Gossamerghost

This dream will be hard to describe without pictures, but I’ll do my best. I am with two other people, and we have heard legends about a great trove of treasure within a cave across the ocean. There is a legend of someone called Dog Girl who guards the treasure. Dog Girl was put there by her village when she was a child, and they told her she was destined to keep the treasures safe. The cave is also a burial ground, full of ancient relics and remains so it is important to the village. There is a wooden bridge with a short rope railing stretching across the entire ocean, floating on its surface. This is the route we take. Getting across to the cave is simple enough. We encounter Dog Girl inside the cave, who tries to scare us away at first. She isn’t like a dog at all, aside from looking feral and walking on all fours. She is actually very pretty. We tell her we are there to bring back some of the treasure to preserve in a museum and therefore share its riches with the world, and she seems to like that idea. As we go about gathering up some of the older relics, we notice Dog Girl is following us. She is at a distance, but eventually she is right at our feet, following us out of the cave and onto the bridge when we are ready to leave.

When we get about halfway across the ocean, the water becomes turbulent and the skies become black. A tremendous storm begins, and the thunder is deafening. The waves threaten to knock us off the bridge. In the distance, we can see colossal sea serpents raging in the waves, tearing ships apart and fighting with each other. One of the people with me says the serpents are causing the storm with their anger. As we carefully continue on, an enormous white shape glides beneath the water under the bridge… it’s a serpent, and up close like this, it’s apparently the length of ten full-sized airplanes placed nose-to-tail. Despite its gentle speed, the sheer mass of its body displaces the water enough to create a wave of nearly tidal proportions. The bridge was designed to stay on top of the water’s surface, so it doesn’t sink, but we are flung into the air atop the bridge as it stretches to stay afloat on the huge wave. One of the people with me is almost knocked off, but Dog Girl saves him.

We make it close to land when another big wave hits. The bridge snaps upward elastically, sending me flying into the trees on the shore. The trees are huge and gnarled with fat above-ground roots and lots of flat areas between the branches. The trees are FULL of black birds who appear to be sleeping, but they are covered in dust and cobwebs as though they have been sleeping for several decades. My landing in the tree doesn’t wake them, so I try to climb down without disturbing them… waking them up feels like it would be a very bad thing to do. I hurry back to the end of the bridge, where my companions and Dog Girl are standing, and we all cheer and talk giddily about our trip. We don’t notice that the man who was traveling with us has walked over to a colorful caravan of what appear to be gypsies. I glance over there and see a child holding up a very large book as though trying to sell it to my friend. The book is the size of a suitcase, and is bound in thick black leather. On the cover is a large blood-red upside-down pentagram with a skeleton wearing a suit in front of it. There is a spotlight shining down on the skeleton, and he’s holding a golden cane and a copy of the same book. The skeleton on the book he is holding is also holding the book, etc., etc., etc., creating a rather surreal effect. On each side of the pentagram is a simple golden goblet. There is a border running around the whole cover made of gold leaf, depicting various unknown symbols.

I continue talking for a moment, then decide to see what my friend is up to. I am walking over to him when I see the child hand the book to him. He shudders and crouches to the ground, clutching the book against his stomach. His form changes… he becomes smaller, paler, younger. His dirty wet traveling clothes become a spotless black suit and top hat. The transformation takes about 5 minutes, during which the gypsies pack their caravan and leave and I stand there dumbfounded, unable to do anything but watch. He stands up and turns around to face me. He has become a pallid child wearing an 1800s era suit and top hat. He is holding a golden cane and the book. His face is almost alien… it’s flawless and smooth and white as chalk. He has no eyebrows, eyelashes, or hair on his head. His eyes are the negative of what they should be (entirely black eyes with small white pupils floating in the middle of them). He grins at me, and his teeth are jagged and razor-sharp. And that wakes me up!

The description of this dream may sound slightly disjointed because of the way I wrote it out; I wrote the main concept of the dream first, so I wouldn’t forget it, and then I turned the page over and added all the details. So I am going to try to piece it all together in a singular form. Here goes.

I take a trip to another planet (not from earth; I live somewhere else), but the craft crashes on the surface. The planet is a lot like earth is now; there are people, and houses and communities, etc. I am with a group of 4 other people who survived the crash. Two of them are a middle-aged couple, one is a huge muscular man and the other is my friend. We wander for a while, trying to find something, I cannot remember what.

Then some sort of catastrophe occurs. It may be an earthquake, or perhaps some kind of apocolyptic meteor shower. Either way, it destroys most of the population and livable land on the planet and in my mind’s eye, I see only one piece of land remaining. It is a tiny island, and in my mind I view this world as a globe, with a small, perhaps Hawaii-sized island in the middle of a vast ocean. Somehow our group survived this, and we are in the water, floating on random things. The middle-aged couple is on a tiny boat-like structure they found, the big man is on a large square platform, and my friend is on a smaller square platform attached to his bigger one. I am stuck swimming from one small float to the next, because they keep sinking after a while. I realize it is very hard for me to swim, and I remember it must be because I have a huge old-school video camera around my neck, pulling my head and neck down as I swim. Somehow the water hasn’t damaged it. So I swim over to the middle-aged couple and hand my camera up to them, telling them to take good care of it, because it is very important and means so much to me. Everyone admires it like it’s really awesome and high-tech, which confuses me a little. At this point, I also notice a slight change in the big man, who now resembles a dinosaur somehow, and my friend, who looks almost sparkly in the sunlight, like she is covered in gold glitter.

Finally, we wash ashore of this island, and the second I set foot on the ground, the visualization of the planet in my mind’s eye changes; the island is enormous, at least continent-sized. We walk into a jungle area. We assume that it is safe because most everything died in the catastrophe. I notice that the big man now more closely resembles a very huge, brown hairy alien-looking creature, at least 12 feet tall. Oddly enough, some creatures emerge from the jungle and they resemble him. They are not quite as big, but they look the same. Along with them come leopards, but the leopards resemble dogs more than cats. We know they mean to kill us. I am bringing up the rear and am distracted looking at the big man we are with, because he looks so different all the time, but he yells, “Get on my shoulders!” to me. I notice he is holding a middle-aged person under each arm and my friend is wrapped around his chest. He plans to sprint past the animals and into the jungle so we can continue on. So I run up and climb onto his shoulders and hang on for dear life. He begins sprinting toward the animals, who suddenly mimic what he is doing: they grab a leopard under each arm, and a few jump up on their shoulders, and they begin running toward us. The big man realizes there is no way we can get past them like this, so he turns suddenly to run away instead, but this causes me to fall off. As I am falling, I see one of the leopards transform into a woman. She pulls out a strange handgun and aims it at me, but doesn’t shoot. My friend notices I fell, and leaps down and runs to help me, and the woman shoots her the second she gets to me. The shot flings my friend back really far, and I hold her as she bleeds to death. There is soooo much blood, it doesn’t seem possible. As I hold the body, the woman tells us we must either join her and her leopards, or she will kill all the surviving humans.

The surviving humans (about 200 or 300 at best) had apparently gathered on the beach, and at the sound of the gunshot they all come running into the area we are in, and stand behind us. The woman who had been a leopard explains to us that we are all affected by the change caused by the catastrophe, and that this planet has begun “cycling”. I look up beyond the trees into the sky, and HUGE white long streaks of light and sparks are spiralling and spinning around in the atmosphere, some so big they streak entirely across its length. The woman says this planet has now become “Earthgaia” (or something that sounded like that), and I take it to mean that this planet will eventually evolve into earth. She tells all the humans that we must survive the “Mezzozoic” period first- something like that, anyway. She is floating as she speaks, and behind her are the bottoms of some tall rocky cliffs. I notice one of these cliffs has a vaguely human shape, and as I stare it takes more detailed form, and starts to look sparkly and gold. It is my friend I thought had died. She grabs the woman’s ankle and the woman looks shocked, and my friend says, “Don’t look so surprised- didn’t you notice how much I bled when you shot me?” Her voice is like thunder. That’s the only way I can describe it. It gives me chills. The woman nods knowingly and then my friend just flings her into the cliffs, splattering her across the rock. I realize we all must have changed somehow, on a genetic level, when the planet began its cycle, which explains the big guy and the leopard-woman and my friend. She turns to look at the humans, and they are startled by her, and all pull out guns and open fire on her, as if they don’t know what else to do, like they think she will turn on them. The bullets bounce off her and she simply walks forward calmly, but obviously enraged. Her skin sparkles with glitter. She looks down at the crowd and says, “THIS is not going work- we won’t survive as humans! You are shooting your own kind- you can’t even keep your fingers off your triggers.”

And then I awoke… perhaps someday, I’ll actually finish a dream!

I am currently basing part of a book on this dream… a combination horror/fantasy genre book. Enjoy!

I am in a town, hiding in an attic with 4 other people. One of us heard that this town was cursed a long time ago by someone who decreed that the effects of the curse would begin the moment that a baby beginning the town’s 7th generation was born, which is today. We were at the hospital when it was born- immediately upon being placed in its mother’s arms, it burst into thousands of tiny faintly glowing wasps that looked like day flies. So we ran to hide in the attic of the town tavern, owned by one of the people I am with. The wasps seemed to infect everyone they stung, dropping them on the spot, where moments later they would explode into more wasps.

From the attic, we can see the main street and hear fairly far. The air is filled with screams of panic and after maybe 20 minutes the sound of screams is replaced by the deep thrumming of millions of wasps making their way closer to us. They find a way into the attic through various cracks and two of the people with me instantly drop. It’s a middle-aged couple, and they end up falling on me, effectively pinning me. The other people with me run out of the attic and bar the door, thinking I was stung too. I feel the bodies lurch above me as tons of wasps burst forth from their chest cavities. The wasps break through the metal slats of the small window and swarm outside looking for more prey. I’m stuck under the remains for a few hours, afraid to move.

Then the other people who were with me return to the attic to hide. They see I am still alive and help me up, but some wasps are still lingering in the corpses, munching on them, and moving the bodies startles them into flight. We rush out and bar the door again. We run downstairs to the empty tavern and notice someone banging heavily against the front door, which is made of solid, heavy wood. We assume it’s a survivor seeking refuge, so I open the door a crack to be sure no wasps will get in. It’s not a person, it’s an unnaturally enormous grey-furred bear. It easily muscles the door open and swipes with its torso-sized paws. I jump back, avoiding the force of the blow, but its claws catch me and rip the skin right below my neck to ribbons. We lure it around the bar and then leave the tavern, shutting the door so it’s trapped inside.

We head down to the church and lock ourselves inside. I tie some white material over where the bear swiped me, noticing that the wound doesn’t hurt at all. Looking around, we see more people farther up the aisle. They are mumbling off to one side, in a line. We start to greet them, and one of the kids in the back leaps at one of us and bites the front of his throat right out. The kid howls with blood pouring down his chin, elated. It alerts the others to our presence. Our now-dead companion has what appears to be an MP-5 tucked inside his coat, so I take it out, tip a pew over for cover, and fire into the crowd, which is 90% children wearing children’s choir robes. I realize as they continue running for us that they can’t be killed, so I aim for their legs. The ones in front fall, tripping up the ones behind, which buys us enough time to exit. I give the gun to my friend and run outside, where actual survivors are running through the streets. I ask an older woman if there has been anything on the news or radio, and she says yes, they’re telling everyone to evacuate.

All the people are running for town limits. I shout that there may be survivors stuck in the church, and a surprising amount of people offer to help save them. We burst inside and the survivors grab anything that can be used as a weapon and go to town bludgeoning the zombie people with vigor. There are indeed survivors in the church, huddled in a robe closet. Eventually all the zombies are down and everyone resumes evacuation. Some groups begin looking for survivors elsewhere before evacuating themselves.

The street is now empty, save a few horses which must have escaped during the chaos. All but one are running single-mindedly toward the edge of town. The lone horse is milling about, looking lost. Getting closer, I see that the horse is VERY skinny and somehow got tangled so badly in its tie-down reins that they are wrapped tightly over its face, neck, and torso. It looks like a rubber band wrapped too many times around a finger. Its fur is shiny with oil or sweat and it doesn’t have a mane or tail. It sees me and stares intensely. I back up to the wooden sidewalk and my last surviving friend steps in front of me slightly, like a shield, with his arms outstretched. He’s about the size of a football player. It starts to charge, and, flinging the guy aside, headbutts me in the chest. It knocks the air out of my lungs and slams me against the outside tavern wall. The horse rears up to trample me, but my friend kicks it hard in the throat, knocking it down.

The End!

Most of the blogs I’ve written in my time have been detailing my weird dreams. It’s time to post a few on this site! Some of my dreams are rather disturbing, but I figured I’d start with a nice, lightweight dream that’s utterly bizarre. Be prepared for more hardcore tales in the future! Also, I write all my dreams in present-tense, since this is what therapists always recommend. And without further ado, here it is!

I am on the phone with my best friend Kim and I am watching a reeeeally creepy episode of Scooby-Doo that’s actually scaring me. I say goodbye to Kim, the episode ends, and my mom and I go off to meet with this short, fat, older woman who is really odd and eccentric. Sitting on her couch to look out her window, I can see these strange animals. It looks like we’re near an ocean or enormous saltwater lake with tall grass around it, and I can see the head and part of a neck of what looks like a young cow. I point it out to my mom, and she says, “Oh, tall cattle! You don’t see those very often around here!” The woman says her neighbor raises them.

It walks out from behind the grass and it looks like part cow, part giraffe, and part goat. It has a really long neck and legs, a small cow head, and enormous cloven goat hooves. They can climb on stuff, big rocks, etc., but it doesn’t look like they should physically be able to. I keep saying, “They look like half-cow and half-alien.” Then some guy on the TV in the room says, “Or half-CAT?” I look at the TV and see this guy climbing telephone poles and trees. He has long legs and big cloven hooves like the cows, but a tail and fur like a cat. I say, “Yeah, or half-cat,” and the guy says, “Good! Cats are awesome!” Then all of a sudden, the TV shows all these different clips of a forest at night with cats (like from the musical, those costumes and everything) popping out from behind trees and running around, showing off, singing, yelling, climbing, and jumping around happily, for about 3 minutes. Then the TV just goes back to showing the cow-cat-guy climbing a phone pole. My mom leaves, and I am supposed to stay there for some reason.

I end up staying with the woman and her equally odd husband for a few days, and I only see the woman again a few times; she’s always saying something about a choir loft, and wondering how you can get tickets to sit in those good choir loft seats. There are TVs everywhere in the house, all showing different videos made by the man and woman when they were younger, and the walls are absolutely covered in pictures of the couple- black and white photos, old pictures of them videotaping, catching fish, getting married, and lots more.

On the last day that I am staying there, the man is trying to feed me dinner, but I have horrible allergies to the tall cattle, and my nose is running ridiculously, my head is stuffed up, I can’t hear very well, my throat and mouth are dry, and my throat hurts. I have to keep blowing my nose, but there are no tissues in the kitchen, so I keep having to excuse myself from the man, who is constantly blabbing, to go into the next room for tissues. There are 2 boxes on this little table. One has shiny gold tissues and the other has silver ones. I usually grab two gold ones and blow my nose. The man asks me if I want tea. I just say “Okay”, but he tells me I have to go down to the cellar and get it myself, so I don’t. I can’t remember what else he gave me, except a “pear”. He opened the fridge and there was an enormous aluminum tray with lettuce and what looked like halves of giant potatoes, or huge pieces of French bread. He takes one of these out and it is really hot and he keeps burning his hand. He puts it on my plate and tells me to eat it. I say, “I can’t eat that ridiculously enormous pear thing.” But he says it’s good for me. I just ignore my plate anyway because I don’t have any appetite due to the allergies.

Finally, my mom comes to pick me up. My mom, the old woman, and I sit at this round kitchen table with (of course) a TV on it, showing the woman drawing a long time ago. Then my cat jumped on me and woke me up!

At my mother (S’marty’s) request, I am posting a few images of random art I’ve done. It isn’t the best, and I’ve never attended any art-related classes, but I hope someone out there enjoys it regardless! The dragon pictures were taken with my cell phone, hence the poor quality. I have tons of drawings sitting around, but I haven’t scanned them in yet. Perhaps in the future!

Starting sketch I did for a painting for my boyfriend's birthday.

Finished painting of Chinese Lung Dragon.

Detail of dragon's face.

A werepanther character from the ultimate nerd game.

A water nymph-type creature from the same nerdy game.