I just slept for 10 hours. As is often the case when I do so, I had some vivid dreams. Vivid and incomprehensible.

 

( Dinosaurs! Warps in time and space! Evil Book Stores!  )

Haven't done this in a while: Dream Journal time!

***

I was in the streets of Downtown Vancouver, very late at night. The streets were utterly deserted. Not even homeless folks around, though I get the sense this wasn't a sign the city had been deserted or anything; it was just really late. I saw this building I have never seen in real life, but which I seemed to be intimately familiar with in the dream. It was a large, ornate, stone tunnel entrance which was set into the concrete of the ground. The floor of it was recessed into the ground, and was flooded with perhaps ankle-deep, luminous green fluid, which I understood intuitively to be corrosive to the point of instant lethality.
The tunnel led downwards at a 45 degree grade (or thereabouts), and, perhaps 15 feet down, curved at a 90 degree angle to the right. All along the ceiling, at irregular intervals, were exposed bits of rebar, sticking out of the concrete.

I understood the purpose of this place was that it was a testing grounds for some nebulously-defined organization I was a part of. I understood I would need to go down there. So, I leapt up, and grabbed hold of the first bit of rebar I could see. I was now in the tunnel, and dangling over the fluid.
I leapt from bar to bar, catching each with relative ease. I was descending. After I turned the corner at the first landing, I saw, after another short descent, it opened into a large room. Inside this room, the corrosive fluid deepened somewhat, and there were many pillars stretching from the floor to ceiling. Many of these curved outwards near the top, and there were more of these bars sticking out of them. I was not alone, now.

Lounging around the room, seemingly unharmed by and unconcerned-with the fluid, were a collection of people. Men and women. All wearing black and red uniforms (of a sort), though they didn't look like any uniform of any human organization). I understood they were a part of the test set before me by this organization. As I arrived, they looked up. Many smiled wryly. Many began to pick up weapons and stand up.
With one free hand, I picked up a long pole leaning against the wall next to me, and, still clinging to the ceiling with one hand, began to flail about with it.
I managed to thwack a few of them in the heads; they seemed to be coming at me one at a time. There was a clear order to this. Those who weren't fighting me were insulting me, disparaging me, encouraging me to quit, or pointing out how easily I could die here. After maybe the third one got put down (and there were about 5 or 6 left), one came at me with "Wolverine"-stlye claws on the backs of his hands. He smiled wickedly, as he came for me.
My nerve broke. It was too terrifying. I made back for the tunnel entrance, as quickly as possible, dropping my weapon, and making for the surface. I arrived safely; they didn't seem to be following. But as I got to the street, I felt awash in failure.

I was quite alone. I had failed myself, and those who had set me this test. I wandered into the streets, the sun now rising over the city, looking for something to do. I went into a store with a few people in it. tried to withdraw some money from an ATM so I could get some breakfast, but my bank account was empty. What's more, the machine announced this on a large screen, so all around me could see.
I was deeply ashamed, and slunk off.

And then I woke up.

Had a greatt dream yesterday. There were these three creatures prowling about late at night. They reminded me of a crosss between a gorilla and an aligator, with a touch of mastifff in the outline. Their flesh was like glass; translucent and very shiny. Their bones, within that flesh, were ordinary, though, and opaque. Their nervous systems glowed a bright purple, casting a light throughout their bodies, causing their entire glassy forms to glow softly. In the pale darknesss, they were the only visible light source, casting a nimbus of light around them and upon the ground they walked on.

I felt the need to do some artwork.

Can't wait to get to colouring. This is going to be a complicated one.

So, yesterday afternoon, I had a wonderful dream.

I was a member of the entourage of some sort of japanese matriarch or something. It was this late - middle - aged japanese woman who had dozens of servants. I was one of them, and I get the sense, a high ranking one; I was able to boss the others around.

She was up on top of this hill, looking down on a row of simple wooden buildings, and she ordered the lot of us to set them up for some kind of market day. She gave us explicit instructions not to partake of the wares ourselves.

So, I get moving, setting up a display for some kind of restaurant down at the end of the row, along with a bunch of other people (all of whom were oriental; I presume japanese), and got them working. Before long, I noticed one of them, this great fat fellow with no shirt on and a scruffy little moustache, was helping himself to some sushi; bits of it were caught in his moustache, so it was pretty unambiguous that he was guilty.

I grabbed him by the arms, and held them behind his back so he couldn't wipe his face clean, and told him I was bringing him to the boss to be punished. He fretted and tried to squirm loose, but to no avail.

I brought him to the little office that the matriarch-woman had, and waited to have a chance to speak with her as she concluded some other business. As my turn came, I began to speak to her, only to be interrupted by my old (real-life) friend Paul Reeve, who lectured and nit-picked at me about the way I was adressing her. I rolled my eyes and shook my head. I knew what I was doing, but it's intrinsic to Paul's nature to do this sort of thing. He exited the building without waiting for a reply.

So, I explained the situation to the matriarch, who nodded appreciatively and thanked me for my diligence. She then gestured off into the shadows for someone to come forth.

The man who stepped forwards was enormous; not just fat, but perhaps nine feet tall and six feet across the shoulders. The flesh around his chin and neck were voluminous. As I watched, fascinated, he walked up to the fat man who I'd brought to be punished, and opened his mouth. Wide. So wide, in fact, that he must have displaced his jaw, like a boa constrictor, and proceeded to eat the man alive, gulping him down gradually, in perhaps eight inch incriments, bloating out along the throat, chest, and then belly as he did so.

There was some other incoherent images in my dream after this, but reallly, after something like that, who cares what else might have happened in the dream?