Lucid Systematic Dreaming

I can hold sleep at bay for only so long before it seduces me again and I find myself falling, awaking to a new dictate- some cryptic mantra that governs the impossible physics of the place- and unfamiliar, frightening locations. The sky is monochromatic, though its singular hue seems to change when I do not notice it- often blue, sometimes green, occasionally black, though never red before. The sky is red. This is new.

The river asserts itself next, drawing the eye even from the banks that hold it. It reflects the scarlet sky, but currents run through it, deepening the playful innocence to a velvety crimson, rich and dark and overflowing with the promise of secrets untold and pleasures unguessed.

The onslaught of color recedes and allows me a blissful moment to orient myself, though only just a moment. The land is vast, trackless, and unblemished. It is so verdant that it is barren and so endless that it is confining. I find it difficult to breath and have to drop to my knees as a shock of vertigo overtakes me. It feels as though the sky opens up and the ground falls away and I will surely plummet into the gaping maw of the red, red void.

The feeling passes. So too, do my surroundings.

The open field has given way to the neon graffiti of some toy-maker’s demented fantasy. Blocks, dolls, and geometric shapes prowl around me like carnivores. I keep my gaze cast downward to avoid staring at the blinding light of the moon and its twisted, cavernous abyss of a grin.

The magnitude of my shift does not disturb me quite so much as the change of scale. I don’t remember a “drink me” bottle, but the toys tower over me, their frozen, plastic smiles full of large, white teeth. Why do toys need teeth, I wonder morbidly, ever present of the looming, growing shapes that array themselves around me so helpfully, so lovingly, so viciously. The music begins and its disjointed melody recalls childhood fears and prayers in equal turn. Bestial circus shows crowd my mind as ice cream trucks slowly putter down unseen streets and just-too-distant avenues.

When, at last, I return from far away, I notice that the music- that chimerical amalgam of rattling bells and wheezing organs- has already passed, though I cannot say for how long. The darkness hurts my eyes as much as the sensory overload and I stumble to a light post to align myself in the frightening stillness that penetrates my mind. The streets and alleys of my youth lie splayed out before me, though the palpable night makes them strange, untried, and overawing. Faceless shadows wander this urban wasteland; some bare stone walls, some the flickering stained yellow light that baits mindless moths, and yet others wear the trappings of men. Clothed and fitted to precision and yet their discomfort is plain. The suits of human creatures- skin and bone and all- are nearly flawless, lacking only eyes to give identity to the soul trapped within. They have mouths, however, and I can see their large, white teeth before any opens their mouth.

I move away from them, but a sound draws my steps short. It is a disturbing wetness, impossible to describe except through metaphor or onomatopoeia. It is as if someone below me was pacing through a sewer, the moist twump of their footfalls matching my arrested pace. I begin again and it is louder and closer. It is so horrible that my mind lingers on thoughts of fish- vast, open, lipless mouths gaping and sucking at me with ravenous, unending thirst. I run. The sound grows.

When I halt again, the footfalls fail to follow suit. They persist and are getting nearer. Nothing behind me. Both sides are clear. A movement up ahead. A person? I turn and another- no, the same- person is at my back. Have I found an antagonist in all this? No, that would be too simple and, indeed, he is already gone, his hat and coat stealing away his identity from me. The sound is upon me and I cannot bear to turn around a third time. I will not give it form and, from there, function.

I jerk myself from the encounter and my body feels like its fallen from a great distance. My heart will not stop its damnably arrhythmic pounding and I silently scream for the sixth night in a row.