May 15th, 2001 CE

I dreamed I was inside of some great complex along with my friends Rene, Colin, Jason, Karin, and Nicole. As far as I could tell, this bizarre location was Colin's dwelling-place, though it could scarcely be called a home. The massive bedroom, which was strewn with detritus, was bordered on two sides by elevated walkways with ornate wooden railings, and had no obvious means of entrance or egress aside from doors on either side of the two walkways. In fact, the main body of the room seems rather more like a containment area, now, in retrospect, though in the context of the dream it hardly served as such, in that we were all quite capable of scaling the walls to these walkways with relative ease. For a goodly portion of the dream, we were simply lounging about the room, amusing ourselves with the various nick-knacks which were strewn about. Every time Colin or Jason turned their backs on me for so much as a moment, they would accuse me of breaking something or scheming against them in some way. Admittedly, at one point,, I did nearly break one of the railings of the walkway I was on whilst scaling it, but aside from this, their charges were unfounded.

When I grew tired of their abuse, I left the room via one of the side doors, and found Nicole, who is Colin's girlfriend, both in reality and in the context of this dream, busying herself with something or other just outside the door. We chatted about nothing in particular for a time before she asked if she could show me something. I agreed, and in the next moment, the world was transformed into a swirling, disconnected mass of imagery, which was far less than unpleasant. Indeed, I felt as though I had been liberated from all bonds and introduced into a world of infinite possibility. Soon, the experience came to an end, and I was returned to my previous state. Nicole and I sat on the ground, winded from our experience. I asked her why she hadn't shared this experience with everybody she knew,, and she said that not everybody was worthy or ready for it. Karin then entered the room, and it was revealed to me that she, too, had had this experience shared with her.

I asked them if I could try it again, and Nicole agreed. The perspective then shifted, and I was watching the three of us from a third-person point of view, as our bodies physically changed into masses of flowing energy. Nicole was a brilliant blue, bird-like form, Karin was a yellow streak, and I was a blazing, fire-like winged humanoid shape. We wildly careened around the building we were in, and I experienced the sense of momentum which always comes with the experience of flying in my dreams as we did so. As we made our way to the exit of the building, we passed over many onlookers who stared at us in wonder.

We fled the building and found ourselves very soon in the countryside, near to a small, dark house, surrounded by tall grass, with a large, dead-looking tree in the back yard. At this point, there was what I can only describe as a wordless moment of decision - to be able to stay this way forever, or to retain our humanity on some level. The girls chose exultantly to leave their humanity behind, but I was wracked by doubt. As I found myself incapable of coming to a decision, I found myself suddenly tied to the branches of the tree, hanging upside down. Near to me were Karin and Nicole's lifeless, naked bodies, as well as another body. This one had had all of the hair shorn from his body, and his genitals, navel, ears, mouth, eyes, and other body parts replaced by ugly wounds which had been stitched tightly shut with coarse, thick black string. This body was very much alive, as was I, and as I struggled to right myself, he writhed towards me sightlessly, speaking to me through stitched-shut lips about how I'd made the wrong choice. It grew dark rapidly, and the bright full moon became my only source of light as I asked this creature who he was. He answered that he was not, and never had been, human, and that this suit of skin was constructed for him from the remains of someone who had abandoned their humanity in the past. He was upset with me for my own decision, and though I couldn't imagine what he would do to me, I recoiled in horror at the idea of this monstrous being coming into contact with me. I struggled away as best I could, the ropes holding me loosely to the tree, but his wriggling progress towards me was inexorable.

Fortunately, this was the point at which I woke up.