A thoroughly gory and violent dream with matrix/superhero elements, and a very clear moral message, obviously due to the fact that I had been writing the Morrigan’s origin story for the Elusory Edge the day before, and that I had been reading Jekyll & Hyde before I went to bed.

It began with going back to work at GD, riding in the car with my dad. I was a little muddled, and had forgotten some things and had to rush to get out the door. But as usual with dream GDs, when we got there it was a wierd pseudo-GD where I had nothing to do, which promptly fell apart into a towering semi-futuristic city crowded with people, a large proportion of whom seemed to have guns.

Some disembodied superior being bestowed upon me and my fellow resistance fighters a nebulous and soon-to-be obviously allegorical ‘gift’. He didn’t say what it was at first, but it seemed clear enough that it was some kind of time-slowing, physics-bending, ass-kicking power, with a little bit of zombie voodoo magic brewed in. We resistance fighters now had the dubious advantage of being able to cap as many people as we damn well pleased without actually killing anyone or reducing the numbers of our foes, because despite the bullets in their skulls they would only perpetuate as the living dead. We soon caught on to this, and started capping our own people so that they could not be killed. A clever idea, sure, but that of course got out of hand and soon it seemed everyone in the whole city had a beretta with a sticky trigger (mine sure did) with which they were trying vainly to lay out everybody else. Add to this the complication that many of the original resistance fighters had acquired through practise the standard dream power of clumsy flight, and at the same time a deep-seated resentment of their fellow resistance fighters who had tried to cap them early on to give them the gift of living death.

It was at about this point that the moral lesson of the disembodied superior being finally dawned on me. His gift was not a gift at all, but a punishment. In a manner of minutes, in our idiotic knee-jerk reaction to violence with violence, we had turned a perfectly pleasant distopian future into a living hell. Well, I wasn’t about to let this lesson go un-learned. So I voiced aloud my realization, threw down my gun, and made as if to flee by flight. Those around me, however, shouted aloud to me that I couldn’t fly; it was all just a part of the superior being’s trick. Apparently I had convinced them, but only partially, not having managed to impress upon them the main point of my realization, which was non-violence. They grabbed onto my legs and started dragging me down, and bam! The dream shifted lickety split.

Now I was in another part of the city, a deserted part, heavily damaged by the fighting, with two girls clad in red and black leather superhero outfits. There was a big group of people just around the bend from us (it seemed like a highway off-ramp, but completely deserted of cars), also clad in superhero outfits, but still deluded and following their murderous ultra-violent tendencies. Our goal was to negotiate peacefully with these people, and show them the error of their ways. Of course, our selflessness backfired, as they just took us for their enemies, and capped one of the girls, starting another mini-riot. The other girl and I flew off into the apocalyptic sunset, just as if we had been sucessful in our superheroing and were getting our romantical fade-out, instead of having been utter failures.

Last night I returned in dream to a place I had not gone in years, that of a very strange non-existent DeLuca relative. She was big and round and didn’t care what anybody thought. She was somehow estranged from her husband, but had two or three adult sons about my age apparently still living with her. The house was big and broad and cluttered with strange objects, much like you would expect the house of a DeLuca to be, with sort of orangish cream-colored walls with pastel trim. And the thing which made me realize I had been there before in dream was a section of wall in the hallway between the kitchen and the bedrooms that was actually some kind of enormous, amazingly clear projection tv, that at times pretended to be just a colorful section of wallpaper, but other times came alive. It was across from an arched doorway that led into the living/dining area. In the last dream I had I recall being afraid to mention it, I think because I was much younger and did not know this woman who apparently was my relative. This time I asked about it right away. “Does it stay on while you sleep?” I asked. “I could never stand that. I would be listening to it all night long.”

I was there with the family, and we were bored, so one of the kids offered to play a board game in which none of us were really interested. So instead I suggested Diana play chess with me, and she accepted readily. I went off to explore or possibly to visit the bathroom while she was setting up, and by the time I came back she had played out the game so that it was down to king, queen, pawn, bishop on both sides, and I was in checkmate. I was only slightly annoyed, because I was interested in the house.

One of the woman’s sons had the peculiar ailment of growing up every day from a little boy to an adult, and then going back again. At first this struck me as kind of fun, but then it was revealed that the kid had to kill himself ritualistically in a particular way at the end of every day in order to come back. He was tired of it, and wanted to go on living, just once. But his younger brother yelled at him, saying he would die for good if he did that. A scene most tragical.

It was clear from all the oddball stuff she had around that this woman was a collector of exotic but useless knicknacks, and as a matter of fact she had just recieved that day a wooden crate full of mayan or other tribal artifacts: little stone figurines, tall pieces of polished mahogany with sun gods or little people painted on their faces in black, and a lot of straw, for packing. She was in the midst of taking these items out and setting them up around her house. When I went to the bathroom, I found some of the stuff and was looking at it. Mistakenly I dribbled pee on one of the boards. Then suddenly as I turned to leave, I saw a tiny being standing on the floor behind me. He must have been only three or four inches high. He was brown, wore a large shapeless black hat, and bore an eerie resemblance to the things depicted on the boards. I shivered, but spoke to him courteously. I called him by his name (”Dumbek” or something–it was the name of the type of thing he was, like a gnome or fairy), introduced myself, and asked him if he understood me. He said something back in another language, a very small, froggy voice, then said my name back to me. Apparently he was there to ensure the safe treatment of his artifacts. Like a house spirit. He reminded me somewhat of the little stone-headed spirits of the forest from Princess Mononoke. Anyway, we parted courteously, and I went back to relate this encounter to the lady of the house. She explained that he wasn’t in fact a Dumbek, but a close relation of theirs. I exclaimed in no undue amazement that this was the coolest thing I had ever heard. I had met a magical creature! The world would never be the same.