Author's Note[]
The following is an ongoing journal/log of all of the dreams, nightmares, thoughts and visions I have experienced, from years' past to recent days. Every log may not be consistent with the content or previous experiences; my dreams are fairly erratic. Some logs may contain recent dreams, others may recall past nightmares or hallucinations ranging back from childhood. Others may just be odd or lingering thoughts about whatever topic comes to pass. They may not be scary, they may not be disturbing, but most of them are vivid andlucid. Please keep in mind that these experiences have actually occurred in my own personal life, so please do not immediately dismiss these thoughts as fake, as far-fetched or delusional as they may seem to be. I feel as though I need to share these experiences with someone, anyone really, who might be able to connect to these thoughts and have had similar "journeys".
Entry 1: Sunday, 2:30 P.M. Oct. 27, 2013[]
Today I awoke yet again to the distinct and often demanding sound of my watch's alarm function. I have it set to go off daily at 10:00 a.m., which is when I prefer to get my day started. Because I often go to sleep later than everyone else in my household, mainly around 2 or 3 a.m., I usually sleep in. As my alarm woke me from my sleep, I turned it off, and decided to rest for a few more minutes before fully awaking. As I wiped my eyes clean of sleep dust and shut my eyes again, I lost consciousness within minutes and fell into slumber.
My mind then began to portray a dream so many people have had before. My dream placed me in a classroom, one I did not recognize. The layout of the room was simple; 15 desks placed diagonally on one half of the room, another 15 placed similarly on the opposite side. The teacher's desk was in between the two groups, near the front wall where the door outside lead. Typical educational and motivational posters were placed all over the walls. But I noticed something: most of the posters overlaid others, and all of the posters on the bottom were all one color: White.
I was in a desk near the back of the room on the left side. I was still myself. I wasn't some other student whom I loathed or respected, nor was I some fictionalized version of myself that displayed my insecurities or played to my strengths. I was just myself.
I cannot say the same of my "fellow classmates". They were all friends of mine that I remember from high school, but some noticeable things about them made them seem "off". My best friend, Kevin Kenney was in front of me, and he looked like he normally does: medium-length, dark brown hair, eyebrows nearly into a unibrow, tall and lanky figure, deep voice-- almost everything about him seemed normal... except for one thing. His Metallica T-shirt. Kevin is a big fan of Metallica, and has a simple black T-shirt with the band's logo across the front. The problem was the logo. Not only was it upside-down, it was also rearranged into an anagram of Metallica. Though I only glanced at the shirt in the dream, I was able to see what it read: "It All Came". I wondered why the name was mixed up. I, myself do not respect Metallica for reasons I cannot fully describe, so perhaps that has something to do with it.
Another friend, Anthony Flora, who was on the other side of the room, was depicted similarly to that of Kevin. His appearance was as I remember him in school: Overweight, blond, combed hair, glasses, blue eyes, scruffy beard. Again, almost everything about was how I remembered, except for one distinct thing. For him, it was his feet. Outside of school, Anthony would often wear sandals when he visited my house, so my dream depicted him wearing sandals. But for some reason, his feet were... mixed up. It's kind of hard to describe, but his left foot was where his right foot should be and vice versa. Yet for some reason, his toes were in the "correct spot". His left foot was on his right leg, but the toes that are normally on his right foot were on his left foot. It was like a jumbled-up jigsaw puzzle of feet.
As the dream progressed, it depicted me and another classmate of mine, Shaun Lomelin, standing up in our seats. Even though the dream was only hours ago, I cannot remember what we were exactly doing, but I know we were speaking about a topic relevant to the class. Apparently, we were also in some kind of classroom contest, as I recall when the teacher said that we were "correct", everyone clapped for us. We then walked to the front of the class where I humorously raised Shaun's arm like referees do when announcing a victor. Then the dream got weird.
Shaun had a leather jacket, which he wore to school on occasion in real life. He was also a fan of several metal bands; groups like System Of A Down and KoRn, for example. Despite this, the only thing that depicted this on his jacket in real life were plastic/metal spikes along the shoulders of his jacket. But for some reason, the dream depicted his jacket with no spikes and one distinct patch. It was a big, black, square cotton patch with the logos of Led Zeppelin and its signature Icarus depicted in red. I have a T-shirt that looks like the patch in real life, so perhaps my mind used this for reference.
It didn't make sense, however. Shaun doesn't listen to classic rock like I do, so I thought him having Led Zeppelin on his jacket was weird. But as I rose Shaun's hand in victory, I glanced at the Icarus patch on the back of his jacket. Icarus' head... It wasn't looking "up" as it usually does... it was looking at me.
His beady red eyes... just glaring at me. Judging me.
As I looked on, his head slowly began to twist, like a pool of blood trickling down a drain. Then, for a split-second, his head snapped back to normal, and my classroom experience was over.
But I was still asleep. The dream was only half-finished.
I shall continue with the second half of this log later today. Writing out such experiences is surprisingly taxing and time consuming, and I need the time to recollect my thoughts.
-CKS
Entry 2: Monday, 1:05 A.M., Oct. 28, 2013[]
After my classroom encounter, my dream immediately took a different path. One that had little to no relevance to the visions experienced only seconds ago. The perspective had shifted me from a first-person to a third-person standpoint. I was experiencing my dream as if it were the camera work of a TV show, constantly changing views and locations based on who was talking; the visions shaky. The focus first started on my friend, Anthony, reappearing once again. He looked just as he did in the classroom. He was speaking to someone else, another large, but older man. I didn't know who he was, and Anthony never mentioned his name in the dream. He was just a stranger. I didn't really care who he was when I woke up, as the following visions were much more impacting.
The two were talking in the parking lot of an auto shop-- Big O Tires. The whole area that was I viewing was a near-perfect replica of an intersection not too far from my dad's house. Everything was there: A Big KMart in the background to the south, a plaza of stores on the north side of the street, a 7-Eleven and some more fast food restaurants farther down the block to the east. Everything seemed exact. But again, one thing stood out. The Big O wasn't where it was as my mind made it to be. The Big O was actually occupying the space where a Carl's Jr. is actually supposed to be. "Why was it there?" I don't think I ever truly found out.
As Anthony and the stranger talked, Anthony mentioned a van the man had recently acquired, one he had nearby. As the man was talking with Anthony, he was behaving himself very suspiciously; looking around cautiously, speaking in a low tone of voice-- it turns out he had stolen this van. But for some reason, this van of his was nowhere to be found. The location's whole parking lot was surprisingly void of cars. People were still walking through the lot, but there were no cars. As the duo continued to speak, the perspective of the dream shifted over Anthony's shoulder to the back of the tire shop. A white, unmarked van steadily crawled to the tire shop until the vehicle barely dinged the store's back door.
BOOM.
For some reason, the impact caused such a big enough explosion that the entire half of the store went up in flames. Out of nowhere, another white van sped in the front of the store and came to a screeching halt. The perspective of vision was then shifting and changing out of control. The first thing that caught my attention was when my mind focused the perspective on the license plate of the van.
It read "ITALCME". "ITALCME?", I thought. "'It All Came?' Is that what it's supposed to read? Is there actually some sort of relevance between my classroom visions and this explosion?"
The van's doors flung open as four people dressed in dark clothing and leather jackets began firing at pedestrians with semi-automatic AR-15's. The criminals were all around my age group for some reason; 19, 20, 21 years old-- yet they acted very disciplined for their age. Their faces looked emotionless. Robotic, even. They didn't smirk or scowl, they never yelled or laughed. They just blinked. Blinked and shot. Shot and killed. I "watched on" as their cold, emotionless faces locked in on every civilian in their sights to gun them down in this eerie rampage ongoing in my mind. Then I noticed something else about these gunmen. It was their jackets, where yet another distinct emblem popped up.
It was a white, faded "X" fit snugly inside a circle, which heavily resembled the X-Men insignia from the comics. The "X" itself was worn out in its' center, and the whole logo looked as if it were sloppily drawn on with some sort of white pen. Maybe this was supposed to be the logo commonly associated with Slenderman.
"Why?", I thought to myself. "Were these criminals cultists? Was their attack some sort of ritual?"
Then I heard an outside voice.
It was the voice of John Walsh, the host of the long-running TV show, "America's Most Wanted." Somehow, my dream had been slowly, but surely, transforming into a re-enactment of some sort of fictionalized crime. But for some reason, John wasn't speaking any comprehensible language, just nonsense.
"Why?"
As the dream progressed, the perspective continued to shift as the police eventually reached the scene of the attack, cruisers swarming the location. A standoff ensued between the police and the criminals as John was "narrating", his nonsensical language overbearing the dream. I then noticed that John's rambling was actually back-masking. He was speaking backwards.
"Why?"
Eventually, the cops' standoff escalated as they began firing at the criminals, killing two while the remaining duo hid in the van. Surrounded by the police, the criminals looked at each other with a confident smirk. Two gunshots emerge from the van, bullet holes piercing through the roof of the vehicle. The remaining criminals committed suicide. As the dream's perspective panned away from the street and into the sky, I noticed something with the Big O Tires' sign. The "O" was spray-painted over in black with an "X", making it resemble the logo on the criminals' jackets.
Then the real hard-hitter. John Walsh's back-masking finally ceased long enough to say something normal.
"...it all came--"
Then I woke up.
As I gained consciousness, I just kept asking myself, "Why?" "Why did my friends have the changes they did in the classroom? Why was that Icarus logo looking at me? Who was that stranger Anthony was talking to? Why was it that street in particular? Why did the tire store explode the way it did? Were those criminals actually cultists? Why did they do what they did? Why was the dream becoming a re-enactment? Why was John Walsh back-masking? Why was that insignia there? Why was the phrase 'It All Came' so significant? Why?
Why?
Why?"
I'm not really sure what to make of my dream. Was it supposed to have some hidden meaning? Was it a warning? Was it just nonsense?
I shouldn't dwell on it now, it's getting late; I was uneven enough while writing this. Chances are it'll reoccur if I think about it too long.
-CKS
Entry 3: Thursday, 8:00 P.M., November 7, 2013[]
It's been a while since I've put in an entry. I guess that's good news since it means that my dreams have either been getting more positive or just more obscure and hazy. But I awoke today worried, thinking just how realistic my most recent dream could really be.
In my dream, I was walking down the street with what was, I assumed to be, my girlfriend. In the dream, I called her "Taylore", the name of my previous (and only) girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend, rather. However, the girl in the dream didn't look like Taylore at all. Taylore was African-American, short haired, black eyes, slim figure, about 5'9" in height. This girl looked nothing like that.
The girl was Asian, long, straight hair, glasses, nose piercing, about the same height as me, 6'0". The one thing that caught my eye was she was wearing an AC/DC baseball tee, the same one that I've had for years. It had the bands' logo on the front in red and yellow 3D, and the "1979 Highway To Hell Tour" picture on the back in black and white.* There were just as many tears and holes in her tee as my tee had as well. It was like she was wearing my exact shirt.
- I just noticed the Back In Black bit there.
The street we were walking on was where my old high school is. In place of the school, however, was instead a park, and a large one at that. Playgrounds, basketball courts, baseball diamonds-- everything you'd expect a typical recreational park to have. For some reason, the park was actually melded with another one that was across the street from the school's soccer field. I didn't pay any attention to it until I woke up, but that was because there was something more intriguing about the park.
There was practically no-one there. The place was dead. "Why, though?", I thought to myself after I woke up. "It was a beautiful day. Average temperature, fair amount of clouds. Nothing seemed too odd."
Then my dream took a heel-faced turn.
As we turned the corner of the park and walked down another street, I heard a vehicle approaching the sidewalk. I looked around and saw a beat up Chevy van pull up in front of us. Before I could think about it, four aggressive, bald-headed white men burst out of the van, pointing pistols at "Taylore" and I. Then I noticed the tattoos some of them bore. They all had a white cross atop a red circle somewhere on their ink. They were Ku Klux Klan members. As they approached us, yelling as loudly and incoherently as they could, they grabbed hold of Taylore and pistol-whipped her in the head. Knocked her unconscious in one blow.
"Klan pricks!", I yelled at the top of my voice to the dangerously realistic bigots. As I began to fight them and try to disarm them, they restrained me with what I remember was a full nelson and threw me in their van, leaving this girl for dead. I cannot remember what happened afterwards except that, only a few seconds later, I tried to fight them yet again and attempted to escape. My efforts were futile, however, as I nearly caught a baseball bat to the face. I say nearly because, as I closed my eyes just before the impact, I opened them again to see the dream had shifted me an unknown amount of time into what was apparently a drug den, owned by the Klansmen.
My wrists were duct-taped behind a wooden chair that sat alone in the house's "kitchen", where the Klamsmen were making hard drugs. This may be the reason they attacked me, they were high out of their minds. I couldn't really tell which hard drug they were making--cocaine, crystal meth, PCP. But then again, I didn't really care either. These were racist, drug-dealing pricks that needed to be dealt with. Two of the Klansmen were watching TV in a nearby room, keeping tabs on me. The other two were nowhere to be found. As one of them left for the bathroom, I heard this voice in my mind speak to me.
"Time to even the odds..." the voice echoed. Before I could ask who the voice was, I felt something "spawn" in my right hand. It was a pocket knife, the very same one that I keep in my room. I began to cut my binds as fast as I could. After freeing myself, the voice spoke again. "Lure him over to you." "Who was this voice?", I wondered. As I mocked him across the room for a minute or two, his patience finally broke as he approached me, rearing his arm back ready to slug me. Then time seemed to have slowed down. Before the man punched me, the voice returned, instructing me how to fight back against him. I followed his every instruction.
"Kick him in the groin." I kicked. "Get up quick." I stood. "Grab the back of his head." I reached. "Knee his face." I jumped. "Slice right to left." I swung the knife. "Backhand his ear." I punched. "Now thrust into his neck." I stabbed.
I stabbed him over and over again. I ripped his neck to shreds, his blood pouring out like drool from a dog's maw.
I procured a pistol from a nearby coffee table, checking that it was loaded and its safety was off. I walked down the hall to a bedroom, passing the occupied bathroom. Just as I got inside the bedroom to hide, I heard the Klansman finish in the bathroom. As he walked out, he saw my captor laying dead in the next room. He stood in shock for five seconds. All the time I needed to line up my shot.
"Take the shot," the voice said. I plugged him in the back of the head. His brain matter was like paint on the walls.
My vision was getting hazy. I could feel my throat getting dry and scratchy. The fumes from the drug lab were entering my system.
Around this time, I could hear a vehicle pulling up to the house. It was the other two Klansmen in their van. They must have heard the gunshot, because even though their voices were muffled outside the house, they sounded worried. Though I was nervous, I readied myself to face my oncoming attackers. The voice thought otherwise.
"They outnumber you, and they know you're waiting for them." I felt the pistol in my grip transform into something cylindrical. The handgun had transformed into a molotov cocktail, its rag fuse already lit. I waited for the two to burst through the door. It was only seconds, but my dream made it feel like minutes.
SLAM! The door burst open. I quickly turned the corner of the hallway and tossed the firebomb.
A large crash was heard as the glass shattered, igniting the gasoline and setting the flames alight. I watched as the two hopelessly and painfully burned to death. They turned red instantly. Then I saw something. The fire had hit an electrical outlet, causing a short. A spark hit the drug lab, about to ignite the noxious fumes. The whole place was going to explode.
"Run."
I sprinted out the front door over the still-burning bodies. When I reached the sidewalk...
BOOM. I felt the impact. The house had exploded, and I was only ten feet away from the blast. It sent me flying across the street. Just a foot above the pavement, I froze in place, unable to move and correct my fall. I couldn't even look around. Then the voice said something to me I don't think I'll ever forget.
"It's time you let the world know that we're all equal, whether they like it or not."
I landed. Just as I hit concrete, I awoke. For a split second, just as I gained consciousness, I noticed I was not physically in my bed. I was above it. Hovering over it as if a U.F.O. was trying to abduct me.
As I got ready for the day, countless thoughts about my dream flooded my mind. Questions upon questions without an answer to be found. But now, even after these thoughts and visions have dwell in my mind and are now laid out for me to ponder, I think no less of it. Maybe it's because I've had such vivid dreams before that... well, I don't really know. They're dreams. Nothing real. This isn't to say that I don't think of them as any less important as they already are to me. It's just that they're dreams. Nothing more, nothing less.
-CKS