The in the Dreams of Others

  There are some things one does not expect to see regulated and controlled; nightmares are among such things. I cannot say what the nightmare was, horrible visions that can’t be described in any manner other than visually, and even then lack the true embodiment of the experience. All I know of details is that I rejected the entire affair wholly; and here is where this story begins. I had come undone from some machine, some box filled with moving wires and orange vacuum like hoses. Invisible and incorporeal I had become and left the box. I saw rows upon rows of these with dream bodies inside; the sleeping forms of people taken from the normal flow of dreams to this prison of a place to be made to experience nightmares. Despite my incorporeal form the box I was in opened and reached for me. Somehow wrapping two of its hoses around my arms. An inner strength, a greatness from within, shouted out and ripped the hoses from their base.

 

   This nightmare factory, or prison perhaps was filled with only female guards dressed in blue colored leather uniforms. To make my escape I possessed one of the guards, using the rote memories of one’s daily routine I was able to find my way to the parking garage, take her key, and her car; a rather fancy sports car and head out from the dimly lit facility and underground parking garage which had me the impression of night out into the far more brightly lit landscape of day. The place outside this facility was a city in the desert, I could easily imagine it was in Arizona, California, New Mexio, Texas, or even southern Nevada or Utah. Although Arizona or New Mexico came the closest to mind with the amount of vegetation; although as a city that is hard to determine.

 

   As I drove around the town I happened upon a very odd sight, an old woman was in a telephone booth calling the police as a large brown bear was stalking towards her on the street. Parked nearby was a hearse. I grabbed the old woman and told her she needed to get inside the hearse and get down not making a sound till the bear passed. So into the cab we went, ducking down trying not to make a sound as the beast sniffed around the hearse. For some reason the back was open, but thankfully separated from the cab as the bear climbed inside and rolled around a little. After a moment sniffing around the glass separating the cab from the back it got out and walked out around the front of the cab. For some reason, I will blame senility on this one, the old woman decided she needed some air and opened the window; an electrical window. The sound of which drew the bear back. I told her to roll it up immediately, bears are very strong. She didn’t until it was practically sticking its head in. She tried to roll it up, but it easily pushed the window back down with its paws. What happened next was insanity, the bear despite is massive size was able to squeeze in through the window smothering the old lady and pushing me against the other door; which I opened and made a break for it. As horrible as it is to say I gave up on the old woman, with a (it’s your own dumb ass fault) excuse.

 

 

     I do not know the fate of the old woman as the bear got out almost immediately and came after me. When it reared up I was able to shove it on its ass, when it tried to bite I was able to pretty easily hold its jaw open with my hands, its teeth doing no damage as I pushed back on it. I realized that this body was capable of expressing a great deal of spiritual power. Thus I pushed to bring my spiritual and mystical powers to the surface, the area around me rippled, and the bear turned into a tall creature similar to the cowardly lion from the Wizard of Oz. It was then I could sense that this creature was a dream body, the dreaming persona of an actual person. Having recovered  their form that much the dream began to change around that person, who wanted to go to a dress shop, making it clear this was a female spirit underneath, maybe. Going to the dress shop the power of what was being whispered into my ear by my host body; something that had never happened before, of the Bear Orc was fading away from the dream body. She turned into a short dwarf with long red mustache and red beard. The host whispered again that Bear Orcs are a disease in the dream word, similar to vampirism. They attack other dream bodies eating them, however unlike with nightmare kings that destroy dream bodies, these are turned into new Bear Orcs and leave the body of the one that ate them. In the waking world those whose dream bodies had become these creatures experience psychotic violent episodes.

 

    The entire scene changed yet again, the dwarf woman was on horseback talking to dream people also riding on horseback as she was on her way to her wedding. The talk was random stuff, mostly about dwarf women having a lower position in society and how she’d like a full shave now that she gets to be with her man. I was there, still in the dream cop’s body, standing out like a sore thumb in the new dream setting. The trim and shave came and went like a montage as she was prepared to meet her new husband, who happened to be a Centaur, and the wedding chapel a cave with only the adventurer team and the centaur’s immediate family as guests. The host body whispered to me again, that this person was in real life a midget with two regular sized parents who did not approve of her very tall boyfriend represented here by the centaur. In retrospect there was probably some sexual innuendo in that, but at the time it did not occur to me, as the host body commented that whatever sort of creature I am, clearly has a cleansing effect on Bear Orcs. Somehow she expelled me from her body.

 

     ******

 

     I found myself once more invisible and incorporeal, only now floating high in the air between a lush green valley and a desolate craggy mountain. The mountain was covered, literally swarming with horrible creatures. They were as naked pale muscular men minus any genitalia covered in thick hair with heads that looked like they belonged to the alien creatures from the movie Critters, only pale like the rest of their bodies. They were swarming down the side of the mountain towards the lush valley. It is then that a barrage of missiles fired from the clouds decimating the mountain side causing huge rock slides that took out many of the creatures I knew had to be Bear Orcs.

 

   A small band of the Bear Orcs survived despite the rolling boulders crushing so many of them and made their way into the lush valley where day immediately switched to night. Here they changed shape from the weird creatures they were into green skinned men wearing loin cloths and sparse armor, what one would imagine orcs to look like from fantasy movies and games. Not far away there were spotlights in the ground near a large building, like a cross between a mansion and a school. They followed the lights, mumbling about circulating lights from the ground, and light means food. It is here that I decided to possess one of the orcs, to ride to passively to where ever they were going and observe them. I realized as they approached the building that this was someone else’s dream, a dream that had appeared too close to their territory.

 

   The Bear Orcs, about four in all including the one I was possessing were standing around by a sliding glass patio door leading into a hallway with classrooms, but out onto a large swimming pool and patio complete with lawn chairs and tables. Before too long some people came out, teenage boy, an older darker skinned man, and fatter nerdier looking kid. The Bear Orcs simply grabbed them; these people showed little emotion and before long it was clear why; they were NPCs, figments of dreams, some were almost exact doubles of each other as well. Then I sensed it a girl started to slowly come out, confused, this was a real Dream Body, and what the Bear Orcs were waiting for. As dreams are what they are this person had little knowledge they were in danger. It was in this moment that that I decided I would not allow it; or rather a power within me stated as such and changed my nature from incorporeal to physical. The orc exploded and its head landed in the hand of the woman I had become; Rhulan the Celestial Sorceress. The very air, no fabric of the dreamscape rippled around me, barely able to withstand the power of Rhulan, it pushed back and I became my waking self, I pushed out and became Rhulan. I told the girl to run. Into the building she went,as did one Bear Orce; two of the other Bear Orcs I scarcely remember their fate, I think perhaps a mere motion from Rhulan or her pushing against the world was enough to send them either running or make them fade from this dreamscape.

 

   I went into the building; the girl had run in there, as had a Bear Orc. I searched and the walls distorted as the presence of Rhulan started to become dominant here. In a room I sensed it, the Bear Orc had changed its form into that of a small gruesome looking toy. I picked it up. It tried biting with a large mouth full of teeth, but it was helpless in my hand. Outside again I tossed it into the pool, it flew out quickly as some winged thing, I merely back handed it and it exploded from the force.

 

  Suddenly everything changed, the dream turned to the way it was always meant to be. It was daylight and the teenage girl was floating on a colorful tube in the pool, chatting with the likenesses of her friends and family as well as some other random NPCs just moving about looking busy. The girl was chatting about her future prospects and what she wanted to do with her life, school or work, and some other issues; which goes to explain the shape her dream was taking. I was relaxing, just floating about flying over the pool acting somewhat childish, which is usually very off putting to some given Rhulan’s typically imposing form, I was floating just over the water plucking leaves and debris from the surface. The girl noticed me and made the comment, “I don’t want to end up like this lady, all cosplay and no direction.”

 

  Her subconscious had mistaken me for a manifestation of her dream, apparently representing a carefree childish existence. I floated over to her, sitting in the air and asked her how old she is.

  She told me she was fourteen years old. I told her I am over ten thousand years old, and have had many jobs and done many things, *did that finger snapping thing teenagers sometimes do (snip snap), then laughed. As I floated up I told her, “do what you want to do, what your heart desires, so long as it makes you happy.”

 

   As my mind was starting to synch up with the dream form, not my waking mind, but a far different one, as though sleeping in a faraway place dreaming of my waking self; things became disturbingly lucid, two bodies in two beds, and this other person’s dream would be in danger if I fully synchronized. So I flew up and out of the shell of the dream into the astral plane. There I awoke into the waking world, as I felt another me go back to sleep. My waking self felt off, requiring a moment to re-synchronize myself with my body.