Dream Log: March 18, 2004

We're standing in the area that we believe is the entrance to the big evil guy's hideout. I'm a mage. (I commonly play clerics.)

Our fighter realises that a piece of metal lying in the ground of a vacant plot is covering up the entrance to his hideout. He just rips it right out of the ground, and lo and behold it opens up into two underground entrances.

One of the entrances seems to be quite shallow, maybe only one room or so. We send our gnome cleric down. We realise she is walking towards a cell. Then we see the silhouette of a big brown bear. A pissed off big brown bear.

The rest of the party races down the stairs to get to her. It grabs for her, but she escapes.

We decide not to let anyone go by themselves to investigate anything. So we creep around the other entrance; the bear takes a few pot shots as we pass, but nothing significant.

We head along a corridor, and then up some stairs. There are bedrooms here - and we decide to have a nap. The place seems pretty empty, so we have to wait for the bad guy to turn up anyways.

I'm just about to turn in, and then one of our non-human colleagues calls me to the window. She's the only one who has seen the bad guy before - the only one who can identify him.

"That's him!! He's down there!! Quick! Come look out the window!"

I race over to the window...

"You were too slow..."

"Uh huh", I think shaking my head at the empty plot below. Then I head back towards the bed I had chosen.

Then our night watch calls out in a whisper:

"He's coming! He's coming!"

I turn on the light, much to the dismay of my party. They were hoping for a surprise attack.

I wave my hand at them, in a defiant, confident dismissal. I have every intention of taking the surprise advantage, but I won't do it as a coward.

Before he reaches the top of the stairs, I raise my hands well above my head. I loom in the corridor as a giant figure, while the rest of my party hides in nooks and crannies.

I yell, rather masculinely, "FIREBALL!!"

I wiggle my fingers above my head, completely unintimidated. I watch as the energy flows from my hands to the direction of the shadowy figure reaching the top of the stairs.

The man looks up from the plastic bag in his hands, and turns towards me.

I have the surprise factor!!

He just sighs. He holds his hand up, and small blue sparkles head from it in the direction of my fireball energy. He mutters, "Not now!"

The energies intermingle and dissipate. Now I am perplexed.

The man looks briefly around the area, and although it is not possible to see the other members of my party, his eyes flick over each of their hidey holes.

"Man, this guy is going to be tough," I think.

He just looks back towards his plastic bag. He says to the bag, but loud enough for everyone else to hear, "This is not the time for our show down! We have a bigger problem."

When I reach him, I see the bag has chewing gum in it. I look at him strangely. He does not attack us.

He says, "Take this! And watch it!"

He puts some of the colourful chewie in my hands. This is strange. And then I realise that there is twice as much gum now as there was from the moment ago that he had put it in my hand.

He is chanting something over the bag. But I can see that the contents are increasing despite his efforts.

I say, "I'll handle this!"

I rip a hole in his bag and yell, rather masculinely again, "FIREBALL!!"

I aim it into the bag, and it does NOTHING! Absolutely nothing.

He sighs again! And says, "Don't you think I have already tried everything like that."

With his lapse in concentration, the bag begins to double in size with its contents. I hold onto the hole that I ripped in the bag desperately not wanting anything to escape.

"Er.. how's your mend spell working?"

He rolls his eyes at me. He does not want to help me, but he can see the hole will also double in size. So he touches it with his finger, draws along the hole and it is mended.

I woke up, unable to defeat my enemy, which I was so keen to do, but instead being forced to work on an impossible task together with him. Oh, and I woke with a need to raise my hands about my head and yell, "FIREBALL!" - in a very ineffective manner.

It was some time in the 1950's. I didn't know for sure, but everything looked from about that era; the cars, the furniture, the clothing. Yet, for some reason, my family was the same age as now.

Outside the skies were black, but it was still bright outside, just like day. The streets were dead, houses were torn apart, street lights smashed, cars flipped. As I looked out and wondered, somehow I knew the exact time when the nuclear bombs were supposed to drop. I knew when the world was going to end. In all of this, I wanted to keep this information to myself.

"Come on, Andrew, dinner's ready," I heard a female voice call me from another room. It was probably my mom.

I got up from in front of the window and walked into the kitchen. The table was filled with all sorts of food: chickens, turkeys, hams, salads, cakes, pies. I guess this is our last meal together, I thought to myself. I looked again back at the magnificant feast. Something wasn't right. The food was ... uncooked? I shrugged my shoulders and sat down and piled some cake onto my plate.

For some time no one really ate. We sat in silence in our usual seats that we always occupy when having dinner at my grandmother's house. We sat in silence with our eyes glaring down at the food, but not eating. It was indescribably eerie.

"Well, it's going to be two hours, 45 minutes, and ... 17 seconds," I exclaimed as I set my digital Timex watch.

All five faces around the table instantly swung around and looked at me with a glaring evil. I knew I had slipped.

"Approximately, I mean. Know one really knows for sure," feeling my neck tense up as the last syllabol came from my mouth. I cleared my throat and turned my head back to my plate.

Even though I couldn't see him, I could feel that the man sitting beside my brother -- whom I did not know, looked a bit like my father but much younger -- was staring at me, clearly unimpressed.

"What do you mean by that?" he questioned quickly.

"I... I... I don't mean anything. Merely keeping everybody informed of the time, that's all." I stumbled with every word.

"Uh huh. I see. Well, I think you know something. I think you're planning to hide yourself where you know you will be safe!"

How could he possibly know that? A million thoughts rushed through my head, each adding more confusion to the situation. I was trying to come up with an explanation. "I'll prove that I don't know." I paused, comtemplating. "I'll eat something that will cause me to die soon after the bombs will explode anyways," I added sarcastically.

"Fair enough then," the man said, just as my grandmother was bringing a frozen chicken from the kitchen. She put it down amongst the array of also uncooked food. The man looked at the chicken, then looked at me.

I knew what he was thinking of course. "If you cook it I will gladly eat it."

Clearly unsatisfied with my remark, he took the large bottle of olive oil from the table, walked over, and poured it into my glass. Feeling a sense of duty, I immediately picked up the glass and tried to drink it. The thick oil flowed in my mouth. I was ready to just drink it, but my throat wouldn't let it go down. The man came over and tried to force it down by trying to choke me.

After struggling, getting olive oil all over the floor, I finally got some down and began choking. I couldn't breath, I lay on the floor convulsing; not only from the lack of oxygen, but from the terrible taste of the liquid (I think I would've preferred motor oil). My family stood up from their spots at the table to watch, chanting what clearly didn't sound like English. Eventually I died.

From a third person I could see myself laying on the floor, almost in a fetal position. Everyone standing, looking, but not moving or talking. I knew that the bombs didn't end up falling.

I probably picked the worst dream to write about for my very first E2 dream log. It was a lot creepier than how I explained it, more so than any words can describe. Ah well, I'll try again the next time.

This dream is set entirely in the grounds and buildings of Torquay Boys Grammar School. This is where I gained my dubious secondary education until I left in 1996. Also throughout the dream I am accompanied by my friend Jason, although he doesn't actually feature in the dream in any way other than I just know he's there.

At the front of the main school building is a grassy area with the odd tree - it's called 'the paddock' since it was originally adjoined to the stables of Shiphay Manor which is now another school building - and it is here that my dream begins.

I am standing there talking to a female friend (noone I know in real-life although in the dream there is a feeling of a romantic connection between us. It's her birthday and so I give her a birthday card I'd bought for her. She then introduces me to her mother who is standing behind her and tells me it's her birthday too, then the school bell rings and we part to go to our respective schools - the girls grammar school is on the other side of the paddock (in real-life and the dream!).

Me and Jason enter the school through the main door into the foyer. Unlike in real-life, there is a lift in the foyer which we get to the first floor corridor. I notice, however, that on the control panel of the lift there is a picture of the birthday card I had just given. I find this a bit odd, but we carry on to our lesson.

When we get to the lesson, we're surprised to notice that the teacher is wearing a nazi-type uniform, but we think better of saying anything about it. We're also struck by the spooky good behaviour of the usually high spirited pupils; if you read 'The Demon Headmaster by Gillian Cross as I kid you'll know what I mean!

All this time I keep thinking about the birthday card in the lift, wondering why it's there, and a niggling thought keeps occurring that something was wrong with it, but I couldn't quite work out what.

The strange nazi thing continues throughout the day; all the teachers are wearing uniforms, and as time goes on the students start wearing them too and start spending their break times formation marching in the playgrounds. Slowly we become aware that we're more-or-less the only non-nazis left and it gets to the point where they're burning books outside the school and we become quite understandably nervous for our wellbeing.

I'm still aware that something's gone wrong and that it has to do with the card in the lift and then it all hits me at once. I run back to the girl from the start and get the card back... it says this on the front:

Happy Irthday

The letter 'B' has gone missing from the alphabet. Through a strange jump in logic I realise that this is because someone has been time travelling and messing with history. An unfortunate side-effect of this has been the events of 1930s Germany enroaching on the present at my school. I also know what to do. The time travel device is the lift, so I take the card, run to the lift, go back in time and run out the the paddock again.

I am utterly astonished to find my friend from the start of the dream standing there. She explains that this is her time, and the person I thought was her mother was her in my time. It was her doing the time travelling (explaining why they have the same birthday).

The details of the end of the dream are a bit sketchy too, but basically I give her the card which fixes the history problems, and travel back to my own time (which is back to normal).

Phew! I have seriously never had a dream that was that coherent before. I mean it even had links in the plot between the start and the end. It almost makes sense! I just had to node it and I hope I have more dreams this cool!