SPOILERS! Reviewing Rayne's Dream SPOILERS!

Hello all and welcome to my reflections blog for chapter 123 of my story The Heart of Pleasure. 

**PLEASE BE WARNED, THIS CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS THAT WILL RUIN THE STORY UP TO THIS POINT IF YOU HAVE NOT READ UP TO AND THROUGH THIS CHAPTER** 

In any case, what I'm sure that most of you are here for is the review of Rayne's nightmare that Luna travels through. So I'm just going to go ahead and jump right into that. I apologize if this comes across as a little convoluted but I'll try my best to keep it clear for you. 

- Into the Dream - 

So first of all, I can't ever remember a single time in which I could ever myself in a dream. I'm always looking out in my dreams but I myself always seem to be disembodied. I rarely if ever can even see my arms or legs. So because of this, this is why when Luna first entered Rayne's dreams she could not see his mental self image. I don't know if this is how it is for other people or not, but it's how I usually dream. 

Now the dream voice that continually speaks throughout the chapter is not an alien invading force traveling through Rayne's dreams. It is in fact just his own inner voice, or when I looked things up online to be scientific about this, it is called his Critical Inner Voice. According to Google, this is defined as: "The Critical Inner Voice is the part of us that is turned against ourselves. It is the defended, negative side of our personality that is opposed to our ongoing development. The voice consists of the negative thoughts, beliefs and attitudes that oppose our best interests and diminish our self-esteem." So it's not another Rayne, it's not a doppelganger, it's not another character I'm going to use in the story later... it's just Rayne's subconscious manifesting his doubts and him being way too hard on himself. Now as for what the voice sounds like, well you could call it a multitude of many different characters from all the movies I've watched the all the video games I've ever played. But I will admit that while I was writing this chapter, I had two very distinct voices that were swapping back and forth above the others. When the voice is speaking in a masculine, hissing, echoey tone I imagined how Voldemort was depicted in the Harry Potter movies. Particularly the scene where Voldemort was whispering into Harry's thoughts saying, "Harry, you will lose everything." It just resonated with me. Secondly, when the dream voice personified a feminine, scratchy voice I thought of the Mad, Mad, Mad Madan Mim from the Disney cartoon The Sword and The Stone. Now why those two you ask? Well because it was a dream. Now I'm not crazy, I don't hear random voices in my head, but I know what it sounds like when my Critical Inner Voice is telling me negative things and it always manifests for me through the voice of someone else I know or someone else I've heard. It's never my own voice telling me negative things about myself. So, I needed a voice for the Critical Inner Voice for this scene, and grabbing from random identifiable association, my brain picked it sounding like Voldemort and Madam Mim interchangeably, with about a dozen other random voices echoing through behind it. Also, from here on I am going to refer to the Critical Inner Voice as the CIV because I'm getting tired of writing that out. 

Now before we go any further, I want to discuss when the CIV does and does not interact with Luna. Luna has the ability to both interact with the dreams of others directly or to stand back and be an invisible silent observer. And even when she interacts with a dream, she can manipulate it but that still doesn't make her a part of the dream itself, unless she wants to be. It's like she's overlaid on top of it but not actually a part of it. That is why she spoke to the CIV in the beginning but it looked right through her. The difference that I was going for here is that Luna usually observes dreams and manipulates them from an outsider perspective. But if Luna forgets that the dream isn't real and starts connecting to the emotions of the dream herself, then the dream can change to include her whether she wants the dream to or not. This is seen when Luna watched Rayne be thrown into the fiery warehouse. She screamed, connecting herself to the dream emotionally, and the dream Luna was able to see her. Later, when Luna tried expelling the contents of the dream away in her bedroom scene, the dream that was now aware of her began to fight back against her. But when Luna made the voluntary choice to delve into Rayne's subconscious while part of a dream nightmare that was already aware of her presence, it changed all of the rules. This was no longer only Rayne's dream, it was now both of their dream that they were in together, similar to how Luna brought all of Ponyville together for the Tantabus episode of the show. At first Rayne's consciousness, as seen by the little mutant, and Luna's consciousness could coexist in Rayne's mind together. But when Luna traveled through a doorway while already inside of Rayne's subconscious she then put her mind insider of his mind, if that makes any sense. That is why from that moment on, she saw through his eyes instead of from a third party perspective. 

Okay so let's bring this back a bit. We'll go back to starting from the beginning and work our way back up to this point. And I apologize that this thought process is a spiderweb instead of a linear path. Anyways... At the start of the dream, having Luna being angry at him is what's at the forefront of Rayne's mind. That is why the dream starts in the prison cell with the CIV doing what it does before an angry Luna appears outside his cell. On the very surface level of his mind, when Rayne fell asleep what he was thinking is that after viewing his dreams that Luna will never be able to look at him with affection again. So naturally his fear conjured a Luna that was scowling at him and said, "Rot here until you die" as a show of her having absolutely zero care for him any longer. This dream Luna didn't even pity whether he lived or died. And that is what Rayne fears he will wake up to the next morning. Now is that realist for Luna's character? No. Does Rayne understand this? Yes. But sense when has understanding ever been sufficient to suppress people's irrational fears? 

Alright now as for the fire transitioning between scene from scene before Luna dived deeper into Rayne's subconscious... I don't want to spend too much time on this because it's all part of the next chapter. However, a clever reader might be able to piece it together because I've already given all the clues necessary to figure this out in earlier chapters. 

Moving on, since Rayne's surface fears are just that, only on the surface, they are the easiest to penetrate through in order to get the deeper, heavier concerns. Rayne knows why Luna wants to view his dreams and it's because she wants to know if he's been up to anything else that he is hiding. Well Rayne has been up to all kinds of things all over the place but because that isn't what he himself cares about right now, that is why the dream blurred between different areas without settling on a location. His guilt might had been what Luna was after, but it wasn't Rayne's focus as he was dreaming. Now he also understands how deeply she was hurt by catching him redhanded drinking the elixir. Rayne doesn't want to lose Luna, but having the fear that he might be about to is making him think back to the very first time that he saw her. That is why the dream settled on the Crystal Empire. And he knew that what led Luna to first laying eyes on him was when he first passed out outside the castle. Now remember, this is a nightmare after all so his CIV was more than happy to make him relieve the disorienting pain when he fainted. The CIV has it's own master plan themed throughout the dream, but I'll get back to that later. Rayne remembered stumbling helplessly with no one to help him before collapsing. And I don't know about you, but I've had plenty of dreams repeat an individual detail sometimes. I don't know why, if it's just on repeat while the rest of the dream was loading or if it's intentionally my CIV just wanting to harp on the same painful issue over and over again. But that is why Rayne repeatedly fell outside the Crystal Empire and also later in the dream he repeatedly fell from the Canterlot window. Also it should be obvious that with the relation to the two events, the sound of Rayne hitting the ground was the bridge for the gap between the two locations in the dream. But to return to the point, all of this is just pertaining to a nightmare about Princess Luna no longer caring for him. So where does that lead us to? With the visualization of a deeply uncaring Luna of course. 

The dream continues with more harsh words scripted by the CIV from the dream Luna looking upon Rayne in a helpless state. She downplays his worth while seems to enjoy his suffering. But let's remember, Luna had for the most part always treated him with kindness and respect. So where did this idea of an angry rebuking Luna originate? It steamed from when she yelled at him outside the burning warehouse. Whether she had just cause to do so or not wasn't the issue here. Remember this is a nightmare and most of the fears which were dreamed about were irrational fears. But it certainly bridges the gap from the last two scenes to now changing to the warehouse. And what could be more metaphorical for emphasizing the point that the individual you love finds you to be completely worthless, than being tossed and allowed to die by their own hand. Yes it was horrible, but I think having dream Luna throwing Rayne into the fire was an effective touch. And of course, as I previously stated, this is where the dream stops being only about Rayne and where the nightmare or the CIV gets its first realization that Luna is there too. But what is the bridge for the gap to the next scene? Well, all of this so far has been exclusively about what Rayne fears about what Luna is feeling. It's all been about her. But what about Rayne's feelings? What about how he feelings himself? 

That is what brings us to Luna's room. It's everything that he wants. The familiarity, the exclusivity. The acceptance from her for him to be there and to be a part of her life. And at the heart of everything he wants, he fears that he is losing it to somepony else. So there in the heart of the room, the beautiful Luna is performing the most intimate act Rayne can imagine with the one Rayne is losing her to. He fears sitting there helplessly watching as she willingly gives herself to someone else. As such, the CIV manifests the nightmare as him kneeling, watching Magnus and Luna making love while she outcries how happy Magnus makes her as if Rayne doesn't matter at all. But it is at this point that the dream is interrupted when the real Luna starts blasting the nightmare and the CIV away. But a human's mind is more three dimensional that a cartoon character's mind from a tv show. And since the CIV has it's own goal that it is working towards, the natural automatic problem solving mechanic of Rayne's brain gave the CIV a way to remove the obstacle standing in its way. So now it's again time for random-thought-association! I have always been a big fan of the Beetlejuice movie ever since I was a kid. And near the end of the movie Beetlejuice creates that wicked looking fireplace as a portal to beyond. I always loved how awesome I thought that fireplace looked so that is what materialized as the random interpretation of something opening to fight back against Luna. Now since my brain was now already on a Beetlejuice inspiration, if you've seen the movie then think of when he turned into the snake for the railing on the second floor. Imagine that as a giant arm and make the sandworms as little squirming fingers. That's what my CIV came up with to grab Luna and throw her out of the tower. Then it disappeared with Rayne entirely, tower and all, deeper into his mind to get away from Luna and continue his nightmares. 

Phew, okay. Let's stretched and take a breather because I know this has been a lot so far but this is where everything changes. One thing that I want to point out is that once Luna flew down into the hole, penetrating into Rayne's subconscious, from that point on this ceased to be a dream. Now Luna is literally floating around through Rayne's brain and a collection of every thought and memory that he has ever had throughout the entirety of his whole life. This isn't about him dreaming anymore. She's all the way into just the knowledge banks of his brain. So that means all the rules of dream travel are now out the window. This is Rayne's mind now and his subconscious is making the rules, both randomly, and still through the filter of his CIV working under a master goal for his nightmare. 

Now looking back at Rayne's dream, we started with the surface thoughts and then worked our way in. The same could be said for Rayne's subconscious. Now as I stated in the first chapter or two of my story, your lovely protagonist and writer here suffers from a medical condition leaving me violently allergic to natural light. Now I may have embellished this a bit because I certainly wouldn't burst into flames if I go outside. But the feeling it gives me to be exposed to sunlight is not that far from being the same. As such, Luna manifested in my subconscious seeing the happy outside world as a metaphor for everything that I feel cut off from in my life due to my sun condition. I am trapped in the shadows, separated from playing with the rest of the world, and left feeling helpless to do anything about it. But it's worse than the personal loss because it's also about the constant fear of pain. This condition is horrible and I suffer from it every day, even when I don't have to go outside. It doesn't just leave me feeling cut off from the rest of the world, it leaves me feeling like I'm hiding from the sunlight that is always looking for any excuse to shine through cracks in the windows and get to me to hurt me any way I can. As such, being trapped in a shadow which is slowly disappearing on me to hide within is very accurate to how it feels to live my life. And I know that there are times when life demands me to go outside during daylight hours where it cannot be avoided. And no matter what precautions I take, it always feels like this intense radioactive burning sensation that is scorching me from the inside out. 

Now the fact that Rayne in this story just so happens to be in love with a character who just happens to be able to push the dreaded sun away from me is nothing more than a lucky random coincidence actually. But it also gives Luna the perfect opportunity to FINALLY reveal her consciousness to me where as my CIV blocked her from doing so during all her attempts before. So now for the first time, Rayne's consciousness finally understands that he is having a nightmare and Luna is there penetrating into his dreams to help him. Annnnnd there in lies the problem. Have you ever had your brain think faster than your mouth can move? Well it happened here to Rayne. Let me give you some clarification. In the year 2000, a movie was released called The Cell staring the actress Jennifer Lopez, who was very popular at the time. This movie was about a serial killer who kidnapped individuals but then ended up in a coma before he could tell the police where he stored his captives at. The police obviously wanted to save those who were kidnapped but had no leads to find them. So they used a sort of new age futuristic technology to explore into the serial killer's mind even though he was in a coma, to try to find any thoughts from him about where is captives might be located. Now I find that technology that was used to be a fascinating concept so remembering about the movie The Cell is never a challenge to me when the opportunity arises. Buuut... one of the most visually striking scenes in that movies is when the serial killer's mind depicts a horse standing in a room before a child pushes Jennifer Lopez character out of the way when a series of glass panels come down carving the horse into pieces. So since that is one of the first thoughts to always come to my mind about the movie, it wasn't hard to make the connection here. In the movie, there is a beautiful female exploring the subconscious of a person who was a monster for answers. Rayne saw Luna, a beautiful female exploring his own subconscious, where he feels he has more than enough reason to view himself as a monster, for answers. The thought connection was made and Rayne shoved Luna out of the way to protect her from what he knew he would immediately envision from that movie. 

Now here is where I am going to pause to go over two different points before we continue. And those are Rayne's self image and finally the CIV's master goal. Rayne doesn't know how he came to be in Equestria, but quite frankly, he doesn't care. Maybe he's in denial but he hasn't pondered this because he specifically doesn't want to. He is happy to be here so he doesn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. So he a sense he has accepted his new life as a pony... but at the same time he can never forget that he wasn't originally a pony and part of him feels guilty with the thought that he is just trying to live out a lie for as long as he can get away with it for. As such, he has a broken sense of self image. He's accepted he isn't a human anymore, but he recognizes it isn't entirely the truth that he is now a pony. Now once again it's time for random-identifiable-association. What is a creature that is already half way between what it used to be and yet not quite something else entirely, while already being full of loathing? Well that immediately makes me think of Sméagol/Golum from The Lord of the Rings. As such, Rayne's personal self image, on a subconscious level mind you, is some kind of mutated combination between a human, a pony, and Sméagol. Now as for the CIV though, if you haven't picked up on it already, the main driving theme the CIV is based on for this nightmare is Rayne's helplessness. It started with him not being able to escape the angry Luna in the prison cell. Then the inevitability of him passing out in the Crystal Empire, leading to him falling from the Canterlot Window. It attempted to highlight on the fear that Luna will give herself to Magnus in every way possible over him and that there is nothing he can do to stop it. And even his self image was represented as being helpless cut off from the world around him while his only safe harbor was slowly disappearing on him. And this helplessness theme will continue as the nightmare continues on. 

Now as Luna attempts to progress for what she believes is her chasing after Rayne's consciousness, what she ends up accomplishing instead is actually going into his consciousness. And as another reminder, the CIV already identifies Luna and Rayne both as being participants in this nightmare. And when she runs through a doorway after the room with the horse, she doesn't realize how deep into Rayne's mind she's gone. When she appears in the dirty underground tunnel, it is before she has realized that she's seeing through Rayne's eyes now and not her own. Now the association for The Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth is nothing more than random association again but by the CIV this time. There are a lot of Hollywood monsters to be afraid of, but I think I just felt that while watching this movie that they just did the "Aww, it's going to get you!" really well with The Pale Man. So being trapped in a deadend with him is a fantastic representation of inflicting helplessness, and also the CIV experimenting to get its feet wet with now tormenting Luna and Rayne in one. Now Luna has magic to escape from dreams but as I pointed out some time ago, this stopped being merely a dream the moment Luna delved into Rayne's subconscious. Luna might be able to use magic to escape a particular scene, but one cannot also wake themselves from a dream just because they want to and its the CIV that is making the rules now. 

So once the CIV has seen that it can get to Luna too by scaring her with the same helpless feeling it has been torturing Rayne with, it decides to bring up deep personal trauma from one of the moments in Rayne's life where he truly felt the most helpless. Now the scene with the doctor and the medical torture is also an over embellishment of something real that happened to me in my life. But that is not something that I am going to go into explaining further because... I don't have to. But needless to say, Luna was able to figure out by this point that she is now IN Rayne's consciousness and is experiencing his own nightmare along with him but through his own eyes. And this is bad news for Luna because this means she is trapped along for the ride as the CIV brings Rayne's nightmare to a climax to really drive its 'helplessness' theme home. 

For the final scene, I don't know what else I can say. A dark landscape covered in corpses? There's no way I can identify what that's from. I've seen too many war movies, watched too many animes like Hellsing or Berserker, watching too many doomsday end of the world type flicks, and played too many video games like The Witcher III. And who knows if the CIV was just filling in the gaps. The landscape just is what it is, there's nothing specific to reference. And I was trying really hard to avoid using the word Crucified in the story because I didn't want real world religious connotations to be included in the story. But that's exactly what was in the scene, several bodies as well as Luna herself were tied with ropes to staked crosses amidst a field of corpses. 

But this is where the CIV comes back to start speaking again and you realize there might be some more meaningful purpose to the background imagery in this final scene anyways. Amidst its hurtful words, the CIV refers to Rayne as a plague and also as a virus. This is supposed to be symbolic to suggest that all the littered corpses are actually what Rayne fears the other individuals in his life see him as. That he is this dangerous figure who will bring them all to ruin. And he fears they are going to see him as one who will cause everything and everyone to be destroyed. Following which, they will ostracize him for being a plague or a virus or a scourge that they need to remove from their society. And the CIV is emphasizing how helpless Rayne is by being tied to a stake and watching 'helplessly.' Now if you think that seems a bit too dramatic, let me remind you that irrational fears tend to be... irrational. Anyways...

This is where the CIV brings in the final manifestation. To be honest I don't even know if Hellraiser is viewable in all countries due to the graphic and horrific nature of this movie series. But the general purpose of the main creature from that film, known aptly as Pinhead, is that he tortures sinners with a combination of erotic pleasure and horrific pain after they die until the soul of the individual cannot distinguish the difference anymore between the two feelings. Now the innuendo here I hope would be obvious, in that Rayne is a pleasure pony destined to be bring pleasure wherever he goes, but is fated for the suffering that comes from individuals turning against him and leading to his untimely death. I think Pinhead from Hellraiser is the perfect metaphor to torment Rayne with. But of course, Luna, at least at the moment, understands almost none of this. I don't care if Luna has seen every nightmare to ever exist in Equestria. I refuse to believe that any pony in that colorful two dimensional universe has ever had a nightmare about a being like Pinhead before. And as such, Luna completely freaks out in fear beyond her ability to comprehend when she sees him. And with Luna having hit her absolute mental limit for her fear tolerance, she goes into a panic with wildly casting her 'escape' spell from her dream magic over, and over, and over again without even stopping to see where she ended up next. She just spammed it repeatedly until she managed to finally worm her way out of Rayne's subconscious and back up to his dream level to where she could escape from. 

Phew, now what a reflection blog this has been. And in the end it doesn't actually serve any purpose other than to satisfy the curiosity of my readers. But in the end it was still a lot of fun for me to write. Although I will still try to go over some leftover points here that I feel didn't get covered. Now first of all, Luna finally had access to Rayne's dreams so why didn't she see memories of his childhood to realize he wasn't originally a pony? Well the answer to that is because each dream scene had a specific bridge that was connecting it. When you sleep, do you dream of absolutely every aspect of your life every single time? I wouldn't think so. There were two focus points happening in Rayne's mind at this time. One was what Rayne wanted to think about and the other was what the CIV wanted to think about. Rayne wanted to dream about Luna and the CIV wanted to make him feel helpless. Anything that doesn't specifically pertain to those two factors was omitted from his mind.