Strange Dreams

[weatherwax]

I had a weird dream last night, and it made me think of weird dreams in general. I know some people hate hearing other people's dreams, but I LOVE it. Particularly if the person is a good storyteller -- none of the "It was my mom, but it wasn't REALLY my mom" or the "then I was in my house, but my house was actually the mall, but the mall was on the moon" phrasing. Weird dreams are like a ticket to the surreal. There's a bit of me that hopes that strange dreams, particularly the ones that are epic in scale, are a window to another life you may be living in some far off universe. Yes, yes, completely unlikely, but it's still fun to...dream, isn't it?'

Anyway, tell your strangest, most epic dreams!

[Ruan]

I'd have to say the strangest dream that I had recently apparently took place in an older time period - where they were still using carriages. By this point I only vaguely remember the content of the dream, but I remember I was driving the carriage... but I have no recollection of any horses. Just me up front, moving along at a decent clip. I stopped to get some directions from local townsfolk, only to get some really odd looks... so I keep going down the road. Something happens, I get in a crash during which (in slow motion) I get launched from the carriage, somersault through the air, land on my feet, and keep walking toward my destination, an old Victorian style mansion. Once I get there, I let myself in and take my luggage to my bedroom. I settle in, it gets to be night, and I hear a sound at my door. The door creeps open, and I see what looks like a little girl in a frilly white dress start to come into the room... but for some reason, the sight of the white dress fills me with such horror and fear that I woke right up.

Still have no idea why the white dress scared me so much.

[baconbotsforever]

I don't usually remember my dreams, but I did have a memorable one about 2 or 3 years ago.

I was dreaming about being followed around all day by a bunch of ducklings, quacking merrily as they followed me around in my dream. I mentioned the weirdness of that to my wife - I mean that's full of possible Freudian meanings. Fear of parenthood, need for validation... the choices abound.

Then my wonderful partner, the love of my life and the mother of my child, pointed out that I occasionally pass gas while dreaming. It all became much clearer...

[Steave]

I have a great deal of trouble remembering my dreams or quite often that I've dreamed at all however I sometimes recall portions of dreams and recently realised that I have a lot of recurring elements. The most recent one is my workplace. I should point out that I have worked in the city once as a jeweller. The workplace in my dream is in the city but not the same location.

In my dream my workplace is on the ground floor and most often houses my current company of employment, an architectural firm. I can't remember any of my dreams actually taking place inside this workplace. Instead to the left of these rather nice offices you have the choice to ascend above street level or descend below and it is here where my dreams unfold.

The building is older and while maintained well it is not flash like the offices next door. You might find here an appartment of a freind in need of assistance, the new location of the jeweller I used to work for or a friendly comics and collectables store. These are my dreams ... at least the ones not about sharks.



I used to share a room with my brother when I was growing up. He would keep a pen and notebook beside his bed for several reasons, one being that I would talk in my sleep. Three memorable things I dictated are:

Bloody teleport machine ... Doesn't work very well.

Hmm ... Very eldrich.

Monkeys monkeys monkeys monkeys.

[giggles]

The other night I had a dream about Russia bombing suburbia and then attacking the big cities. Pretty much all of this was fabricated in the dream except my grandfather having military/government office experience.

It started out with me as a slightly younger version of myself. My parents and I were getting ready to sort through my grandparents' things and clean out the house. A childhood friend came over to help who had grown up just across the street from them. As we were getting started, there was a noise from a loft area above the living room. I started to go up, but my friend stopped me and went up instead. There were some more noises and a man jumped down and ran outside. The friend came back down and held out what the man had been trying to take. It was nothing more than old medications and first aid items including a field surgery kit from my grandfather's days in the service. Baffled by why he would focus on these things instead of the jewelry and other such small valuables within the house, I set them aside, relocked the front door, and got back to sorting.

As we worked sorting, searching, reliving childhood memories, more family showed up as the day wore on to lend a hand. While digging through a box of old letters, I came across their will. Why they would bury it, I hadn't a clue, but I took to my parents and showed them. They called a lawyer who came out to verify legality and read it. Come to find out, I had inherited the house and all it's contents to do with as I saw fit as well as my grandfather's old bike out in the shed. The money and safety deposit boxes were divided up between the children and no one seemed unhappy with me having gotten what I did, so I went back to going through boxes.

Once it got dark, everyone stopped and gathered in the living room to just have some family together time. There were a couple bottles of wine going around and my cousins, my friend, and I kept to the side so as not to disturb the adults. Everyone was laughing and reminiscing and just having a good time when sirens started going off. We all turned and looked out the window because they were the tornado sirens, but there wasn't a cloud around for miles nor were there any reports in the forecast that morning for anything that could even spawn a tornado. That's when it clicked. Air raid. The tornado sirens were just the closest we had since no one worried about air raids anymore. I started yelling for everyone to get down and cover their heads laying as flat as possible. About half of them listened, but they did all crouch down at least. That was when the first bombs hit. I couldn't see much because my friend had dived on top of me to protect me from anything that might fall, but there were so many loud noises at once it was hard to distinguish screaming panic from screeching bombs hurtling toward the ground only to explode on impact with some unsuspecting family's home.

Suddenly, all was quiet. It took a few moments to realize the bombs had stopped and my hearing was slowly returning. My friend got up slowly, cautiously, ready to go right back down on top of me if anything should start to collapse. Eventually, I was able to get up and look around. Outside I could see fires flickering in the night. Car alarms were going off all along the street. Then it registered that the power had gone out. The only light we had was the eerie glow provided by the burning trees and houses along the block. People were screaming outside. Shock was trying to set in, but I shook it off. I had to keep everyone safe. I had to get back to my house for what I needed. I told everyone I'd be back, but my friend wouldn't let me go, at least not alone, so he came with me. We sneaked out of the house and made our way down the street in the shadows not knowing what was going on and erring on the side of caution. It took 15 minutes to reach my house just 3 doors down and another 5 minutes to make sure we weren't seen entering the house. Once inside, I ran down the halls into my bedroom and threw myself down next to the bed to pull out the case my grandfather had given me a few years before as a congratulatory present. I hauled it up onto the bed and opened it. My friend's eyes went wide as he saw what was inside. I pulled out the two heavy, leather dusters and tossed the larger to him. He nearly dropped it as the weight caught him off guard. "It's lined in Kevlar webbing. It was my grandfather's when he was about our age. This one," I held up the smaller on," was my grandmother's and it has Kevlar plating. It's better protection than the webbing, but what it adds a lot more weight. You get used to it. My grandfather had the armor plates upgraded from what they were to the Kevlar about the time 9/11 happened. Said he was preparing for when the poop really hit the fan."

I shooed him out into the hall so I could change into some better clothes and then started loading up. A thick belt complete with holster strapped to my thigh for stability held a simple 5mm. A nylon strap across my chest held an SMG clipped to the back belt loop for mobility. I stuffed about 4 magazines for each into some special pockets in the inner lining of the duster before putting it on. I had another SMG and a larger side arm that I kept out for my friend to carry along with a few extra magazines. I handed them to him as I left the room and gave the other bedrooms a quick check while he got them situated. Once we were both done, we headed back to my grandparents' house.

As we crept along the side of the house next door to our destination, he suddenly said, "We need to stop at my house real quick." "Why?" I asked. "We have weapons, armor, and I doubt you need a change of clothes because those look pretty comfortable and easy to move around in." "I have something I need to get. Just humor on this one," he replied with a pleading look. I gave a heavy sigh, "Alright, but be quick about it." He flashed me a quick smile and we made our way across the street and into his house. I stood in the hallway looking around to make sure we were alone when pictures caught my eye. They were of us as kids playing over at my grandparents' house. A few of us at the shooting range with my grandfather. He had been very adamant that we learn how to shoot properly. My dead aim on one such outing had prompted the gifts we were both carrying now.

A noise made me whirl around to find my friend standing in the doorway looking amused. "Did you get what you came for?" I asked rather tersely. "Yep. Ready to go? Or would you like me to wait while you look through the photo albums, too?" "I ought to do just that so you'll wipe that smug look of your face, but we really do need to get back," I replied pushing past him and heading back out of the house. We stole back across the street as quickly as we could without risking notice and re-entered my grandparents' house as quietly as possible barricading any openings we could find as we crept back to the living room. My family was still there huddled together in fear and many jumped at our unannounced entrance. I told them all to try and block the doors and windows as best they could leaving only the door into the garage with easy access. There were a few cracks big enough to peek out and see what was going on outside and I would check periodically to see if there were any changes. It was then that we heard the gunfire.

The sound caught our attention when it was about a block away and it getting steadily closer. I took the risk of unblocking one of the windows that faced in the direction of the gunshots to find that there was a small troop of soldiers going house to house searching for survivors of the bombs. Whoever was found got dragged out and shot. A few tried to run, but they were sloppy and gunned down within seconds. I watched for a few houses and then blocked the opening back up and returned to my family, a plan forming in my mind as I walked. We would have to sneak out the back through the garage and stay as quiet as possible, hopefully before they reached my grandparents'-no, my house. I went into the kitchen and grabbed the keys to the motorcycle and the shed just in case before explaining the plan to everyone. It took a little while, but eventually I had them all moving quietly toward the garage.

We were halfway through the garage when the lights started shining through the garage windows. Everyone tried to duck down out of view or behind the cars, but they were approaching the side door. Soon they would be inside. They would get us and my plan would be all for naught. That's when my friend darted back into the house. There was a sound of scraping furniture and then I heard him outside yelling at the soldiers. Gunfire and a lot of yelling in what sounded like Russian. I ran back into the house, not caring if I was seen, to find the guns I had given him along with the jacket laying over the sofa he had pushed aside to go out and distract them from our escape. I chanced a peek outside to see them pinning him to the ground, binding his hands, and picking him up to march him off toward the city. I could barely contain my scream of frustration and loss watching him being led out of sight. I picked up the duster to find that he had stashed a small radio and locator in one of the pockets. The locator was showing two dots. One right where I was standing with the two pieces and the other moving further and further away in the direction of my friend. That's when I knew what he had needed to get knowing we would be separated at some point.

I swallowed my grief and returned to my family. There were still soldiers outside, but they were only a few. I crept along the tool drawers and garage wall up to the doorway and unclipped the SMG from my belt loop. I knew there was a suppressor for it in the house somewhere. That's just the way my grandfather was. I did my best to silently open the drawers and feel around for the contents. Nails. Hammers. Screws. Drill bits. Wrenches. Plie-wait, that felt like one stuffed under a few of the pliers. I pulled it out to discover it was the exact one I would be needed. Grandpa, you were such a paranoid gun nut, but thank you for that. I screwed it in place and half crawled, half duck-walked back to the doorway. I motioned everyone back into the house for safety before returning my attention to the soldiers standing outside trying to see through the dirty windows. I took my time aiming for the nearest one before squeezing the trigger. The gun kicked in my hands and he dropped. The other two let loose a spray of bullets at the garage walls and I dropped to my belly to avoid them. I readied the gun and lined up another shot before taking another one out. Two down, one more to go and my family would be safe for now. Hopefully, they hadn't already called for back up. There was more Russian getting louder as he came closer spraying wide across the walls trying to get me. I jumped out through the door gun ready already putting him in my sights. He stopped for half a second in surprise and that was all it took. He dropped to the ground like a puppet who's strings had just been cut. Clipping the gun back to my belt loop, I turned and scrambled over the fence so I could open the gate into the driveway. I then ran over to the shed and unlocked it as quickly as shaky fingers can move with such a small key.

Finally, the lock clicked and I nearly tossed it aside, but thought better of it. Now that the door was unlocked I shoved it open to reveal my grandfather's pride and joy, a 1958 Harley Davidson FL Duo Glide black on black that he swore up and down had some secret government stealth technology on it. I never believed it, but I always nodded very politely whenever he would tell me about how he took off with it during the war so the Kaiser couldn't steal it. But there was no time for this now. I looked around the shed to see if anything useful was stored there. I found a bag of grenades and a few blocks of C4 with charges ready to go. Sweet Jebus, grandpa, why were you so paranoid? I stuffed them in one of the saddle bags and grabbed some more clips that were stashed in some drawers putting them in the other saddle bag.

Very carefully, I pushed the bike out of the shed locking it back behind me and doing the same with the gate once I was out of the back yard. I rolled the bike down the alley until I felt I was a safe enough distance from the house to start it up. I put the key in and it took a few tries to kick it to life, but it was a wonderfully low, guttural sound that I had always loved since riding the bike with my grandfather. As I rode out of the alley, I noticed other soldiers down the other streets. So they were systematically going down every street at once killing all survivors of the initial attack. My attention went back to the road ahead of me, The city loomed up in the darkness, a giant, black mass that felt as though some leviathan was waiting just beyond your field of vision to swallow you whole. As I got closer, I started seeing military vehicles on some of the other streets. Luckily, I hadn't run into any. Yet. I glanced down at the gauges and noticed a switch a little ahead of the gas cap. Curious, I flipped it and the bike went silent. I looked around in alarm, but the engine was still running. Stealth. Grandpa had been telling the truth.

The bike carried me through the streets in utter silence save for the tries grinding on the pavement. I had never been so aware of how uneven the roads were in my life. Suddenly, a tank loomed out from between two buildings. I had entered the downtown area and stopped as quickly as I could without killing myself. I hopped off the bike and huddled behind it hoping they hadn't noticed me. Evidently, they hadn't because they just kept moving in the direction they had been going. They didn't swing the cannon around or even point the mounted gun in my direction. I pulled a couple grenades and some C4 out of the saddle bag and crept along the rows of vacated cars dodging open doors left and right, cutting between cars to try and get as close as possible. Somehow I had managed to get right on top of it without being noticed. I climbed up the back to get as close to any weak points I could come up with. Thank Cthulhu it was moving slowly. I tried to stick the C4 into the turning joint of the cannon as best I could and crawled up toward the front. I hefted a grenade, pulled the pin, and shoved it into a hole before leaping off the side a running for cover. The resulting explosion rocked the street and made the tank rattle. The cannon arm started swing around to face the side I was on and I pulled the trigger of the detonator. The primed C4 I had set blew the entire cannon top out of alignment and the whole tank stopped moving. I darted forward readying to pull the pin on the other grenade. I made it to the tracks, pulled the pin, and shoved it into the mechanism before diving back to some cover. The belt broke completely and several parts flew in different directions. I unclipped the SMG, slid in a fresh mag, and prepped the first round just as the soldiers inside started popping their heads out for a look, guns up. I ducked down out of sight and peeked out to get their positions. They were climbing out and I took the chance to drop two of the three. The third one aimed at the car I was using for cover and let loose a spray of bullets in my direction. I turned back and came around the other side for a shot at him, but he was ready for me and I was forced to duck back behind the car. I did this peeking out a few times only to be met with more bullets. Finally, heard him eject the mag and used the opportunity to take him out. Done. I crept back to the bike and checked it for damage finding none. I pulled the locator out of my pocket to find that the blip was very close, maybe a few streets up past the now destroyed tank. I straddled the bike, gave it a kick start, and took off in that direction. I turned onto the street just in time to see a few soldiers aiming at my friend. There was a camera off to the side, the tell tale red light indicating it was not only on, but recording. They were planning on filming the execution, but why? Would they use my friend's death as a means of striking fear in the hearts of Americans across the nation by releasing this through the media? Well, I, for one, didn't want to find out.

I hurtled down the street in silence catching them entirely by surprise with guns blazing. Most of them dropped on my first pass, but a few took cover. With some luck, I was able to clear them out. I ran up and cut the bonds on my friend with a knife lifted from one of the dead Russians. I gave him a big hug and only then registering the fact that he was still wearing a leather duster almost exactly like the one I had seen back in the house, but...this one was less giving. In fact, there was almost no give in the jacket at all. "Your grandpa gave me one, too," he said quietly. A wave of relief washed over me and we turned back to the bike. We were about to set off back to my house when soldiers started pouring in from all directions. My friend leaped off the back of the bike and made a grab for one of the fallen soldiers' guns just as the soldiers started firing. I screamed out, "CHRIS! NO!"...and then I woke up.


Tl;dr: I predicted WWIII.

[Kajin]

I once had a dream that I was playing Quidditch on the back of a giant flying turkey. I remember very clearly that I was one of the chasers. I also remember that everyone else on the playing field was completely invisible. About halfway through the game I fell off the back of my trusty fowl. Right before I hit the ground, I grabbed the handle of a giant sword and sprouted wings. Flying high in the sky, I suddenly found myself over the ocean where I was engaged in a fight to the death with some eldritch abomination in the eye of a hurricane.

One dream I had back when I was a kid was showing up to class and everyone else was naked. My classmates made fun of me for showing up fully clothed.

Off Topic:
Jesus Christ, I got ninja'd by a wall of text.

[giggles]

Off Topic:
Jesus Christ, I got ninja'd by a wall of text.

FYI, I started typing that up about 7 hours ago

[weatherwax]

Giggles. Epic.

Kajin. Music to go along withyour battle.

[Kajin]

That... fits, actually. Favorited!

[AlternateTorg]

Lots of people dream about falling. Once when I was a kid I had a falling dream where I'd been at terminal velocity for what felt like about five minutes (screaming the whole time), and I woke up just as I hit the ground. In real life. I'd fallen out of the top bunk, and the dream impact synched with the real-life one. That felt really weird.

[Ruan]

Had something similar, only I was saved at the last instant in the end by someone in the dream. I woke up only to find that I'd fallen out of bed... only to get caught in such a way by my covers that I was hanging about a foot off of the floor.

[CCC]

I've dreamt of flying before. Flying in my dreams is surprisingly like swimming; I tend to have trouble gaining height, but once I'm up there I can stay up there fairly easily.

The strange thing is, it always seems to odd in my dreams that no-one else can fly.

[Kajin]

I've never had a flying or a falling dream. At least, not one that doesn't involve Turkeys and Hurricanes, anyway. I've had a lucid dream and a dream where everything was in HD. In the lucid dream I stopped and took a look around, wondering whether or not I was dreaming. I figured that if I could wake up, it would prove that I'm having a lucid dream. So I will my eyes open and I wake up. Haven't had another one since.

[balthazar]

I tend to dream vividly and at least semi-lucidly, but two particularly vivid dreams from my past leap out at me.

The first from when I was about ten or so. I was in space, in a space station like the ISS, or the old MIR station. Floating, flying, weightless in a veritable maze of habitat modules and corridors. I explored and simply reveled in the joy of free-fall. I went to a window and looked down on the earth below and saw her in all of her glory, hanging perfect below me, a blue and white sphere spinning slowly beneath me against a black velvet backdrop. And then the sun rose, and the sheer joy I felt at the sight of it woke me up.

The second was from when I was sixteen, and really getting into military science-fiction like Starship Troopers, Armour, and John Ringo's Posleen War series. The sky was the color of fire, a vivid orange, tinting the dry dirt beneath my boots the same hue. The landscape was barren, nothing but boulders and hard-packed dirt and sand as far as the eye could see. It looked like mars or the drumheller badlands only flatter. I was a soldier in powered armour, my weapon a comforting weight in my hands. I surveyed my surroundings, seeing nothing but the desolate landscape and my own eyes reflected back at me in the glass of my helmet. Then I noticed three meteors blazing toward the surface in the distance, black smoke trialing behind them as my HUD put blue boxes around them. They landed with a flash and I started bounding towards them, each jump eating up ground at a startling rate. Then one of my jumps put me right in the middle of a group of the enemy. I couldn't distinguish them very well, seeing them only as a brown mass surrounding me. I fired my weapon, incandescent blue bolts leaping forth to rend my foes, even as they closed in. I battered them down with my hands and the stock of my weapon as they tried to pull me down. I jumped again, and a blinding white flash erupted below me, propelling me on. I jumped again and again, before spotting a group of the enemy not far from a small creek only three or four meters wide and at most a meter deep, winding it's way through the empty plane. I landed not far from it, and started firing at the enemy just at the edge of my vision across the stream. Sickly green bolts came flying back at me almost immediately, as I slid sideways so as not to present a moving target. As the enemy closed, I charged forward to meet them in the stream with a crunch, and broke through. I ran forward as more of the enemy and their green bolts passed me. Their numbers steadily increased as I pressed forward until it was like fighting against a current. As I slowed to a stop I jumped again, and landed amongst their ranks with a deafening roar of rage that continued as I woke up, ready to take someone apart.
Took a few minutes for me to calm down after that one.

[quantumcat42]

Lots of people dream about falling. Once when I was a kid I had a falling dream where I'd been at terminal velocity for what felt like about five minutes (screaming the whole time), and I woke up just as I hit the ground. In real life. I'd fallen out of the top bunk, and the dream impact synched with the real-life one. That felt really weird.

Almost that exact thing happened to me too, except I woke up about halfway to the floor...