that I realize that I have been led here by a small group, wishing to cash in on the reward being offered for one such as myself. I consider simply flying high and leaving right away, but in the end, decide that it could be worth the entertainment. The man leading them is convinced that I will join his party. Not only is he delusional, he's arrogant. I break glass from several yards away, leading them down the wrong corridors and separating the group up. The man is alone, and I step in front of him, into his mind, and make him understand what he's been doing to all those people, make him see who he is working for. He doesn't really look anymore. I leave myself completely visible to him only, laying against a wall while his companions search endlessly, as he tries not to look into my face. I walk amongst them unnoticed.

I have my purse. I'm leaving now. He looks completely bewildered, and his team is very confused about his sudden lack of interest. I fly off to join the rest of my group...

-Being caught, and handcuffed, and led outside to the dozens of officials. Waiting long enough for them to see me, then turning invisible, phasing through my handcuffs and flying off, just to see the look on their faces.

-Being at a Tori concert with small group of people, being able to sit just a few feet away from her and her piano. She had wild curly hair and seemed sad. When we hugged her at an intermission, she didn't hug us like she used to, she didn't get very close. I woke up with one song she'd been singing stuck in my head, it was one I'd never heard before.

not giving in to being chased

back to mid-air acrobatics and fight scenes; earning back my bravery and will to take chances across lanes of traffic. Hand-to-hand combat with a man in a suit. I was back in Wichita, near maize and 21st. I can't recall whether we were moving slowly or so quickly that the world felt slow.

On the threshold of waking I thought about the fact that it was dreams like this that inspired me to write the stories I do. Or, did. I always write them in my mind but rarely on paper any more.

Flying through what felt like old school buildings- a red-tailed hawk being trapped, and setting him free- knowing that later They will come to find what i have done, the broken windows and missing bird, but feeling like i'm plenty ahead of Them.

driving by the airport on our escape. all the lights are out, there are people outside with flags trying to wave the planes away because it is not safe for them to land. the pilots cannot see them in the night. a small group of onlookers and i watch as one plane crashes audibly beyond the terminal building; another tries to correct the mistake too late and the body of the plane crashes around the control tower and topples it in fire.

the realization that my flight will be canceled, and that i will have to keep moving forward, on foot, to my destination.

Flames

The building we were all staying in was on fire; it was smoldering from the inside out, basement-up. I could only see the fire through small cracks in the foundation, and some people didn't even believe me that it was burning. I kept trying to dial 911 on my phone but the call never connected.

An Assortment

-I woke up with Madonna's "Sanctuary" playing incessantly in my head.

-I found Maggie, my brother's dog, who has been missing for about 36 hours. She seemed very scared as I carried her home.

-I was sitting in a small room waiting for Barack Obama to come t the podium and give a speech.

-I was watching Tori act in her first movie and she looked through the screen at me for a moment.

Mouthful of Metal

My most recent dream had a recurring theme for me- the inability to speak. At its worst my teeth are rotting painfully out of my mouth and i cannot form words at all. This time, my mouth was full of sharp metal braces with rubber bands zig-zagging all over the place. Variations on these types of dreams in the past have also included my having a mouth full of syringe needles, broken glass or sand. A lot of time these speech-impediment dreams are accompanied with partial blindness, like my eyes fade in and out of working properly. At least I have taken the illness and am trying to externalize it; I just have to find the ability to spit it out.

Illness

Inside the house we were safe, but the flood was steadily creeping higher outside. We'd already been stuck in the house for days- me, my sister, brother and father and Heath. I had been feeling very sick and spend most of my time laying on the sofa. The sickness was making me touchy. I was whiny because I didn't feel well, and weak because my immune system was on over-time. I was tired of being stuck in the house, just like we all were. I wanted to get out to see if the cats were okay, I wanted the medicine that what as at home. I remember my sister saying that our cousin could have brought the stuff over, but he was being lazy. I was so stressed out and upset during the whole dream. The fever and the burning in my throat and the disorientation all added up to just feeling terrible. At one point my father made some snarky comment and I blew up at him, yelling and crying and getting so worked up that I started shaking from head to toe, trembling out of sickness and weariness. When I couldn't stop shaking, Shan came over and put her arms around me, offering what comfort she could. That was when I woke up. I awoke with the knowledge that my repressed anger was what was making me sick, and that I should do something about it.

God save the child

dream #1: it's getting hot and heavy with someone i don't recognize. Suddenly, before the great act, he gets up and walks out the door, mumbling about sin in the lord's eyes or something. he leaves me alone (and rather unsatisfied). i'm offended at first, but then i become aware that there is someone else in the house and headed my way right now. so i wait.

dream #2: I emerge from what feels like months of cloudiness. My daughter is there. she is young, just old enough to start crawling. I carry her everywhere with me, talking to her, making faces, laughing at her smile and giant dark eyes. My mother's entire family is there, my aunts and uncles, my grandmother... i remember the way they looked at me with their gentle, knowing smiles, watching the way a i doted on her and fussed over her. Near the end of the dream I started becoming conscious and the worries started filtering into my dream- what if i can't afford it? where can i live now? what will happen? But when I look at my daughter, with her toffee-colored skin and black curly hair as she motors her way across the carpet and pulls herself triumphantly to her feet using a table for support, i am flooded with relief. anything is worth it, for her.

snippets

last night i found a salmon, he could sort of walk on his fins like they were legs.

we were setting off fireworks and my childhood home in the back yard. the great big cottonwood tree caught some of the sparks and started catching fire. I ran to get the hose. i tried putting the fire out but soon the entire inside of the tree was smoldering and glowing. at the end of the dream i was pretty much in shock, and i told dad to call the fire department, because the tree was burning down from the inside out

that tree is one of my most reliable dream cues. so many times I have begun a dream in its branches, and now it's "burning down".

Dear John

Dream bits:
Sneaking out of the house to meet up with a small group of friends/ They lived in a house only a few blocks away. Flying was very easy. I hid when they came out of the house and transformed into a giant angry wasp as a joke, but changed back before they decided to attack me. I had been spending a lot of time with these people earlier in the dream, we were all allies.

I met someone named John last night. I was pursuing someone, maybe a thief, and he was able to not only confound the thief into basically surrendering, but he lifted an enormous metal gate and slid it back into place (with me sitting on top of the gate) effortlessly. He had a quiet manner and very penetrative eyes. Something seemed luminescent about him. I remember introducing myself, though I don't remember who I introduced myself as, and I was struck by how his hand felt in mine. There was a sort of current between. I thanked him for the help, and then he pointed out that I should get going to do the announcements, or I'd be late. (I used to do the morning announcements, for a while, my senior year in high school. I did not get the impression that I was in a high school environment, so this was interesting.) I also remember feeling like he could see me even after he was gone, and that I felt disarmed but not threatened.

I think I've determined that I fly as a human with the intent of a bird in my dreams. For a while I assumed that because of the nature of how I flied that I transformed into the Raven herself, but when the images come most clearly I am always still human, though I know I have shapeshifted before in dreams.

The Lionfish

A very busy night of dreaming last night. I need to work on remembering them because lately the details upon waking have been so sketchy and disjointed. I must still be processing a whole lot. I remember some faces, and I remember specifically watching a lionfish last night- Except the one in my dreams could look completely streamlined and sleek, then puff all his spines out like a puffer fish, for a surprise attack.

If memory serves...

The aforementioned long conversation with an unfamiliar person was actually with a very certain person, and wasn't a "conversation" at all. At least, not with words...

Flying High

This morning I dreamt I was at the school. I think I had an *intense* conversation with someone early on but can't clearly remember who it was or what was said. Later, I wanted to explore around the campus even though it was dinner time. I took off flying to take a look around. A lot of my flying dreams recently have been dampened with feelings of heaviness, or inability to get more than a few feet off the ground. This was not the case last night as I was soaring all over the place, through windows and over rooftops, with no problem. It was wonderful to feel that light and free again.

Runaway

I remember pushing through a screen window in a hurry. There was a younger girl at my side and we jumped out the window onto the wet grass. It was very dark and it felt like there were storms in the sky. We ran together, me half-carrying her. We met up with a man who was going to help us escape. Across the wide field of a park we ran, thinking that all was clear, until I felt the others pressing in from the north. Before we could find safety they were there and tore her from my arms. I reeled and bit in protest. After a struggle I freed myself and vanished from their sights, trailing the girl and captors. I watched them separate her from her daemon (see: Dark Materials Trilogy) and go opposite directions. Somehow she managed to get free even though she was dazed from missing her daemon. I followed her into a building complex of some kind and found that she was evading me; she didn't trust me now that I let her get caught. I found the man we had been waiting for and we set off together to bring her to safety. I pleaded with her to stay calm and come with us as we trailed her because I knew the others were not very far behind. Out of exhaustion she finally collapsed and I lifted her into the man's big truck, almost like a fire engine. Now the most pressing matter was finding her Daemon. I tuned in my thoughts and searched psychically for her frequency, telling him where to turn on the streets. It let us to an open garage piled to the brim with junk- old furniture, trash bags, random objects thrown in with disregard. I pointed to one of the trash bags and tore it open. After digging around I found a small tray with a piece of old food and a very timid-looking cricket inside. I very gently handed the girl the tray and she took with both hands, starry eyed, and lifted the cricket out. She put the insect and her shoulder, and her entire being brightened significantly.

Tornado

I with my mother, father and siblings at a large family gathering of some kind. My mother seems to be just staring off, not interacting with anyone there, even though it's her side of the family. People keep trying to talk with her to no avail. I tell her something really important and she just stares. I start crying really hard, so hard that i start choking on sobs as I'm sleeping. The entire ride back to the hotel she is practically a zombie. As we drive down the road I see a funnel cloud, slowly rotating and brewing on the tail of a storm. I watch with horror as the shingles start to fly off rooftops in the distance. Dad accelerates to arrive more quickly. When we are filing out of the car i learn she is going to a separate hotel room. I hold her face in my hands and stare into her eyes with all my courage and say, "I love you. I miss you. but if this is the way you want it then it's the way it will be".

She just stares. When I wake up it is raining.

Psychic Paintball

In my dreams this morning there was a lot of flying and mid-air acrobatics. This is a good sign because within the past year or so my ability to fly in my dreams has been lessened. It was good to soar across the skies again.

I was engaged in a battle that I can only describe as Psychic Paintball. I think that there was a very relevant purpose to the battle because we were all taking it very seriously. I was shooting red beams and bursts of of energy and the other team was using blue. There was something we had that they wanted back from us. I remember being handed a bow to use with arrows but that it was shoddily made and splintered the first time I used it. When they managed to get back what we'd taken (which was a small green, glowing orb of some kind) I had to become invisible and go looking for it because no one else in the group was stealthy enough to do so. They provided distraction while I nosed around their base. However I was discovered before I could locate the orb and set out a massive fleet after me. It was the dark of night now and I managed to stay enough ahead to find a small tent and ducked into it for shelter. Inside was a very haggard-looking woman with a very wise look in her eye. I may have called her Yambe-Akka (from Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy, the witch goddess of death) and asked her to please keep her spiders from me because they were crawling all over the floor of the cabin. She agreed to hide me there. I looked up at the roof of the tent and saw a brilliantly starry sky, not at all like the clouds that were outside the tent.

Camped Out

I had been living out of my car. I was in the parking lot of my workplace and waiting for my shift to start but while I was waiting I began to observe a trend of some kind- there were certain people around that I knew had been sent by the Others. I managed to stay hidden and observe as they tried to get strategically placed for when I came to work. -shift- T. and I are in a small room with luggage, glancing at each other hesitantly. I get the feeling that we will be here for a while (though I can't clearly remember where "here" was- only that we had to lay low for some time).

Trapped

This morning I was with my sister and mother in a building that felt like a school, with many small rooms branching off of several hallways. The Others were searching for me, and knew that I would certainly come to help my sis and mom get out of that place. I was able to get into the building amidst heavy traffic by assuming an invisibility of sorts (similar to the "fiercely held modesty" that is talked about in the Dark Materials Trilogy) and working my way through the rooms. When at last I found them they turned out to be in the heaviest guarded room of all. Neither of them were able to fight back, much less fly away with me. Once again my lucidity was fueled by the need to push myself, to test my limits in order to achieve what I came to do. As I tried to devise a plan of escape I kept having to psychically distort the Others' memories as they came near the room, to make them forget it existed or to convince them they had already secured the room to buy us time. Unfortunately this made me weary and careless, and eventually someone entered the room. my family hid and I tried to regain invisibility, but this person saw through me (or rather, didn't see through me...) and sounded the alarm. The alarm set off the building's main defense system, which was cybernetic woman with black metal "mecha" suit with all the appropriate bells and whistles- lasers, guns, thick armor. I ordered my family to stay back and tried to prevent the MechWoman from breaking through the small window and annihilating us. I recall what the black metal felt like as I made myself intangible just in time to avoid her massive claw grip. After several shots and small explosions I could feel my energy being quickly drained. In a moment of rage, I accelerated my consciousness and grabbed her head as she looked through the window- I pulled her neck taut and felt the grinding resistance of her mecha suit about to recoil out of my grasp-I pulled her head harder and shot a beam from my hand, through the metal and gears, straight through the flesh of her neck. Before her head hit the ground I summoned the last of my strength to lift my mother and sister (who seemed unconscious) and shoot straight out the window, high into the sky and away from the isolated building, to safety.

Busy Night.

This morning was one of those mornings when I wake up after what should have been more than enough sleep (9+ hours) and feel completely pooped. I must have been multitasking in the dreaming because I certainly don't feel rested. Lately my extended family and close friends have been everywhere in my dreams, as if I were trying to keep close to them, or vice versa. A few of my recurring dream characters (and one in particular) have felt more distant as of late... I wonder if its me doing the distancing or them. Or both. Interpreting dream experiences into something one can learn from with clarity is a slippery act; I'm aware enough to understand that when dream experiences are shared with other potential living beings, the message is not just a personal one, it's much more encompassing. That said, I keep seeing the Storm, in nearly every dream I've had over the past week; I also keep getting/feeling very ill. Not only have I felt physically "blah" for a while now, but all my dreams have some message of clearing out, letting the damaged fall away and letting the new, healthy pieces show. Even my nightmare from a few nights back I understand now was touching on my never-failing ability to victimize myself willingly and sub-consciously.

It stormed here yesterday and it might do so again today. Storms are consistently roiling in my mind's eye in an effort o understand what my biggest dream theme as of late has to share with me. But as I stated in my blog, my fear of some extreme situation in regards to a storm keeps me from really jumping into that possibilities.

A Dream from the Past: (c. Feb. 2008)
Far out in the center of an ocean, I am aboard a stationary research vessel with a handful of other researchers. What we are looking for is unclear, except that it plays some important role with Extra-terrestrial life. There is a large man who works there as a mechanic, who makes me feel vulnerable. This initial feeling of discomfort is fueled by my coworkers' disregard for my apprehension. Eventually the man attacks me and I am raped, and strangely enough, I cannot fight him off- in fact I hardly even try, instead just surrendering and weeping pitifully. Some time later the Great Storm is coming, and I realize that even though I can fly people off the station, I could never have the time to save everyone. As they are starting to panic the ship begins to break apart and flood. We flee to the watch tower and I become distressed, knowing that I will not be able to save everyone on board. Then seemingly out of nowhere a sea plane with long white wings appears and lands on the choppy water; my father (who is a pilot in waking life) has showed up with enough free space to evacuate everyone safely. We load up the plane- people mostly swim, but I carry the weaker ones- and are able to take off and fly above the storm clouds and away to safety.

Apocalypse Now

My friends and neighbors were storing food, building shelters and exchanging horror stories about what they had already experienced about the near "end of the world" (which is a large recurring plot theme of my dreams, accompanied by a great storm). When asked what I knew about it, I said, "All I know is what my dreams tell me... and they have got to change."

Nightmare

Nightmares for me are infrequent, but what I experienced last night certainly was one.

I was out shopping with M, a good friend. We had plans to see a movie later on and we were taking our time. I remember the inside of a clothing store we stopped at and looking at a jewelry wall in another. The rest of the night paled from my memory but I recall waking up the next day. I felt terrible, ill on all levels and disoriented. As I began to wake up more and more, my heart started racing and I would sweat and grit my teeth together. I didn't understand what was happening, until M told me that she didn't remember much of the night before either, and that we must have blacked out somehow, because we'd been shooting up heroin (a substance I have never, an will never, touch in waking life). I instantly became aware of a metallic, hot smell that filled my nostrils and made my heart beat faster. Suddenly there were syringes all around me, uncapped, with their needles bent; I saw little red spots on my arms, and started panicking. At this point my anxiety in the dream furthered my lucidity. My stomach cramped and my muscles tensed and ached, I felt very feverish and cold-to-hot spells. It occurred to me that I was feeling withdrawal symptoms, which led to the more terrifying realization that I wanted to do it again, and fast. Instantly I fought back the need to reach for the needles and brew some more. The more I fought it the more my muscles cramped, my body felt as if it were fighting me back. I started to cry. At this point I realized that my jaw hurt very badly, a sensation that began to creep over to my awake physical self and started to wake me up. when finally I did open my eyes my heart was racing, I was doubled over on my side and my body ached, particularly where I had been clenching my jaw so tightly. I had to lie there for a few minutes to calm down, wake up fully and get my bearings. I couldn't sleep for quite a while afterwards, as well... the images and feelings kept haunting me and as soon as I revisited them in my mind, my heart would start racing again.

All and all, not an experience I ever want to visit again.

Ribbons

This morning my sister and I were trying to put together a treehouse of sorts, a hideaway. Not far off from our chosen tree was a building, seemingly a hospital, but with medical practices I am not familiar with at all... I remember being in the elevator with maybe 3 other people (the woman beside me had a baby, we were trying to find out what was wrong with him) including a doctor and another patient... there was a small lever on the control panel, I tried moving flipping it upwards, but rather than helping the elevator up the shaft, the entire floor of the elevator skewed- it slanted dramatically and the two women on the far side of the elevator slid against the wall, and I had to keep myself from sliding down with them. I flipped the switch again and all was well... In the search for wood to construct our treehouse (which, I was convinced, also needed to be a sort of rocketship) we found an old picture with a thick wooden frame. We recognized the picture as one of our late grandpa's paintings and when we removed the frame, three long ribbons of pink, blue and purple fell out of the frame, as well as 3 shorter ribbons of the same color. She held the long ones and I held the shorter... as I began to wake up I heard him say " I trust that you have each found your respective ribbons and will keep them with you." I started crying in the dream and one cheek was even wet when I awoke...

Flea Market

This morning I was spending time at a flea market of sorts- the buildings looked as if they had come out of an old western movie slash chinatown environment... As I rifled through the old piles of junk I kept finding belongings with the names of my old classmates from high school on them. One was a jewelry chest full of all sorts of beads, one was a small purse with an embroidered name, a pair of glasses, a backpack with lots of buttons on it... I recall having armfuls of stuff that I wanted to take with me but I soon was out of space in my arms to take everything...

Introductions

Seeing as I am 23 years old as of right now and have spent half of my life or so exploring The Dreaming (as I affectionately refer to it) there is quite a bit of catching up to do.

The first lucid dream I ever remember having was in the backyard of the Bel Aire house, with the huge Cottonwood Tree in the back yard (both of these symbols frequent my dreams). I was playing outside when a large rupture appeared before me in the Earth, and what I perceived to be The Devil came out of it. I am probably 12 years old at the time and quite terrified of these immense demonic creature now staring me down, but a beam of light come from behind/above me and burns through him almost instantly- this same beam lifts me into the air and tells me I am a light princess (which I have always thought was actually a play on my actual name, which means "light") and gives me a sort of wand thingy that will keep me safe from this demon-being from now on.

That dream was fairly early in my life. When I was maybe 14 years old I remember having a dream that I was learning how to fly- I had to run and triple-jump like Mario in Mario 64 to take off. I also dreamed I was able to transform into a Sailormoon-like superhero (which I got a kick out of in Waking Life). It was at this time that my dreams began to chain together as if they were each different chapters in a story book. Every time I become lucid I am a character of sorts, and there is always a mission or something to be accomplished. Usually this consists of saving people from some sort of capture or torment. Throughout the course of my dreaming I've "learned" different abilities, such as the ability to breathe under water, to pass through solid objects and more recently to shoot beams of energy and use telekinesis on large objects. I remember distinctly in one dream that if I could prove to a dream rival that I could change water into ice that he would free a hostage, and without hesitation I placed my fingertips in a bowl of water and felt its molecules freeze and harden. The ability to fly in my dreams used to be the only factor tying them together, but soon it became apparent that I was truly writing/experiencing an actual storyline, complete with a general (if not changeable) plot and recurring characters. There are a few individuals whose faces are never clear but whose identities are very much familiar to me in The Dreaming.

One dream that has been in my thoughts recently is one that occurred perhaps 5 months ago; I am being held in a sort of garage by men with large guns and larger muscles- they are shouting orders in a language I don't recognize, but seeing as language is a complicated form of basic communication I understand intuitively what they are saying. They say that in the water glasses that are being handed to the prisoners (there are maybe two dozen of us) are pieces of fruit that are a code; strawberries die tomorrow, lemons die today. Mine has a lemon in it. When I hear what they are planning I clench my hands, tied behind my back. Knowing that I must act sooner than I hoped I phase through the binds and soar far past the open garage door and the trapped people, high into the air, where they cannot see me for being blinded by the sun. I am filled with the plasma-light-solar energy and blast back down at them, releasing a stream of specifically aimed plasma bursts towards the captors. Suddenly the captives are free from their binds and on their feet, shouting joyously.

Another dream, this one from last night: My comrades and I are digging underground, trying to evade the alarms and spotlights now sweeping the rocky walls surrounding the compound. My instincts tell me that they suspect we are coming, but we are ahead of them. Once in the interior of the research facility we part ways and go about sabotaging their computers, their files, their experiments. The people who have been trapped here for so long look wild-eyed, ravaged, fearful. Suddenly we are discovered, and we must fight for our lives, and for their freedom- but there is no challenge that we do not rise to meet, and soon the captives are filing out the doors and into precious sunlight, which some have not seen in years.