You check yourself out in the bathroom mirror for any damage to your nose, face, or... anything.

You look exactly like you did when you went to bed last night. No sludge stains, no scrapes or bruises, no brain trauma you can spot at a cursory glance.

Part of you feels silly for even looking--it was just a dream, after all.

It's not even the first time you've had especially weird or vivid dreams; people say you can't read or feel pain in a nightmare, but you can absolutely believe you are and in the moment there's no difference. Your brain also likes to get a little crazy with whatever chemicals make nostalgia--you lost track of how many dreams felt familiar but shouldn't have, in retrospect. You "revisited" dozens of imaginary places for the first time and only woke up confused.

You looked into lucid dreaming once, keeping a dream journal and all that.

It didn't

exactly improve things.

You could indeed become fully aware of when you were in a dream, but even knowing full well it wasn't real you could never change it. You would pinch your arm, shout at yourself to wake up, demand that the dream end--but your dreams refused to end on your terms. You would jump, expecting to have flight in your dreams, but it never worked--and waking up knowing you had been helpless in your own dream didn't make them bother you less, just bother you... differently.

You remember Lora speculating that it was anxiety--that because you felt you had no control over your life, you would subconsciously deprive yourself of control in your dreams, as well.

Like you were punishing yourself.


. . .


On the other hand, this nightmare felt much, much more real than any you've ever had before. You remember it perfectly--the consistency of the sludge, the weight of the barrels, the sound those... things made. You recall every detail like it just finished happening.

You hustle back into your room.

Before you went to sleep last night, you tossed yesterday's clothes into the empty box next to your bed.

You dig them out and check the pockets of your jeans--

and find your house key, ID card, and some money. No sign of the map and floor guide you'd stumbled across--but you remember what was on them, and you remember the area you explored well enough that you can pretty much visualize how the floor structure should look in your head.

Over a breakfast of cheap soda and a microwaved burrito, you start up your computer and document your dream. You also realize that--since it's about 10:20am now, you slept for something vaguely to the tune of at least 8 hours. You DEFINITELY weren't in the mind prison (anxiety dungeon? nightmare oubliette?) for 8 hours.

So, that's one less point in favor of magical hell adventure

and one more point in favor of this is it, Plaire, you've finally fucking snapped