I haven't documented my dreams in any great detail for quite some time... Largely because they haven't really stuck with me once I've woken up. Last night's was... special... in so many weird ways. It's what people expect when they have dreams - a bizarre adventure, with danger and laughs along the way.
It started with weird 'veins' growing through a building. I was there to destroy them because "if they reach the mainland, it'll be a disaster" - so, instantly, you know I'm on an island, somewhere near the coast of 'the mainland'. Despite their protestations and, if I remember correctly, their attempts to fight back, the 'veins' seemed easy enough to break up. Whether they'd already been treated with something, I don't know... but most of them seemed to crumble like dried twigs, rather than squooshing, as one might expect from veins. I remember noting in the dream that "this would make great material for a story", which seemed remarkably close to lucid dreaming, for me... More on that later.
By and by, I found myself outside again, as a dark storm raged around a harbour town. There was a woman supervising the docking of a couple of boats, while also trying to keep on top of arrangements for a party where Mark Twain was the guest of honour - though this was to be kept secret, to avoid a rush of 'guests' who had not actually been invited.
She had to go off to supervise party things more directly, so she left me in charge of the boats. The tethering ropes were ridiculously short... in fact, looking back, I cannot understand how they actually connected to the boats because I'm sure I saw both ends. Nevertheless, I tethered them to the only things they could reach... things which looked remarkably like drawing pins embedded in the concrete of the harbour walls. This seemed to do the trick, however.
I got a phone call from that woman, instructing me that something had gone adrift - whether it was due to the storm or 'other circumstances', I'm not sure... All I know is that I was then instructed to fetch Mark Twain from his lodgings, and bring him personally, being sure to keep his identity secret. Two things bothered me about this, within the dream: Firstly, with the storm raging as it was, how could we possibly still throw the party? Second, if I was keeping in contact with 'home base' (as it were) by cellphone, how would I explain this to Mark frickin' Twain? In fact, anyone seeing the cellphone would surely get suspicious, let alone an author who died many years before their invention (albeit about 30 years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the Photophone). I remember wondering to myself if it would be safe to ask if he'd already visited the Starship Enterprise (in the Next Gen story Time's Arrow), confirming that it was I, not he, who was the time-traveller here.
On my way to his lodgings, in the 'town centre' on the other side of the hills surrounding the harbour, I happened to pass my first (real-world) boss and his second-in-command, heading down a side road, clearly trying to escape. Perhaps I should have wondered what they were escaping.
The storm wasn't quite so apparent in the small, crowded town centre, but there was something very much amiss... People were starting to riot out in the streets, so I headed quickly into the tavern in which both Twain and I were staying (coincidence?). Along the way, I got another phone call from 'the boss', still adamant that the party was going to go ahead, still adamant that I should keep the star guest's identity secret... despite the fact that some uninvited guests were already trying to force their way in. Whatever riots these were, they'd already reached her stately home, overlooking the other side of the harbour.
In the tavern, I saw the staff lined up and being exposed to some kind of gas or aerosol. I asked for the girl who cleaned a particular room (there was something on a table in that room that made it distinctive, but I can't remember what that was) and, when she groggily identified herself, I yanked her out of the line-up, shook her about, and asked where someone was - not Twain. I dragged her along with me, up the stairs and into the room, clearly looking for someone other than Twain, who I never saw, even by chance, at any point in this dream. I can't remember if I found the person I was looking for, or if the maid I had commandeered just fainted, but while trying to help a woman to stand, one of the other staff ambled up, armed with some kind of Christmas decoration. The woman I was helping also produced some weird, ineffective weapon, and both swiped at me.
Since there seemed to be some signs of lucidity in their eyes, I addressed them by name, and instructed them to stop and hand over their weapons, because something wasn't right. Both blinked briefly, then dropped their weapons and seemed to return to themselves. Not wasting any time, I snatched up their weapons, and told them that they'd be alright if they shut themselves in after I left.
And here's where it seemed to be lucid dreaming again: I strutted out of the room, armed with one serrated Christmas decoration (part of a snowflake, maybe?) and what may have been half a pair of scissors. In true videogame fashion, I started sneaking around the building - lit only by fires, and whether they were inside or outside I cannot be sure - trying to escape, because the situation was out of control. I knew my weapons wouldn't get me very far in a fight, so I had to either avoid fighting or find better weapons.
As luck would have it - bad luck, that is - I came across two nattily-dressed, positively Dickensian gentlemen, smashing the place up. I intervened, slashing at their necks, ineffectually, with my rubbish weapons. Neither were very much perturbed by these injuries, though one dropped a long nail. Discarding my Christmas decoration, I snatched up the nail. As one of the rioting gentlemen invited me to join them in their merriment, I was stabbing the other in the back of the neck with the nail.
With the both of them, eventually, out of the way, I managed to escape and get into a building over the other side of the road, which seemed to be 'home base' - lots more anachronistic technology, and some sort of escape pod arrangement on the back wall. I joined a bunch of colleagues, strapping ourselves in - roller-coaster fashion - and awaiting our escape. One of my colleagues, looking out the window, said something to the effect that the storm would prevent our leaving, so we might be stuck. The guy sat to my left jumped into the seat ahead of me, allowing none other than Cee Lo Green to take his seat next to me (and I should clarify that this was Cee Lo as played by Chi McBride - the only reason I knew who it was supposed to be was that 'Forget You' started playing as he appeared... though I'm not sure if the music was in my head, or being played over the building's PA). Mr. Green/McBride told me that he'd been "thinking a lot about how we used to kick it, and what we could do once we get out of here". Clearly, he wanted to quickly endear himself to me, to that he could escape along with us. I was formulating a response about we certainly had not done any 'kicking' together when I got woken up by a phone call... So I guess the world will never know if we got away, and if I ended up partying with the singer/actor. It was also somewhere near this end that I started to wonder if the things I'd taken to be tethering ropes back at the harbour were, in fact, the weighted things you throw over, tied to the rope, to make it easier to get a rope across from boat to harbourside...
Thinking about it, I can see threads of 'reality' woven into that dream. The 'veins' are something I've actually seen - strange, vein-like growths of algae in my bathroom sink's plughole which, indeed, I noted might be useful for a story. In fact, I already had a context for them, that might have involved the threat of disaster 'if they reach the mainland'.
The 'something on a table that made the room distinctive' in the tavern was clearly snatched from The Devil Wears Prada, which I'd watched earlier in the evening (getting my Anne Hathaway fix before The Dark Knight Rises, I guess...). At one point, the protagonist is supposed to leave 'the book' (of magazine proofs) on a particular table in her boss's home.
The weapons... Probably come from having recently watched a Let's Play of Condemned, by Helloween4545, on Youtube. Not that you have to fight with anything quite so crap as a Christmas decoration, half a pair of scissors, or a single, long nail in that...
The gas that turned people into a riotous mob could reference any number of zombie films, or just this week's episode of Sherlock, which took The Hound of the Baskervilles as its basis, and crafted a truly awesome tale of biological terror weapons gone wrong, and secrecy on a military base on Dartmoor. Nothing like the original story, but a thrilling - and thoughtful - reimagining. Some of it seemed a bit patchy, and I was not particularly impressed by Holmes 'mind palace', in all its CSI/Minority Report glory, but Martin Freeman was, at least, far less annoying this week. Russell Tovey is always worth watching (except as Midshipman Alonso Frame, in a couple of episodes of Doctor Who, where the actor was cruelly wasted), and Clive Mantle did a very good turn as one of the military researchers. I was quite impressed that the 'glowing' of the original hound was included, albeit downgraded to a rabbit, though the way it all linked together felt closer to Dirk Gently than Sherlock Holmes... And a couple of points remained unanswered, as far as I could tell... Perhaps all will be revealed in next week's episode - the last of this new run.
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