Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams - Chapter 20

Mars Or The Moon (A New Red Planet)

There was a graying, menacing sky that served as a backdrop for some tower, raised up in some long ago scene. Nearby walls were cast in shadow. As if recalling some tragedy, I uttered;

Like wind through fallen autumn leaves,
all scattered about the doors and corners
So shall the halls of this place be likewise abandoned,
a gray, dull silhouette that only echoes with the song of death.

Indeed, the structure was a dull silhouette against a gray sky that promised an oncoming storm. The overhanging storm and sky were now covered in a calm, warm night. The scene changed to other outer walls, but it was still a warm night.

I was attentive to the conversation about Kosovo and Russian troops. Mom and I were speaking of these things while treading across a structure that was a balcony walkway held up by massive support arches like a highway bridge would have. We were heading for some convenient store for some snacks. Off in the distance I saw three pyramids across a sandy stretch of land and we stood upon a cobblestone road or a brick path of some sort as we walked off the balcony pathway toward the store.

This was also lined atop concrete and ran ten to twenty feet above the sand, like a bridge. As we walked I looked up at what I thought was the planet Mars. The surface was red. Mom said casually that it was the moon. I looked again and wondered why the moon was so red. The dust and sand there was as red as Martian lore and the sand below our feet as yellow and bright as the sun.

I wondered again if it really could be Mars and how dangerously close to Earth it was orbiting. It was massive in the sky.

"Remember that prophecy? About the moon turning red?" I asked Mom.
"Maybe, I don't know." She replied.

Then suddenly Mom walked off. I didn't even see where she went off to. I was standing there by myself gazing at the red globe as it hung there almost at horizon level. Silent and ominous.

It lingered there, mute and oblivious. Then all at once I saw quakes upon the surface, the red planet hovering above Earth was tearing itself apart. The grounds afar were being ripped and severed from within.

The gashes revealed pure darkness and the marks on the surface began to take on such a jagged appearance that the quakes splintered over the mass of the surface facing toward Earth. The tears formed three major long lines that swirled at the ends. The gashes revealed nothing beneath the surface. I looked in awe until it just went dark, then faded into a thick cloud of black atmosphere. Nothing could be seen after that. I looked for Mom and the others. They were not around.

I went to the convenient store that was abandoned but was still open. I grabbed a drink and looked over at the nearby pyramids. They were aglow from the light of the sand that lay stilled upon the Earth. Nothing was phased by the red giant body next to the earth.

I thought I was the only one who witnessed this. There was no sign of anyone else. I wasn't in the present time though. I knew I was somewhere else.

Circa 1998

Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams - Chapter 21

Escape From The Moon

Prior to the dream about the red celestial body in close orbit with Earth, I dreamt about the moon shortly before that. The usual transport into shadowy realms took minutes and I was somewhere very desolate and dead cold. The others seemed to be there, too. A brownish, yet hostile landscape, showed to be an obscure location somewhere on the lunar surface. We were all in a structure, like a big housing unit built on the moon.

I looked around in confusion because I didn't remember how I got there. We were apparently living there and had been for some time it seemed. All our things were there too. I thought it strange that we had brought everything we owned to the moon but there we were, basically roughing it. The suits we wore to maintain vital functions outside of the dwelling were like regular clothes or uniforms that would cover our frames and provide air and temperature control and gravity leverage, making us heavier than we really were.

The air system that was providing temperature control, and oxygen, had broken down. Repairs were drastically needed if we were to survive. It was decided that we needed to get back to Earth and we had very little time. We began loading the shuttle. I was hurrying back and forth, trying to pack and carry out crates. I kept checking my oxygen reading. I was already on the reserve pack in my suit.

Dodo was upset and seemed to ignore our present danger. Mom and Rachel were out of hearing range and seemed to not grasp the situation. Dodo apparently had had some harsh words with a pilot of one of the shuttle crews back on Earth. Soon I discovered that the pilot was actually on the moon with us and did not intend to leave. Just as I was loading some crate, I looked over at Dodo and before I could warn him, he was struck from behind by the pilot who had gone mad.

The oxygen had gone critical, and the pilot was determined that we were all going to stay on the surface until we either lost air or froze to death. I quickly tried to get the last boxes onto the cargo ramp and the rest of the way into the ship. Shallow breaths and the stinging of cold began to grip me. I went over to Dodo and tried to shake him back to. I really didn't know what his problem was. He was struck with a foam noodle that insulated a hydraulic. And being on the moon, it couldn't have been felt as more than a feather. "This is no time to drama your spleen" I told him.

The situation started to look more bleak under the biting absence of atmosphere. I began to move slower, towards an empty pool bed. There the demented pilot stood. He had a gun and was going to kill everyone. I ran up to him and struggled with him to get the gun while trying to avoid being shot myself.

"What?! Are you crazy?! If we don't get the hell out of here, we're all going to die! Even you, you fucking moron!" I told him. The madman didn't seem to care at all about his own life, let alone ours, and still tried to shoot everyone. Finally I grabbed the gun from his hands. Already having no more resolve other than wanting to be rid of this insane guy, even if we were going to die, I had to take out the immediate threat and aimed the gun at him as he tried to rush me and grab it back from me. I shot him dead. That was the end of that.

I imagined what it would be like to fly back to Earth. I had no sufficient training on how to fly a shuttle, such was our only escape from the moon offered. We were trapped and stuck out on the moon if we couldn't get launched. At first it seemed to me that we'd only been there for a short mission and that we weren't there for very long. Then I realized we had been there for so long that we'd forgotten what Earth was like. Next thing I knew, we were flying through limited space and headed for Earth.

I remembered that I wasn't too thrilled to see Earth. Especially after seeing the way the pilot had been affected by whatever he imagined happened back there. We sat in silence aboard the ship and barely escaped but we were all intact. As we began our approach, I wondered what it would be like to land back on the planet that we had been away from for so long. I saw a very warm and peaceful blue. A little hazy where the biosphere shrouded the mass of detail below. It was graceful and beautiful to behold. The Bavarian Forest came into view. I heard yodeling.

I shook back to and navigated through an even plane with the curvature of the earth. I looked back to the others and asked, "Does anyone know how to re-enter and plot a landing course? Or even how to fly and safely land this piece of shit?"

No one answered.

Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams - Chapter 22

Eyes Of The Dead

It seemed like evening, maybe later. I observed a man building some kind of structure with a roof of four sectioned, angled sides. The man was hammering away at the floor boards when the roof gave way and crashed down and almost smashed onto the man had he not rolled towards the center so he wouldn't be crushed. I got the strangest feeling that from somewhere from behind the man, someone was watching him and I could feel their eyes on him but oblivious to me.

Next I observed a woman standing next to the man. They were looking proudly on as they admired a new truck, a new boat and an old boat. For some unknown reason, with all their riches they had, they seemed obsessed about rebuilding the old, decayed boat and left the new things alone. It kept falling apart and crumbling like sod. I asked them why save something of no value when there are trees and grass all around that'll be here forever? I showed them to the wooded opening of some green place where we stood close by. A few passersby could be seen and heard from various points.

I felt the eyes again. I mentioned again, as long as these are still here, why try to save something that is rotted and dead? I laid down upon the grass and looked up at a warm blue sky with a few soft, white clouds. To my surprise I noticed that the man had laid down beside me and started to talk about how beautiful nature was. Then the woman who had been with him, walked into the woods and started to look around. The ground was smooth, as if it had been mowed. Suddenly the man had disappeared. I looked around casually and saw someone roller-blading down the grassy hills and thought it odd.

I stood and walked in the wooded area that led to some old fort. Concrete walls decayed and taken over by vines lining them and trench-like corridors in the open woods beyond. There were some kids listening to music. I recognized it. I knew the name of the song. I went to look closer and saw around ten kids between the ages of 13-18 years of age, dancing and singing. They were in one of the dug-out trenches where the sound was sharper and clearer. I smiled. They didn't seem to notice me but I sang along with them. I joined them after I felt the eyes from the woods still peering through some unknown portal. We all climbed up to the ground level of the fort and sat down while the music still played.

A familiar face smiled and came to sit next to me. She turned to me and told me that she had to be somewhere else and left. I nodded. I was still listening to the music as I got up and walked around the fort. The music blended so well and wrapped around every stone that I wondered where the music was actually coming from.

I started to walk through a part of the fort I hadn't seen before. It led to an inside hallway of some sort. I called back to the others and waved my hand. "Hey check this out!" I said. "There's some kind of hidden palace here."

The others timidly came to investigate. I went on ahead as I could still hear the music in the background. As I walked down the hall, it followed into another inside hall. Sunlight spilled into the place through white flowing curtains, billowing with the outside breeze. Rugs were spread out on the polished wooden floor, and the walls were painted white. Furniture pieces where lined up against the walls. For a moment I thought I had walked into a mansion or some kind of tourist visiting area of the fort.

I walked slowly down the hall and found a foyer, where there stood a big heavy wood table with flowers on it in the center of the room. Beyond the table I could see off to the right, a plain wooden door and about five feet from the door there was a staircase that consisted of around five stairs before it turned and continued into a dark, further staircase. More than ever, I felt the eyes staring and following my every movement. I felt they were of a dead stare because there was no form taken.

The wooden door and staircase were along the same wall. If I stood in between the door and the stairs everything became distorted so that to the right the door was closed and ominously forbidden. And to the left was the staircase. But if I went down the hall again, the door appeared open. And along the same wall. I figured I was looking at a mere reflection of something else and that it changed with movement depending on the perception of anyone in that place.

The music still played in the background. I walked into the foyer and sang along with the music. A middle-aged woman with short, curly reddish brown hair and rather heavy-set, walked into the foyer. I was a little startled but she didn't seem to pay any attention to me. What struck me as odd and unnerving was that she had come from the door on the right side of the wall. Which I had already confirmed was evil.

She seemed busy. It appeared that she was putting keys on a key-chain or something just as mundane, but the door she had emerged from was as if she had come out of some dark pit that had no floor, walls, or any light or substance whatsoever. I instinctively headed for the stairs because I knew that beyond them the fort was on the other end, as the fort wrapped around the place. That I would emerge on the outside again.

Outside would be as I imagined, sunny, warm and the sky would be blue with white clouds.

The door to the right, obviously a wrong turn.

Then the middle-aged woman looked at me. She was wearing thick eyeglasses that had a little tint in them. I could see that both her eyes were black. No color, no white, just black eyes within the sockets.

For a moment there was absolutely no sound around me. The music had grown so faint just seconds before that I figured I moved too far away from the sound or that the song simply faded out and ended too soon.

But all sound had been consumed somehow. Swallowed up by the presence of this woman. As if someone had pressed a mute button. Then the music far off in the background returned as I had kept the timing of it in my head, and it filtered back through into the strange place. I looked back at the woman's face, after looking around to see if the same hallway was still behind me. It was.

Although the woman's face seemed to be normal enough, this time even her eyes seemed normal, but still evil. I thought this was some illusion or trick. I continued walking towards the stairs, but slowly. The woman was going back and forth as if continuing her normal daily routine. I noted that she avoided the staircase and it, in turn, seemed to repel her, like a magnet against another magnet turned the wrong way. At one point she got close enough to the stairs that they forced her back a few paces without knocking her over. Like the stairs slid her feet across the floor as if she were a pawn on a chess board.

Suddenly the woman stopped and said something to me. The mute effect had happened again as I watched the animated motions of someone talking but no sound could be heard. No sound was issuing from her mouth. I stared in confusion and in a sense, smiling in relief that I could not hear her. She was obviously talking to me. Again the black eyes were present behind her thick glasses.

Like onyx beads, almost glistening with wrath in the room that was bathed in sunlight from the outside through the windows in the hallway behind. Where she stood, the room was cast in shadow and gloom. A heavy and oppressing air seemed to hover her. I peered straight into her black eyes and though I could hear absolutely no sound coming from her, I could faintly hear the music behind me. I held my gaze and then yawned. Inside I was laughing.

I checked to make sure she hadn't motioned or moved in a threatening way towards me. Her index finger held up, as if scolding me. I was supposed to fear her. But I did not. It seemed her dead eyes had a will to do me harm but was more afraid for herself. Her eyes grew darker. I cast her out of the hallway. She looked at me as if mocking, and in disbelief. Then her face grew into a scowl and her eyes deeper in black. Then her eyes shriveled and finally fell into the depth of an empty skull. She and her deathly eyes were no more. And no sign of any corpse. I harnessed the power of the stairs and the fort.

And the music played on.

October 5, 1999

Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams - Chapter 23

Grave Road

A vast green field stretched out over miles of area. In what seemed like the south part of the field, a young woman was standing there singing. It was a familiar song, the American anthem. She emphasized on the notes rather than the words. The words were changed somehow.

I walked back along the grassy field. Eventually I came upon a small dirt road that lead to a series of houses, or to another part of the perimeter that lead to a town. Off to my right stood a house. There were no ill vibes about it, just that it seemed to be covered in night and its white edges outlined the frame as it stood alone and quiet. The fence that was built around the large hill-like front yard looked as though it had frost, although it was very warm outside.

I turned away and continued south. There in the middle of the dirt road appeared to be a grave. An old man already in it, half buried. Only his head could be seen. He was face up and his body was under the soil so I couldn't tell if he had fallen through or was laid in his grave that way on purpose. It did seem as if he had been caught in an avalanche of earth and it buried him alive.

Only a portion of his face could be seen. His left eye edging towards the dirt. His swollen, deathly face showed his eyes to be horribly swollen and bugging out a bit. I saw that he was still alive. But barely. I walked up to him as other people began to rush up to see what had happened. Some people kept their distance. I began to clear away the dirt and soil from around the eye area, jaw and mouth, thinking he would breathe better but something told me not to even touch that thing.

I backed away as some other people ran up to him in an attempt to save him. I felt outwardly that it was a foul thing, buried there like that for a reason. Inwardly I felt no connection to whoever it was. No recall, no emotion whatsoever. In the sight of death I saw nothing. No ill on my part to have been in any way affected by this one way or the other. I didn't know who it was, and I didn't see or have any knowledge of what had happened but I felt that it was just. It neither bothered, upset, or pleased me.

I walked a few paces away, then turned to look again upon this buried man. For what seemed only a moment, I knew he was already dead. The decaying color of his features and stone cold bony face revealed that he had been dead for quite some time. He had no soul even in life. I thought, at most it was odd, even vaguely unnerving, that I would see the finality of it all.

The other folk that looked on the face more closely to examine the strange illusion I had just witnessed, tricking them into thinking he was still alive, finally declared in mingled voices that he was indeed dead. The corpse's tongue began to slip out of the mouth in an oozing, rolling-like pattern. It was a black, leathery thin texture, but it was wide and kept rolling out as if it had been rolled up inside his throat in massive layers.

At last death comes to one whose evil deception is shown on his face, and whose tongue was endless with lies. Graphic and yet benign, as it was. No one will mourn such an evil monster.

February 25, 2000

Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams - Chapter 24

Light Within Darkness

The roads were cast in a shadow of evening. Dusk, but a soft indigo color still under the faint light of sunset. I was looking out the passenger's window while riding along in a car. I noticed nobody was driving the car. I wanted the car to stop. It did so. I got out. I didn't feel spooked by it but I wanted to get away from that strange occurrence.

The sky was like a blanket of a calm golden brownish hue. I slowed down in front of a house I had seen in dreams before, maybe two other times, but in each one the house had taken on a different appearance or size, or was placed somewhere else but close enough to a familiar haunt. In this one, a cul-de-sac of houses stood. Maybe it was just three houses, but the middle one had a very dark layer of wooded area on its sides and strange large bricks holding up the structure.

From the outside the house seemed empty, not anything more than that. Suddenly there was an air of blackness. I walked and peeked inside the middle house, and standing next to it, it seemed a lone structure and the nearby homes now seemed far away. There was no floor in one room, it had caved in down to a basement that was now littered with fallen beams and pieces of the inside walls. It looked charred and I left and closed the door behind me. It seemed that I had left a familiar house, one that belonged to a relative or someone I knew. I never saw anyone there. I wanted to leave in a hurry because it was dark and unnerving and nobody was there.

I continued traveling the oddly quiet roads. Green lawns and bright sidewalks stretched out under the twilight overhead and it all seemed abandoned as if everyone were asleep at the same time. One road seemed to be a dead end, but upon the further trek, it never ended. I turned around.

I was riding a bicycle now, the wind in my hair and my feet resting on the frame as I let the bike take me down the suburban streets in a quiet rhythm of the wheels gliding against the pavement. I felt a hot, humid atmosphere raging from above. I turned from a west point to an east point and found that I was going back to that street again with that house. I looked away. I went on and soon it looked as if the land began to expand to a vast, barren scenery that far off into the distance turned into hills of dust and smooth mountain foothills.

But closer, and suspended a few inches from the dead ground, there were scattered over the landscape, glowing orbs of white light within thin, transparent bubble-like globes that bounced and floated in the air. Pearl white light emitted from them with an otherworldly glow. They seemed to dance over the ground. I thought it was beautiful. There were dozens of these orbs and I guessed there were hundreds further on that I couldn't see.

I rode by them, then looked back around, and thought I could barely make out the local town people here and there. I saw a few shadows pass by. The faces and shapes of people were not to be seen, but rather a picture that had been painted black and gray. They were moving and going on their way but if they got more than five feet from me, I could not see them anymore. They'd dissolve in a faded effect within my range of view. As if they were never there. The darkness seemed heavier when I could not see the orbs. Like little lamp lights, they were.

I looked back again at the glowing orbs and they were further away. I went towards them but not chasing them as I had no clue as to what they were and how they might respond to other entities. When I approached them, and came close to them, they stayed near me. When I looked around at the roads that I traveled, it was as if the orbs were unseen from that distance.

I reached up to touch the glass-like surface and found I was back in the car with the window rolled up. The headlights provided light that I could see the roads in this strange world now. Everything throughout the dream had been set in dusk, in the twilight of some end to some fateful day.

I could see all around me, but it wasn't like the day, it was a glowing night. In the shadows I could see more sharply than if the sun had been out in the usual choking, hazy layers. The night was clear and clean under the uncertain sky. I focused far off to what seemed a south point - and saw a fading sunset.

Before waking up from this vision, I found that I was within one of the glowing orbs after reaching out to them. I was seeing the reflections of the outside of the orb and that I was never in a car at all.

Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams - Chapter 25

The Fountain Of Blood And Water

A vague outline of a story unfolded here. Whatever it was, it had already happened when I stood in these unfamiliar surroundings. There stood a fountain in the middle of an old village that had been modernized into a small town, while still keeping most of its original setting. Overhead, the full moon hung in the sky menacingly.

A college was nearby for the university sprawled out in walkways, a library and other buildings. The fountain in the center of it all was round and was about fifteen feet in diameter. The water sprung from high-placed portals that were shaped like statues of gargoyles. It was night all around me. I looked down a few abandoned streets. I noticed that I was standing next to a street lamp looking on all of this. The night shadowed everything and although a full moon was in the sky, it offered no light upon the grounds. It was hard to see anything outside the glow of the lamplight. Piercingly, I heard a wolf's cry break out in the eerie, quiet air. A chill ran up my spine as I quickly leapt up to the streetlamp and then ducked into a nearby window.

I was looking for cover because a werewolf was approaching the town. Suddenly I spotted a few scattered people running from different streets. One man stopped in front of the fountain and tried to hide in the running water. I saw the werewolf approach the fountain. He was grizzly and huge, his coat bristled with wrath. I watched in horror as the beast ripped the man in the fountain apart. I looked away and felt numb and cold. Then I heard the wolf run off after someone else. Rigidly, and afraid to move a muscle, I looked back toward the fountain. The water was reddened and riddled with strewn bits of clothing and flesh.

I was searching for a better place to hide when I heard someone say that I should not fear the wolf. Wondering where I really was and not knowing the exit, I clung to a solid object. I saw a tall and sinister dark man walking towards the fountain. He had no fear of the wolf although he could clearly see the condition of the fountain and had to have known there was imminent danger. Then I thought that he was the werewolf. To my surprise he looked in my direction and spoke something to me. I couldn't understand what he said but I got the impression that if I went to the fountain, I would die.

I was inside a building now. The main building of the college, I thought. I was going up some set of stairs that turned into a ramp. The place was completely abandoned. The lights were all off and all the doors were locked. Then I found that I was inside some kind of cold, massive church building. I walked hurriedly about checking for any unlocked doors. I didn't want to be questioned, or worse, accused of breaking and entering just because a werewolf was on the loose. The inside of the church was decorated in red, and long halls that seemed to be designed to intimidate the poor and weak. There was more of a feeling of death within the building than there was outside where the wolf lurked.

I came upon a choir of children, they were mostly of ethnic backgrounds. They were all singing in a robotic way the words: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the bible tells me so.

I passed them and remained aware that the wolf was still out there somewhere. The wolf had taught them the song as they mimicked howling from under their breath. I turned around to see them again and they weren't really there. I was seeing some sort of playback as they were already dead. It gave me the creeps and I shuddered.

I looked on the face of a thirteen year old boy and all the other children, much younger, who were standing with him. They were all looking at me with a blank, zombie-like stare. As I backed away, there were suddenly a set of unlocked doors and I went through. No one was going to follow me or let loose any shrieks for the wolf to hear, or to alarm any other being. I was finally escaping, because they were after all, already dead. And it never felt like they would have ever come after me or alert the wolf to my presence. I noted they were all wearing red winter coats that looked to be stained with death.

Running past the fountain, I saw that the water had returned to normal and there was no sign of any foul event and there was no moon in the sky.

Distorted Chambers In The Realm Of Dreams - Chapter 26

Hour Ends

Over the curves of the world I rose further up and felt the thin, cold environment of space. Faraway planets hung ominously and deathly while clusters of disembodied star fragments swirled with wrath and raged in fires and stellar explosions. I drifted long and thought I was already dead. I remembered green, dark and mysterious planets I had been to before and wondered why I lost their location. I would have headed to the known living worlds, I thought to myself. But now I was unnumbered miles from any world than before. I was learning new courses and routes.

When I find myself suspended and lost and yet still traveling, there's some odd will or instinct to breakaway from the realm of dreams. I bounce back like a spring, in the flash of a second, over parsec, over unknown reaches. I land on my feet and rarely leave my secret or knowledge behind.

These chapters that came from dreams very vividly and yet vague in the waking world, have all been recollected and brought out of abstract recall in the telling. To merely describe something leaves out the vision, the state of mind, the angles and terrain as seen when they were happening. It does seem to become distorted when told in the alpha state of awareness.

I once dreamed about Freddy Krueger. But in my dream he wasn't after me. He was after someone else. That someone was after me first, then he showed up. It wasn't to rescue me. I simply wasn't his target. So I was of the frame of mind that he could do whatever it was he was doing.

I was also present when a train rolled off the tracks in Alabama on September 22, 1993. I was on the tracks with no idea how I got there and then jumped into the water when I saw the train coming. Then I swam around in the water, then the train followed me into the bayou. I woke up shortly after. I was in Utah at the time.

I was there when the Oklahoma City building blew up on April 19, 1995 when I saw praying mantis creatures the size of humans, maybe a little larger, all wearing robes, some in green, some in red, and some in white. I saw that they were trying to escape this building and I had no idea where I was or what these creatures were. I saw the rooms and stairs blow up and the blasts and fires killed them. I flew out of the area and stirred in my sleep. I wouldn't know what had happened to this building until later on that day. Having never been there, it looked like the same kind of building from the reports on television. I was in Arkansas at that time.

In another odd vision I saw a woman driving a station wagon on a dirt road, through a field, and was either trying to escape something, or get somewhere on time. I could not tell what her hurry was. The sun was already rising. It was early morning and as she drove, the earth opened up below her car and buried it in the rubble of dirt and rocks. Her spirit escaped but her body did not. Although this was out in some field, I had this unsettling feeling she met the same kind of fate that thousands of others met somewhere else. I had this dream on September 11, 2001.

But as it is, these dreams mentioned would not present much of a chapter. Nothing is really going on in them on my part. I'm an observer and the scenes are literally as short as the paragraphs written here.

I merely and most of the time, navigate the ley lines. The dreams which I've presented have, in most cases, something happening in them that would make it worthy of a story, so-to-speak. By no means have the dreams concluded and I have set up harboring points. But for now they are only visions in the stages of much needed rest and sleep.

1997-2001