This is the 2024 edition of my Dream Diary. Here is where it all began, and as you can see, it took my brain a good few months to stop generating gibberish. I'd say with confidence that this happened six months in, though you may find yourself surprised. Because of them being at the start of my subconcious journey, they're not especially frightening.
I had a dream I was going deeper and deeper underground with my character Horace. I was, much to your horror, on a date with him. He owned this crazy sex bunker and apparently it was a famous attraction for all sorts of "weirdos". Amongst the implied orgies, there were also recording rooms for dark ambient albums, many of which never saw the light of day beyond the bunker and those who knew of it. Amusingly, I'd come for the latter, only to decide Horace of all characters was worth a date. The whole thing had this 1970s retro-futurist vibe with sliding doors and patterns on everything. As we walked, I saw lots of people with bodily modifications. They appeared friendly and looked at me as if I were a longtime peer, not a befuddled newcomer. I met a lady that was chubby and covered in tattoos, despite her otherwise "geeky" appearance, large glasses and high pitched voice. She was one of the nicest dream NPCs I've met in a long time. Horace and I then had an incredibly romantic dinner of chicken tendies on the top floor. The dream ended on us finishing our meal and going to one of the complex's elevators.
I'd seen something disturbing. It was a cult, and a very aggressive one at that. It sheltered in a large modern-styled mansion, and I visited the place because I heard it was "fun". I narrowly avoided capture, but I was chased by multiple cultists. They weren't dressed in any ceremonial uniforms, but rather, they all looked like normal youths in their early twenties'. I fled to an old-fashioned town centre with a cathedral nearby. I ended up in a small shop, and for unknown reasons, my character August was there in the daytime. I told him what I saw, and he nodded along accordingly. Then he opened a small gate to an employees only area, and led me down a winding staircase. It went on for minutes, and the surroundings became increasingly psychedelic. Eye patterns would form in the walls and carpets, while railings would start to ripple like currents of water. It resembled the sorts of backgrounds you see in Earthbound enemy encounters. As I was going down, a little girl moved with me, and I recognised her as a younger version of myself. She did not know who August was, and she grew increasingly frightened as we continued. Upon seeing this, August reassured her that we only had minutes left. Then, after what felt like a solid ten minutes, we came to the bottom of the basement. It was extremely vivid, and the patterns would blob and change like wax in a lava lamp. It was dizzying, but oddly comforting. Once I saw them, I calmed down, sensing we were far away from the cultists now. There were no chairs, so the three of us sat on the floor. It ended before we could tell him more.
I was at a food-themed event. It took place in a dark convention room full of desks. The desks were arranged in nonsensical formations and staffed by all sorts of eager vendors. Their goods were various types of breads, cheeses, meats and chocolates. Everyone was very nice, and their goods were delicious. There was this sense of profound warmth and safety inside me, like I was truly at home here. At one point I saw a pack of dogs roaming the hall. Unlike most packs of stray dogs, they were treated as welcome guests. They'd politely take their food and go with their packs to eat around the edges of the convention floor. I met several that I recognised as ghostly black dogs, specifically Barghests. They were black with a velvety texture and blue eyes. One resembled a pitbull terrier while the other two resembled beagles. They were very friendly and happy to meet me. I'd sit on the floor sharing food with them while petting them. Nearby, an abnormally large Great Dane lied by and watched us with quiet fascination. I also purchased a ceramic mug themed like a hobbit-hole.
I had a dream that I was alone with three vampiresses. They claimed that they suddenly had stewardship over me, but when I asked, they refused to elaborate. They resembled sorceresses or witches, and they took it upon themselves to make me as uncomfortable as physically possible. They'd inconvenience me at every turn, cast spells to disorient me and even bite my neck to paralyse me from the waist down. When they weren't tormenting me, they'd speak among themselves about random inane topics. That, or what they'd do to torment me next.
I was on a European island touted as a popular tourist destination. I'd decided a boat-trip was the best way to see this place. It was a small two-tier boat with a tiny "bar", the sorts that go down rivers. However, as we went, we realised that the island was a cacophony of filth and decay. It oozed with the rotting corpses of various animals, faces frozen in permanent snarls as they slowly liquefied. The corpses increased as the trip continued, piling higher than our very boat. After a certain point, the corpses rotted into each-other and fused to create new dead animals entirely. The passengers on the boat began to cry and panic at the sight of this, but the waters were so fetid that nobody wanted to risk jumping overboard. We just had to sit there and watch, the only living animals we could see were roaming packs of feral dogs. Most of them were mangy and emaciated. We'd see them picking at the corpses, but they'd bolt at the sight of our boat and leave us alone with the towers of putrefying dead.
There was a city that bore some resemblance to one of our major cities here, likely one of the more industrialised ones. It'd been turned into this gloomy landscape of creeping machinery, and it functioned like a giant human body. The open air was assaulted by near constant volleys of smog and the deafening cacophony of screeching metal. Pipes ran through this place like veins, and would coil around every building they touched, pulsating and breathing like elongated bodies. The sky was mostly black save for pockets of pure white over the less polluted areas. I saw nobody, it was just me. In the heart of this place was a literal "heart", a gigantic monstrosity of gnarled metals, and the potent stench of human blood. It was a special machine, according to my knowledge in the dream, because it was fed by recycling human remains inside its compound. It was full of a red, chalky substance that stirred and mixed with various unknown oils and fuels. Out of all the structures I saw, this one was alive.
I was in a dictatorship of an unknown size and purpose. People were kept in a giant fenced-off grassland area and not allowed from leaving the pen, or else they would be killed. I'd regularly see the "master", whether he ran the whole joint or was a mere overseer keeping up the illusion elludes me. He was an old man with a full head of white hair, a well-groomed beard and a piercing stare. He wore a nice suit and carried himself confidently as he'd patrol the pen and search for people who needed to be killed. At one point he deliberately opened one of the pen doors, seeking to weed out "traitors" who'd take it as a chance to escape. People were not killed on the spot, but instead carried away and disappeared entirely. At times, as I'd roam the pen, I'd find human bones attached to the fences. Other times they'd have signs stuck to them, telling us that these were traitors. I sat on the grass near the door that had been opened. He came up to me personally and started to talk. He was taken aback by me sitting where I was, but correctly presumed I wanted to taste freedom without being killed. He warned me not to make this a habit, but was otherwise amused by this, the way a child amuses the adults around them with their naivety.
As I peered out into freedom, I also saw that he had an extensive collection of plastic playground-equipment. All of his guards were playing on the equipment and having the time of their lives.
I was in a group of volunteers going in to rescue a group of people from a victorian style insane asylum. It had mysteriously lost most of its staff and the charges inside were now being left to rot. The visuals would flicker from those of a black and white photo, to dull colour, and often at random. None of us were prepared for what we saw.
We went through a dark, filthy, dungeonesque tunnel. To our right were the holding cells of the unfortunate prisoners kept inside. None of the people we wished to save were violent, but their years of captivity had mutated them beyond recognition. Many were emaciated, and would howl, bay and cry at the sight of us. Others were catatonic and would refuse to acknowledge us. Many had devolved into self injury, especially as they'd mutate. I'd become so frightened that I was able to close my eyes and avoid seeing bits of it. One man had become so agitated he'd melded his mutated body into that of a chair, scratching into himself and crying at us to get this "season" away from him. We learned he had a phobia of halloween, and that he fancied himself a devout christian. Despite his mutations, he sounded like a gentle old man. Above all, these people were victims and needed to be saved.
I personally, upon waking, believe this place was cursed with a form of magic or an eldritch force.
I was in a dense, hilly forest with a large church in it. I was speaking to an unseen male voice about the nature of this area. He explained to me how as a boy, he had mixed feelings on these places, that he wished to explore them but feared getting lost forever in their nuances. I explained in return how these forests were supposedly infested with undead, but that we were mostly safe due to them being nocturnal. Yet, the possibility of daywalkers was not zero. Anything could come out for us if it wanted to. The weather varied between sunny and cloudy, with the sun intensely peeking through the trees. We crossed by lakes, before coming across a disused railway line that led to a small village.
I was suddenly in my own garden, now the sunlight was intoxicatingly bright. The flowers were overgrowing and I was lying on the grass. I met three dogs. Two afghan hound bitches, and then a large, long-haired shepherd. The afghans pranced in their puppy-like style of play and the shepherd stood gracefully as I marvelled at his fur, twinkling in the radiant sunlight.
As a bonus, I'm showing you a dream my friend Lutzbug had. It's about my webcomic Dancing with the Dead, which will likely make more appearances as I resume the diary. To be more specific, the dream revolves around August, my slippery vampire politician and hunting aficionado. I for one think this is shockingly in-character for him. No need to worry about car accidents when you can poof into smoke and leave everyone to get smushed into a giant ball of metal and gore.
"I had a dream that he had this big pickup truck he drove in reverse everywhere he went, and he was terrible at it. I was in the truck with him and he was driving backwards down the highway and almost hitting cars. The whole thing was a near death experience. He kept going 'oops, sorry!' like it was no big deal when he swerved around something."
I went into a store with the intention of becoming a vampire. It was shabby, cluttered and packed with unusual relics; jars of wet specimens, skulls of creatures I'd never even heard of, and rows of weapons adorned in jewels. I approached the worn wooden counter, scarred with claw marks, and meet the owner, a stocky orc lady in an apron. I purchased a certificate from her, which was supposed to give me legal permission to be a vampire. Then, she directed me to the back of the shop. I entered a room styled like the fancy house sets in a typical Amicus horror film, hardwood and all. Upon entering, I was approached by a Vampiress, who sweetly asked me if I was here to be turned. She was dainty and gentle looking, but unique for a vampire, she had albinism. She lied me down on my back, stroking my chest and preparing herself to turn me. I'm asked for my certificate, and I show it to her. Then, upon seeing it, she stops and sighs in mild frustration. Confused, I asked her what was wrong as she clambered off my chest, but she dryly tells me that I need another certificate. I wake the angriest I'd been in a long time.
My parents had made a "special delicacy" for me, and were eager to see my feedback. The delicacy in question was a deformed pig head surrounded by several raw sausages, all lathered in a heavy helping of melted chocolate. They made me eat the whole thing and I gagged spectacularly the entire time. My biggest complaint about the meal was not that it was a deformed glob of raw meat, but that it was specifically pork. I do not like pork.
I was pursuing a serial killer that was a werewolf. I was vaguely in England, but unsure of what region I was in. I started in a small cottage, several people were there with me and discussing where it could have gone off to.
I went into the nearby woodland, and after a minute, it started to snow heavily. It was scenic, almost painterly in nature. I pondered on the nature of killers, and why people would decide to do such a thing. I took a lot of diverting paths, and as I did so, the trees became more frequent. It felt as if any minute, the werewolf could come out and attack. The dread was potent. After what felt like an hour, I reached a clearing into what I saw as a residential area, with several back-to-back houses and a group of children playing nearby, seemingly unaware of the wolf. I decided I'd gone far enough, and went back to report my findings.
When I returned to the cottage, it had been devastated. The werewolf had arrived in my absence and killed several members of my party. One survivor, a kindly old man, directed me to the wolf as he lay bleeding on the floor. A fire had broken out nearby, and through the smoke, I saw the werewolf fleeing into the night, grinning and laughing at the mayhem it had caused. The last thing I saw was its appearance, and it was the most unusual werewolf I'd ever seen. It was literally half-wolf, half-man, or rather, half wolf, half teenage boy.
A little girl was terminally ill with a disease that would spawn ungodly amounts of maggots out from her face. They were a faint yellow, and would pour from her cheeks, squirming into her eyes, nose and mouth. Despite this, she was calm, and would stand patiently as her parents picked the maggots off her skin, now blighted from their constant burrowing. Her father tried to stay hopeful and insist that she could recover, but her mother, and even the little girl herself knew that it was only a matter of time.
I was in an underground crypt full of fog. It looked like something right out of a 1960's horror film, neon colours and everything. The setpieces were pitch black, spined and gothic in appearance. In front of me was a large metal grate gate, just as sinister and thorny as the rest of the scenery. Then, vampires started to come down the stairs from which I came, all in groups of what I recognised as family units. I was informed by another human nearby that this was their yearly family reunion. The grate gate then opened, and the vampires went into the main room; a large dining room full of chairs and tables. They were in a state of absolute disarray, but the vampires didn't seem to mind at all. I followed them inside and I tried to get some food from the table. The dishes were surprisingly normal, not the feast of entrails that one would normally expect from a vampire dinner. They greedily wolfed it down before I could even snatch a morsel for myself, and thus, I was left with mere scraps.
I was in a large ivy-engulfed castle that was allegedly my primary school, just renovated. As I was exploring, the weather would change and become snowy. I found myself on the front of the school, by a big dragon statue. It was a bust of an old dragon wearing a crown and smiling down from his high position, onto the ground below. I felt a parental warmth emanating from him, and I found myself hugging and caressing his cold stony surfaces. Then I left, and went to explore elsewhere. I found myself wandering out of the ruined castle regions and into a swamp, where I saw an overgrown shack. I had a camera on me, so I went inside taking pictures. It was bare, walls already fallen down and floorboards profusely rotted. The only thing inside of any intrigue was a huge jar of wet specimens; rabbits tightly packed together in the transparent fluid. A lady, supposedly a teacher, came by. I tried to show her the shack, but it'd already collapsed into the fetid waters it stood above. We left together, and she, a warm and kindly woman, led me back into the castle.
I was in a wide open grassland with a few fir trees dotted here and there. The weather fluctuated between a foggy haze, and a fresh, pinkish dawn. I was fairly close to a large body of water, most likely a lake. It glimmered and twinkled brightly. In short, it was beautiful. I was also a werewolf, and with me were a whole dozen of other werewolves. All of us were in our wolf forms, and uniquely for werewolf standards, we were all perfectly sapient. The mood was not of camaraderie, however. Instead, it was one of dread. We'd been revealed to mankind, and now, humanity had declared open season on virtually all of us. This day was the first of man's invasion onto our lands. One of us gave a speech, lamenting our condition, and then, it happened.
Hunters of all sorts poured over a river, opposite the body of water behind us. Werewolves charged forward, many falling to the constant volley of gunfire. Some of us fled, while others stayed behind to fight and drag down as many huntsmen as they could. I was a surprisingly good killer of men; I found myself dragging their corpses back to my allies to show off my prowess. A few times, they'd stare at me in disbelief as I'd hold up my "trophies" and haphazardly hurl them at trees as if they were no more than ragdolls. Amusingly, I recall my main method of killing was me rapidly slapping them to death. During my frantic retreats back to the trees, I noticed an especially bothersome hunter with a comically grotesque face. He was annoyingly skilled, and kept a good distance too. By now, he'd killed a good few of us, and I decided that he needed to die, and urgently. I took a chance, and attempted to flank him from behind. His dog, some kind of gundog, attempted to attack me. I slapped it hard, but when the hunter turned to face me, I lost my nerve and retreated. He gave chase for a bit, before going back to his station and continuing to hold his ground. The dream ended before I could give it another go.
I suddenly wanted to take my own life. How would I do it? I'd made a deal with…The creepy uncle from the movie Braindead/Dead Alive. He was this sort of demonic figure that seemed to know all about this stuff, and he showed me this chair that was supposed to slowly boil me to death. The electric chair, but spicy. So I sit in the chair and I ask him if it will hurt. He says it'll be completely painless, and that my limbs will simply lose all sensation. Now I'm in this chair, Uncle Les from Braindead waiting for me to boil, and then suddenly I pull out my phone and check Telegram. I see all of my closest friends and they're all asking me what I'm doing today.
I then realise the error of doing such a thing to myself and demand Uncle Les let me out the chair. He seemed a bit disappointed because the chair "took a lot of fuel to get going" but he relented and untied me from it. Then I start…crying and hugging him? I thanked him for "helping me realise how I was loved" (He tried to boil me alive but okay?!) and then I ran off into the distance.
A friend and I were roman soldiers going into North Africa. I kept drawing them pictures of their icon, and my other friend Lutzbug was there as this strict general who I kept having to hide the drawings from. This was post-destruction of Carthage, and for some reason it wasn't the ruins of a massive city, but this dinky little shack. At one point I went in the shack and I was suddenly with a man (very enthusiastically) showing me to make an automatic Minecraft chicken farm.