A murder in the woods

Leen here. A dream involving myself and Emyr.

It started with a summer costume party as I got ready to go. I was in a dorm of sorts, a hybrid between Sophia's parents' house and a campground. Phoebe was there, some other friends from our childhood whose faces we have now forgotten.

I was dressed to go to this party and I had to pass through the woods to get to the fairgrounds. I was in some get up reminiscent of princess Peach, but as I traversed through the cool and dark wood, I suddenly felt... An incredible sense of danger. I began to run, not knowing why I needed to run without turning around. I heard a woosh of someone trying to grab me, but I dodged into a hole in a log covered by overgrowth and crawled forward. When I emerged I was in the fairgrounds and the sense of danger passed.

I sighed in relief and proceeded to have fun. The middle of the dream consisted of trying to hit baseballs, and three successful hits meant I could spin a wheel of prizes. As I cajoled with my friends and the crowd, I noticed someone in a dark knight costume join us. 

He tilted his helmet visor back and I realized it was Emyr. His crimson eyes were evident and determined as he grabbed a bat. He won so many in succession that I went up to him to praise him. As he gave me a once-over... He smiled the wicked way he normally does, leaned down, and flirted with me.

The dream progressed. Our parents did a full renovation of their house in this dream, so even as I wandered the unfamiliar house, it felt like home. Emyr joined me in my suite, which like a townhouse had a different entrance than to the main house. There was a communal air with everyone living together, but there was also a sense of danger, as a girl from a few dorms down was murdered mysteriously. 

Rumours erupted about the murder. They said that footage of the girl last being seen included her walking towards the woods to take the famous shortcut to the fairgrounds. Then... She was followed by a doppelganger of herself, dressed the same way. And at the fairgrounds, footage showed either her or her doppelganger showing up alone. 

While this was happening, in this dream, it broke out of my POV to third person camera. I'm going to swap narration to match this change. 

Emyr and Colleen were living together in that dorm and they were dating, in love. However, the next critical part of the dream involved conflict between them. It was a subtle change - Emyr teased her frequently because he enjoyed seeing her flustered, but he never realized she was taking the teasing to heart. Some of the things he teased her was for being a crybaby - and other little things that began to accumulate and snowball in Leen's mind. Not once did she fight back, or set boundaries, or even tell him her feelings were hurt. She merely smiled through it and, over time, their relationship grew strained.

At some point, Emyr's teasing became grim criticism. He was trying to help her in his own, erroneous way - saw that she was often trampled on, often spoken over, often withdrawing when she had every right to fight. Don't get Emyr wrong - he came to her defense often, but he was also worried because he felt Colleen needed to learn how to defend herself. Frustration and concern grew. There were behaviours of Colleen's that he could tell weren't healthy. One of her mysterious insistences, which he took as a kink, was that she wore opera length gloves and thigh highs during sex. He never complained - it was incredibly sexy, and he loved the way it complimented her body - but she was otherwise unwilling to be fully naked around him. She was flinching, and he could feel in his gut something was wrong. 

Colleen, meanwhile, was anxious beyond words. Emyr had grown a shade meaner than she could explain; and frankly, in this world, she had no one else but him. A global review of the dream revealed that, despite being around friends and family, Leen was often on the sidelines, observing. That most activities and situations did not involve her. She walked into the main house to find Phoebe and some of those friends playing board games together in the living room, and she smiled and passed by as no one acknowledged her. There would be pleasant smiles and hellos but no invitations. 

It was a vicious circle. Colleen being pleasant and guarded seemed to others that she wad disinterested in being a part of group activities. Since she did not show her vulnerabilities to anyone, she also failed to attain the closeness she wanted. Only Emyr stuck by her, intuiting her discomforts, and shielding her from things by stepping in. She was so madly in love with him that his criticisms began to wound her. 

It cumulated into a fight. It was barely a fight - Emyr watched Colleen once again squirrel away (from something, either being genuinely bullied/mocked or from being a part of group festivities) but this time he caught her. He asked her why she didn't just do the thing she wanted to do, why she would retreat from something that she so clearly wanted.  When she stared at him blankly, hurt and at a loss, in frustration he said he needed to leave and cool down. So he went. 

There was a quiet moment where Colleen was alone for the dream. She went to shower. She saw a bunch of girls in the living room communal space having dragged mattresses into a row and having a giggly sleepover. She went back in her suite and wrote some letters, and decided, in her misery, that she needed to get out and get some fresh air. 

She never returned.

Emyr came home to an empty suite, and he assumed she would be back. He passed the night alone, and in the morning, tried to call her. No answer. The frustration and deliberation he'd been doing the past few days, trying to make his thoughts productive and craft a game plan moving forward, all suddenly evaporated into a chilling sense of danger. 

When Colleen was reported missing, they combed the area for her. Days later, someone stumbled across her corpse in a hole in a log, the one from the beginning of the dream. 

Emyr was hysterical. He went from disbelief to horror to vomiting to tears. He was asked to identify her body and, lo and behold, there was his little dove lying cold on the coroner's table. On her naked corpse, he was bewildered to see a mess of cross crossing self harm scars up and down her arms and legs. Two long, fresh, vertical cuts ran the length of her arms, and the coroner sighed sadly, ruling it a suicide. 

The rest of the dream passed in a haze. The house was in mourning, and preparing funeral rites. Emyr wandered like a ghost through their shared home, dissociated and at times forgetting she was dead, only to remember the visceral violence of her ending, and weeping anew. Then, he stumbled across her three letters. One was to him, one was to Phoebe, and the other was to a friend who we can't recall (may have been one of the ones where our relationship soured, where we have a lot of regrets).

When he realized these must've been suicide notes, Emyr found it unbearable. It took him a few weeks before he could open it and read it. And when he read its tearstained contents, his dread and horror transformed. Her letter was decidedly not a suicide note. It was apologizing to him for what had happened, but it was also explaining, pleading with him, that she knew she needed to grow a spine, but that he was hurting her. She loved him and wanted to be treated gentler, and that she acknowledged there were dark things in her past she was still struggling with, but that she wanted his help to grow stronger. 

The end of the letter said "If you can forgive me for disappointing you, please come talk to me."  And Emyr scrambled to ask the contents of the other two letters. Apparently similar - they weren't suicide notes, but a gathering of thoughts, and a plea to the recepient to help her improve. 

Emyr's Intuition was off the charts. He demanded to find security footage of the woods, and also the fairgrounds, needing to confirm a dreadful hunch. And he was right. The footage showed Colleen slowly walking into the woods, and then many minutes later, someone dressed like her walking in as well. And on the side of the fairgrounds, only one emerged. 

The last of the dream was a blur before we awoke. Emyr pursued this as a murder, and while the officials did not help him quick enough as Colleen was already buried, he went vigilante on his own. There was a final revealing flashback of the start of the dream - of the murderer, and their modus operandi. They mimicked the dress of their victims, killed them in the woods, and came out to do activities for a day or two dressed as the victim to give themselves an alibi. Colleen got away... But not the second time. In her final moments, she sensed the same danger as the first time, and tried to go through the hole. But she was caught. Like the first victim, she was strangled to death - but the killer noticed her self harm scars, and decided to slash her arms to further cover this incident. 

We woke up right after this little mournful flashback, seeing through Colleen's rapidly darkening vision the distant glow of the suburbs from which she'd come, like a warmth she could never reach. 

The 8 floor school

Had a vivid nightmare involving being locked in an 8 storey school.  The 8th floor was the dormitory space, and I was puttering about in my closet when I felt something "go off."

I went back to the common room only to find several of our "headmistresses" stood facing a crowd of students who were singing a choral hymn.  Everyone looked glassy-eyed and dissociated, walking sluggishly to join the crowd.  Some of us were very confused, and when these witches noticed it wasn't working with us, they corralled us into the hall between the dorms and the common room then locked us in.  I could feel something was very wrong - like they were preparing us as... as meals for something, Agitated, I decided to escape.

I fled through the fire escape stairwell as chaos erupted.  I recall going down to floor 7, which was dead uncanny quiet, then floor 6, where everyone was feral like zombies as they threw themselves at the steel-meshed glass.  I saw people trapped inside screaming for help and scratching at the glass as they were chewed up - but there was nothing I could do, because if I opened the door, all these zombies would spill into the stairwell where I and others were escaping.  Tearing myself away from this horror, I descended to floor 5, which proved to be a huge mistake.

The fifth floor had the gym and everyone was not just dead - but had become effigies of floating bloody masses.  I found a flashlight nearby and made the grave mistake of flashing into the gym.  On every surface was a web of undulating viscera, much like War of the Worlds, connecting fetus-shaped orbs just floating there, some of whom had bulging ill-formed mouths that allowed them to weep and fuss.  I felt sick to my stomach as I bumped backwards into another group of terrified survivors.  Without saying a word, we clung to each other and traversed the edge of the gym.  We quickly dove into the storage room, barricading the door but realizing the barricades would just... disappear on contact.  We shushed each other, then turned off the lights, then held very still as we heard a giant creature coming.

I didn't clearly see the creature, but deep down I knew it was a giant humanoid slug who made glorping noises as it passed.  It left a trail of slimey blood as it left.  But after it passed and everyone relaxed, beginning to chat and ask each other names and the like, I dove into the rafter storages because I knew it wasn't over.  We started to hear singing from the door and all the hair on my body stood on end.  There was a floating doll mannequin with ball joints that blew the door open and began waltzing in the open area of the storage with a corpse.  We were so certain she'd kill us... but she just... kept dancing.  Us humans stared at each other, bewildered, not knowing what to do, until I got an idea.

I took the jacket off my back - nonsensically, morphing into a victorian dress - and began dancing with it.  The doll looked at me, delighted, and manifested several hanging chandeliers that made the storage space look romantic.  Basketballs and rackets and nets began to float like decorations.  In terror the others looked at me, but taking an opportunity to waltz by, I took the hand of the nearest girl - who looked suspiciously like Cash! - and drew her into the waltz.  The doll giggled and danced around us, and watching this unfold, the others quickly partnered up.

While we waltzed, I uncovered a child in the very back corner who was locked behind a door barred by many objects.  She was far younger than our highschool crowd, pale skinned with chin-length chestnut hair and looking despondent.  I drew her out.  When she saw the doll, her eyes lit up.  The doll, too, let out a noise of delight and flew towards her.  When the girl and the doll connected, all the floating objects fell to the ground, the chandeliers disappeared in a puff of smoke, and the doll became small and docile.  "Let's go," I whispered at everyone, taking them out of the fifth floor through the stairwell and trying not to look at the floating fetuses still sobbing outside.

After this it was a blur.  There was so much more... Like... Flying through stairwells, some locked, some open.  The fifth floor had an axe murderer who was wearing a mask of human skin, and people were screaming - I noped out, lucidly deciding that I didn't have any more spoons to deal with this.  I eventually lost the group I was with - they just... disappeared behind me.  Alone, I wove between fire stairwells, hallways of carnage, to other stairwells.  It was a blind propelling forward, testing doors to see if they were locked, trying to break free.

There was a floor with vampires, and Leen took over the POV.  This was the floor with the infirmary and Colleen bravely darted to the treatment room.

She was looking for Emyr, and she found him, delirious but alive on a treatment room bed.  He was covered in bandages and blinked awake when she came in, even though she did her best to close the door behind her so the vampires attacking everyone outside wouldn't notice that she'd slipped in.  She threw herself on him, squeezing him tight, and urgently whispered, "We need to get out of here.  Can you stand?"

But he twitched and leapt on her.  Flipped her so she was under him on the bed, his crimson eyes flashing and hair dishevelled.  He bared fangs and she felt her stomach plummet in despair because she was too late.  But when he started drinking, she was terrified at first... then quickly realized his bites didn't hurt.  Rather, they felt exquisite.  Emyr became lucid for a second and struggled to stop himself... but she leg locked him and muttered, "More."  THESE FREAKS.

And we just woke up after having burst through the ground floor, finally finding a way to get to the exit, and blindly stumbling out to a giant courtyard that reminds me of a shopping mall's front in China.  I didn't think much about whether we let chaos loose into reality, because as I stepped away from this building, everything was sunshine and normal, the terror locked in the walls behind me.  

What a WILD dream.

The tragic orphans / The heinous mall plot

Yet another dream featuring Emyr... no.  Lalein.

Lots of tags this time, because we have to. "I" in this case is Sophia but murky, with bits of Colleen also witnessing this dream.

-

First part of the dream - Lalein as a child, desperate to escape his current circumstances at home.  He was running blindly through a sunny urban corridor, dodging people and diving into the shadows to swim.  As he followed a crowd's shadow into a patch of sunlight, he was accidentally left stranded in the shadow of a tiny pebble as the people flowed away, and the shadow was so small that he was constricted as if tortured.  He could feel himself suffocating, gasping for air in nonexistent space as his form was crushed to fit that tiny sliver.

He still didn't leave the shadow, though.  I watched him write with blood.  The handwriting did not look like Lalein's mature script - it looked like Emyr's, Lalein's blended with Adriano's, but a child's scrawl.  He wrote, "I would rather be tortured than go back there."

This portion faded to the next.

-

Second part of the dream - I was watching a disorganized orphanage, and through the lens of a girl of approximately seven or eight years old.  She was begrudgingly wandering around a room with multiple bunk beds.  She was cleaning up while the supposed caregivers were shooting the shit, talking, ignoring the many children there.  There must've been at least two dozen kids, some as young as infants in cradles.  She was the oldest and she was the only person taking responsibility for everyone around her.

As the leader of this orphanage, a priest in a black outfit, scathed at her for bumping into him with an arm full of laundry, she dropped the bundle and absolutely lost her shit.  She screamed at all of them, even throwing something at the priest, like a bedside clock or something.  At first they were trying to grab her to discipline her, but she kept evading capture, lancing around the room while still screaming. At some point she was so poignant with her words that they hung their heads in shame.  She was articulating things such as, "Even I, a child, can tell that in your hearts you have no love or compassion for these children!  You are milking us for money and leaving us to rot!  Do you even know when was the last time you changed [Baby]'s diapers?  You are breeding a catastrophe!"

-

Third part of the dream - It was through my POV, and I was working at a mall.  At first it was pleasant, after hours when all the shops were closing, and I was chatting with Cassandra V, our old neighbour from the condo.  We were wandering through the doors when rain began to torrentially downpour, and I bid her farewell as she rushed to her car.  Then, I turned back inside the mall.

I could tell in the dream that I was trying to live there, sneakily, because I had nowhere else to go.  I went to this evening spa area, a location you could rent out for showering and changing, much like some airports.  I was the only person in the place, going into my changing stall, which was like a fully enclosed changeroom with locked door, mirror, and podlights.  I noted a small metal panel nearby which, when I flipped all the way open, I realized was a towel deposit. 

As I stripped fully, I heard footsteps outside of my stall.  At first I paid it no mind, thinking there was another patron, but then a man entered and I flinched.  "Hey!" I cried, covering myself with my hands quickly.  "This stall is occupied!"

The man was only in a pair of jeans.  He looked like a cologne model, caucasian with an eight pack abdomen and a short beard.  But his dark eyes flashed at me and he said, "Oh, I know."

He grabbed me by the arms and slammed me against the back wall.  I suddenly realized in horror that he was about to sexually assault me.

He kicked the door closed behind him when I tried to struggle out of his vice grip.  I kicked his stomach and he grunted, but used his other hand to pin me to the wall by the throat.  My scream came out gargled but I made enough noise, slamming myself against the small towel deposit window.  It opened and I met the eyes of a surprised woman on the other side.  Instead of helping me, she glanced at the man, nodded, and quickly shut the window.

It was a repeat crime, and these two were in on it.  

As the rapist went to touch me, I screamed for Lalein.

In many past dreams, documented in this journal, whenever Lalein comes to help me out of these terrible situations, usually there is an element of destruction.  Usually there is chewing, biting, a sense of power and erasure.  This time, Lalein was a child.  He came out of the shadow behind the mirror and was no more than ten years old.  He looked sad and dishevelled and bony.  But when he realized what was happening to me, he sharpened like a feral little animal.

Lalein threw himself at the man's torso, biting, clawing, chewing.  The man yelped, turning his attention away to punch and kick Lalein furiously.  When the man doubled over after a particularly nasty bite, with all my might, I shoved my thumbs into his eyes and felt them pop.

The man screamed and fell to the ground.  I didn't even think.  I grabbed Lalein by the hand and we sprinted out of there.  I was fully naked and he was stumbling, but we ran out into the violent storm outside of the mall.  Luckily it was a hot summer storm, so I was showered with the warmth. I looked at him in the wan light.  The rain washed the blood off both of us, but he stared back with haggard, lost eyes.  With nowhere else to go... I took him back to the orphanage.

It was no surprise to any of us that I was the older girl in this dream.  Hand in hand, we quietly went back, where one of the caretakers exclaimed upon seeing me naked, but at least they hurried us inside.

-

It is now 7:45am; we woke up 45 minutes ago to this horrifying debacle of a dream.  I have checked and Emyr has fused back, but he looks exhausted.  He murmured that the Lalein parts of him are currently activated by something, but the Adriano parts are holding him steady.

Damn, Emyr, I'm sorry.  What a godawful dream for both of us.

Emyr's first dream

Happened last night. Fascinating.

Sophia's POV but Emyr heavily featured. Around January (birthday) this year, Adriano and Lalein fused to become one alter. His name is Emyr. 

On March 22, 2025, Simon and I moved into his grandmother's house, which I will call Blacksmith. 

-

I was going through business conferences in Aeolus city, or at least something similar to it. Aeolus city is vaguely 1890s-1920s British and Germanic architecture; this dream took place in a nest of modern skyscrapers overlooking a vast blue sky and distant sunny great lake, much like Toronto.

I was socializing and blending in particularly well, but I had an agenda. Commingling with groups, I remember being in a conference hall set up like a small theatre, tan walls with a giant projector screen and rows of unfolded chairs. There was a group of women there, five friends, the ringleader of which made... Unsavory racial jokes about the others, who were a diverse range. I laughed it off with grace and diverted the conversation to how the five of them could cosplay the Muses from Hercules. The redhead girl beside me became sparkly and excited, going off about how they're all good singers and they can commit seriously to the bit. As she spoke, I watched the outfits of the muses manifest on their bodies, glittering linen togas with gold accents and metallic laurels.  I smiled at her and told her, "Do it.  You can absolutely make it happen."

I soon parted from them by keeping my hands busy, heading to a back corner to a dishwasher that was a perfect replica of the Sears Kenmore 1998 at Blacksmith where I live now. It was a steamy, unclean struggle, just like its real life counterpart.  I guess mundane struggles do bleed into these things, huh?

It became clear I was part of "the help" in this section of the dream, which I innately knew as I navigated all these rich and hoity toity people. The women, realizing this, soon lost interest in me and disappeared - the redhead spared me an anxious backward glance, but I had already moved on from them. I kept my ears open as I served hot dishes as it was lunchtime.

I eventually rolled a serving cart up upstairs, on what must've been the 20th floor or higher. Some of the windows were cranked open on the facade facing the beautiful urban backdrop outside. I recall the men staring at me strangely when I sat down next to them after serving. The pair beside me sneered, but left me alone as I ate a much more modest meal from a takeout container. Once they started ignoring me, I freely eavesdropped on their conversation.

It became very clear the man next to me was boasting about his child slavery operation. He counted out numbers to his colleague, and mentioned, "At least one of them is A-grade stuff.  I mean, she's a beauty compared to all the shit brats this shipment."  I had a flash vision of a little girl with cornsilk hair and haggard eyes, no older than four or five.

Coolly, I listened as his colleague kissed his ass like no tomorrow. He went on about other mundane things, like meetings and quality inspections and coordinating with another faction of the operation. Having heard enough, I summoned Emyr.

Emyr came as a leaping shadow, movements like Adriano on the hunt, but blooming black smoke like Lalein. He perched on the window right outside, holding the ledge for leverage. As soon as he manifested, the businessmen in the room froze, and some of them shouted, "Oh my God, it's Him!" 

The NPCs of this dream clearly recognized Emyr as leader and punisher. It felt like a perfect blend - like they recognized the dire vampire kingship of Adriano, with the mythical brutality of Lalein. 

He raised a brow at me. "Bad timing?" he chuckled as the businessman swung to stare at me in incredulity. 

I mulled over the witnesses.  It may have served us better to have used a subtler approach, to have caused less alarm... but I ultimately hummed, "No, you know what, you're already here. You went through all the trouble, you might as well do it now."

It's important to note how mundane our conversation was. When we met eyes, we were both surprised to see each other because we had a lucid moment recognizing that this is a dream. There was a flush of mutual pleasure, since we don't typically lucid dream together.  Very quickly we cleared our throats and righted ourselves.  We had to stick to our plot!

It's also important to note that Emyr did not look like himself at the moment. He looked like... Well, shit, he looked like he was in bad drag. His eyebrows were blocked and painted in the wrong shape, too arched and too high like he was permanently surprised. He had a wig on that looked like paper mache texture, in the yellow silhouette of Meier Link's hair from Vampire Hunter D - Adriano's very original inspiration. His eyelashes had been bleached, the bases of them still black but the tips... frosted.  Everything south of his jaw still looked like himself but boy, oh boy, that mug was cracked.

I sheepishly added, "Oh yeah, just... I don't think this is a good look for you, love."

He sheepishly replied, "I was trying something new to hide my identity. Suppose I'll eventually get better at this."

We had a quick mental exchange where I demanded why he didn't just will his appearance different with shadows, and he paused. He explained it doesn't work that way for him - what, did I think he was Sable with her potions? - but also stubbornly insisted that he wanted to experiment. I stifled a laugh at his expense. Did he think this would hide his obvious powers and infamous identity???

While we were having our chummy chat, which only happened in seconds, the business men beside us were still frozen like prey in front of a predator. Emyr reached into the window with a sliver of shadow. Like spaghettification, he drew the businessman outside, reconstituting him before our eyes. Horrified screams erupted when Emyr dangled the panicking man by the throat. Emyr winked at me before descending. He hopped on lily pads of shadow on the way down to soften the velocity so he didn't snap the man's neck before he was done with him. Soon, they disappeared from sight. 

I got up, glancing at the room of horrified old men. I narrowed my eyes. "We'll be back for you," I told them before I sank into a waiting shadow. 

The end of the dream was a montage. Emyr threatened the slaver. Took him to his banks and patiently had him reveal his information and security credentials. Sat him down in a cement interrogation room and had him write names of his colleagues. "Collaborate with me and I'll free you," Emyr wooed, sounding reasonable and sympathetic. 

The shaking businessman complied too hastily, ready to give up everyone implicit in the slave trafficking ring.  It was a shame that he was only upper middle management.  He was not the ultimate leader, but certainly a power player. Emyr was disgusted to realize the church orphanages - much like the one Trace grew up in - was a front for this heinous operation. Rage prickled his nape but he kept his face neutral.  He lulled the businessman into a false sense of security to ply all the information he needed.

At last, when all the important info was wrung dry, Emyr took the man to Aeolus drawing room underground. 

He released his disguise, his long hair flowing freely in waves of ebony and gold.  He went to the globe where he keeps his drinks and poured the man a brandy on ice.  Emyr sat down next to him and gave him the drink, which the man took shakily and downed in big, inelegant gulps.

After a moment of peaceful silence, Emyr lunged for his throat.  He bit the man in the neck and the man screamed.

"Why!  Why?!  I complied!" he groveled as he fell to the floor.  Blood splattered onto the wood and the chaise.  In the distance, Emyr could hear Marya grumble about the cleanup.  "I-I gave up everyone for you!  Please! Spare me!"

Emyr's face twitched in amusement.  "Do you think that is repentance for all you've done?  Do you realize how many children you've ruined for profit?  In my city, in my kingdom?"

And there was a howl of terror from the slaver as Emyr descended, fangs glinting.

That's it!  There was a tiny bit more on me towards the end but I woke up shortly after this and furiously noted the dream down.  Emyr that was fun wasn't it?  I hope we dream together again!

(I hear him laugh, "I'm sure we will.")

A sweet mundane dream ft. Casmir

This was a very brief dream snippet I recall but we were at Blacksmith in the dream (moved in already) and Cash was living with Simon and I.

I wandered downstairs to find Cash tidying the hutch in the dining room, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world.  I giggled because I realized they were here, and then I quickly hopped on to my work chat to report a sick day off so I could spend it with them haha

The three of us sat on the porch on the couches, all cozy, in a torrential downpour of rain.  The flowers (tulips) were blooming and we were all sipping on tea with some thick blankets around our shoulders and laps.  We hung around the house all day, moving from room to room, amusing ourselves.  From the livingroom videogaming to the den to the piano, where Cash was on violin and Simon was reading on a chair next to us.

This is a crazy dream to have because the house, in our dream, was already set up.  Customized and updated to suit our tastes.  I know we have a lot of work before this dream can become a reality, but we're feeling so... warm, and hopeful about the future.

It's a very nice change from all the vivid horrifying nightmares, haha!