Dream Things · 4:41pm Mar 20th, 2016

So, just the other night when I woke up (my life is weird right now) I had the brilliant and/or stupid idea to start keeping a sort of journal-type thing of some of my more interesting dreams.

This is something of a writing experiment, and I thought I'd post it here in case folks wanted to read my writings about my strange and scary subconscious. This might be a thing I start doing more often, and let me know whether or not you'd like to see more of something like this in the future.

So without further ado, BEHOLD THE MACHINATIONS OF MY MIND!

And yes, before you ask, I am working on my next project and hopefully y'all will see a new story from me in the nearish future

Dream One: The Strange Woman in the Park
I went to a park with my mom, dad, and sister to walk Harley (our 4 year old great dane). Things were going well enough, but I kept noticing a little path at the park’s edge that led up a small incline into a dark, thick wood. Sometime well into our Harley playing, a mysterious woman suddenly appeared standing on the end of the path just at the edge of the park. She wore a 1700s dark gown and robes, and honestly kinda looked like Catlin Stark from Game of Thrones a bit.
She stood in place, staring intently at us with a grim expression. It got to the point where mom and dad were starting to get a little annoyed and called out to her, asking “Can we help you? Do you need something?”
The strange woman didn’t answer though, just kept silently staring. We decided to ignore her and continue playing with Harley (who for his part seemed completely unconcerned by the strange woman). Eventually, as the sun started to go down, the strange woman turned and walked down the path into the woods. We were all quite curious about her, and mom kinda wanted to see what was down that path (she's one of those people where not knowing something just BOTHERS her), so we all decided to discreetly follow the strange woman.
We kept our distance by a few feet, and kept ourselves nonchalant, acting as if we were just taking a leisurely stroll down the path. When we got relatively deep into the dark woods, the woman abruptly stopped. Slowly, she turned to face us, opened her mouth, and shrieked. It was a completely unnatural sound, and I thought I could hear voices on the fringes of it, warning us to stay away.
We decided to do exactly that, hastily turning around and heading back to the park. We went straight home right after (which was actually a house we haven't lived in for about 7 years. For some reason, we still live there in most of my dreams).
Suddenly, it was the next day, and for whatever reason, we were back at that same park. The strange woman appeared exactly where she had before, and stared intently at us yet again. There was something different about the nature of her stare this time, though. Before, she looked at us with mere idle curiosity. This time, there was a purpose to her stare, like she actually wanted something from us.
There was also something weird about the way she stood right at the edge of the park; like she wanted to cross it toward us but some invisible force was holding her to the forest path. Eventually, the sun started to go down, and like before, the woman turned to walk up the path. My sis and I wanted to go, but mom’s desire to indiscriminately meddle with things made her heart set on getting to the bottom of this mystery.
So mom waited several minutes after the woman went up the path to give herself a buffer, then crept in after her. Mom was in there for a very long time, long enough that it was dark out when we realized something wasn’t right. I wanted to go in after mom, but sis gave a firm “fuck this shit I’m out,” and dad wanted to stay with Harley in case he got scared (I swear, my dad loves that dog more than the rest of us in real life). For his part, Harley seemed happy as can be, and it occurred to me that I wasn’t sure Harley could even see, hear, or smell the strange woman. It was like to him, she didn't exist at all.
Extremely exasperated, I realized I was going up the dark path into the forest after mom alone. I pulled out a bottle of pinot grigio (mom's favourite wine, who like my dad with Harley, I'm pretty sure she loves more than people) in case she still had her heart set on investigating the situation and I needed a way to coax her out. Then I headed into the dark, creepy woods.
I walked along for some time until I came across mom. She was standing with her back to me in the exact same spot the strange woman had stood when she shrieked at us the other day. Mom was frozen in place, staring straight ahead. She seemed to be focused on something specific down the path ahead of us, but when I looked I saw nothing. I decided to get her attention by opening the bottle of wine, but I guess I should’ve announced my presence or something first, because when the cork popped off mom screamed, turned around and ran past me back toward the park.
So now there I was all alone in the middle of a dark spooky forest that I was 90% sure was haunted, an open bottle of wine in my hands. As I stood there, I could feel a… presence. It’s hard to explain, but I had this inexplicable feeling that something was out there, and it was watching. It then occurred to me that mom didn’t even seem to notice me when I supposedly scared her, and that’s when I realized: I wasn’t the one that scared her at all.
Now feeling pretty scared myself, I put down the bottle and did a Dream Leap out of there (I don't know if anyone else has this. Where you have the inexplicable ability to leap hundreds of feet in the air, or another power that carries over most of your dreams that nobody ever comments on or seems to think is strange, even you). I landed in the park right next to mom, and all of us decided it was well past time to head home.
The walk home was no less unsettling. Despite how far we walked away from the park, I could still feel the same presence watching us the entire time. Whatever this was, it was different from the strange woman. As we walked, I kept seeing these shadowy shapes moving around in my peripherals. Each time I tried to look directly at one, there’d be nothing there. I thought I was just losing my mind, but it definitely seemed like there was something stalking us that only existed on the edges of my vision. It was like my mind was actively “censoring” whatever it was each time I tried to focus on it, like the human mind was simply incapable of processing the damn thing...

Finally, we arrived home (still our old house) and made sure to lock the doors up tight. Mom hadn’t said a word since disappearing into the woods. And I still couldn’t shake the unsettling vibes; could still sense the same presence watching us. I had a minor panic when I figured that whatever incomprehensible entity had followed us home was now inside the house with us. I realized that mom had clearly seen something when I found her in the woods, and whatever it was might give us some answers to all of this. But before I could ask her about it, I woke up.
I could still feel the same watching presence even after I was awake, but it drifted away as I began to wake up more.