The One in Which Benedict Cumberbatch Makes an Appearance

    My husband, let's still call him Marshall, and I had found our dream house; the only problem was that the property was owned by someone and rented out to multiple families at a time, because the house was so huge.  At the moment only one family of four lived there and they owned a couple of friendly, big dogs. The house was amazing and simply could not be passed up; it was a massive manor of stone with various carefully cultivated flowers and other plants lining the bases of the walls which sat in a clearing surrounded by woods.

The place? Downton Abbey...or Misselthwaite Manor.  

    So we moved into a bedroom on the first floor with windows that faced the front yard and drive.  The windows were door-sized  and every single room was beautifully and ornately decorated and furnished with the manor's original furnishings.  The house had more than two kitchens, countless bedrooms and bathrooms, at least three libraries, and a ludicrous amount of sitting rooms.  We were given our own kitchen, bathrooms, and guest bedrooms but the rest of the place was open to anyone, except of course the other tenants'  rooms.  You would think we'd run into the other family more often but the place was so massive we pretty much never ran into them.
    Each person had a special room assigned to them specifically as their own room, a private place to do whatever you wanted.  Marshall's room was a big library, which was very fitting for him and would have been for me too, but my room was different.  I had to follow a map the owner gave me to find my room and when I did finally find the place it was a huge disappointment.  First of all, I had to climb through a crawlspace to get to it; I found a light switch and flipped it on to reveal a tiny room.  When I say tiny, I mean tiny in every way possible.  It was like a small attic around 6 by 6 feet and the ceiling was about 4 feet high.  The floor was carpeted white and the walls were plain cream.  I sat back against the wall in disbelief.  What could I possibly do in this room?  Then I noticed the trapdoor in the ceiling; I pushed it open and climbed up.  It was a huge circular room completely empty and made entirely out of wood; the ceiling was high and cone shaped and there were large windows  in every section of the circular wall.  I stepped up to one of the windows and saw the front of the yard and beyond; I was at the highest point of the house.  This was pretty much the perfect room for a huge medieval geek who thinks trapdoors are the coolest things ever.

I blame you, Clive.

    Highly pleased, I eventually made my way back downstairs and went to bed.  I woke up earlier than usual; Marshall was still asleep and I got up and stood in front of one of the windows.  I peered out into the pale morning light and saw a big dog that was definitely not our housemates'.  I stared at it for a while before it starting barking, then it ran, right at my window.  As it ran it snarled and growled like it was going to eat me if it ever got inside.  I figured it would stop before it got to the window but it kept coming, it was going to smash into the window.  I moved my body into a defensive pose that would've made George Michael Bluth proud and flinched in advance for the impact on the window.  But it never came.  In an instant the dog disappeared from outside and appeared quite suddenly inside.

This is the first image that pops up when you Google image search "magic dog".
Surprisingly appropriate.

    Naturally, I screamed as the dog kept barking; Marshall woke up and asked me where that dog came from; the other family must have been nearby because they heard the commotion and ran in.  They had never seen the dog before either and nobody understood why I kept repeating that it came through the window which was obviously closed.  That was when the owner of the house silently appeared in the room and it would be the first time any of us had ever seen him in person.

Because his awesomeness almost made our eyes explode.

We all knew him and fell silent upon his sudden arrival.  Benedict reached out his hand to me and placed it on my shoulder; he gave it a gentle yet firm squeeze and said, "You're not making any sense.  Things don't just...go through walls.  You need to lie down."
    He looked at me knowingly but I didn't understand why.  He drew his hand back.  "Now, I believe this dog belongs to the new family.  I will be away for some time, by the by."
    He nodded toward the window and then looked at me again with a small smirk on his face.  We all looked out the window to see a man and a woman in their forties with a young boy carrying there things across the drive.  The man and the boy were dressed in black suits and the woman was in a black dress and hat; you would've thought they were just coming from a funeral, but they had smiles on their faces.  The others turned to go greet them and we noticed Benedict Cumberbatch had disappeared.    
    The new family, as expected, was downright creepy and they took liberties all over the place.  We would always find them in our rooms for no apparent reason and their dog was a menace.  One day I sought solace in my tower and was thinking about that crazy dog and that crazy Cumberbatch, as I was wont to do, when quite suddenly I heard a very loud crashing noise and my tower began to wobble violently.  I darted to a window and poked my head out.  The new family was standing around on the lawn watching someone with a wrecking ball take down my tower while I was still in it.  I would've screamed at them but the tower was so unstable now I had to leave immediately.  I ran to the trap door but for some reason it wouldn't open.  I pulled and pulled as the tower's state worsened.  Then I dropped through the floor and landed in the small room below.  I looked up to see the ceiling still intact and then took off through the crawlspace; I tore through the house and out the front door.
    "What do you think you're doing?!?" I screamed at them.
    Cumberbatch gave me the tower, they had no right.  Also, it was his property. I angrily informed them that I was in there and could have died.  The father's response?  "Why didn't you?"
    Just absolutely amazed I went to Marshall's and my bedroom and sat down.  My body felt like it was vibrating slightly then I fell right through the bed and onto the floor so that now I was lying underneath the bed.  Naturally, I began to panic.  Did Cumberbatch do this to me?  What did he know?  Did the dog do this?  What was "this"???  One thing was for sure: The new family was trying to kill me, or all of us.
    Suddenly, the dog's face appeared under the bed with a wild grimace.  I was vibrating again but I crawled out frantically on the other side right before blinking out of existence momentarily and falling onto the basement floor.  Then I started crying.  If I couldn't control this then where would I end up?  Probably trapped in sheets of rock somewhere in the Earth's crust and suffocating.  But if the dog could control it why couldn't I?  I ran for the stairs and felt the odd vibrations again.  I stopped and instead of ignoring the sensation I concentrated on it.  Cumberbatch was right, things don't just go through walls.  On some level I realized my atoms were separating just enough to be able to pass around other atoms, allowing me to pass through seemingly solid objects.

So, I had the more terrifying aspect of The Flash's superpowers.
And I didn't know how to use it.

But as it turned out as long as I concentrated and demanded that my molecules and things listen to me, because I'm the boss of me, I wouldn't disappear again.  So I very slowly, but solidly, made my way up the stairs where Benedict Cumberbatch awaited me.  His figure at the top of the stairs kept blinking like a bad VHS tape.

This is a VHS tape, kids.

"You're too late," he sadly said to me before completely disappearing.
    I didn't understand him but I felt like my organs all decided to twist themselves together in a fit of nervousness.  I passed through the doorway to find pretty much nothing.  There was no manor, no trees, no flowers, no Marshall, no nice housemates.  Everything was just grey rock as far as my eyes could see.  I heard a small, polite cough behind me.  And there stood that family of three, all in black, grinning at me.

And that's when I woke up.

Ghost Like Swayze

    As you can see dying is a common occurrence in my dreams, but I don't usually get much farther than that.  But recently, for the first time in my dreaming history that I can remember, I dreamed that I died and became a ghost.


    I was in high school again and it was a snow day; myself and a few others had gone to a friend's house, her name was Kelley.  She lived out in the country, real middle of nowhere place, surrounded by woods for miles.  Their driveway was a dirt one and very long and narrow; when it reached the clearing the house was in the driveway split and became an oval.  We decided to go hiking and build a snow fort somewhere in the woods like any normal teenager would do; we went past the driveway and deep into the forest.  As we built an epic snow fort the snow continued to heavily fall and the day got later and later.

If you think about it this is a pretty plausible snow fort.
Which means the White Witch did a really, really bad job.

At around twilight we realized how late it was getting and decided to head back, but our tracks were gone and ,soon, so was the sun.  You'd think it would be easy to find out the way back but if Mythbusters taught us anything it was that lost people tend to go in circles and that explosions are always necessary (but was that ever a myth?).  So we got lost.  It would've been better to stay in our fort but we didn't know we were going to get lost.  As the temperature plummeted what seemed like a blizzard arrived and the five of us started  dropping like flies.  We were tired and cold and hypothermia was setting in; it was too hard to not give up.

We definitely went the way of Casper.

And we died quite peacefully out in the woods where we turned out to be just a stone's throw away from the oval part of the driveway.
    The first few days of being dead was most like being asleep.  We were aware we were dead but we didn't know what was going on or where we were and we weren't really conscious of anything else.  We didn't become ghosts until our bodies were buried, and it was only me and Kelley who were left behind.  We materialized where we died and in the light of day saw the travesty of how close we were to the driveway.  We found out pretty quickly that our strongest emotion was melancholy, also that there was no leaving Kelley's parent's property.  When we tried it was as if there was an invisible wall around the perimeter.  We also discovered that there were entities in charge of ghosts, Voids (no relation or resemblance to Warcraft's Voidwalkers), as well as entities who helped ghosts even though they weren't supposed to do so.  You see, there were ghost rules and if you disobeyed those rules you would be punished.  Things of the dead world could hurt each other, in extreme cases the Voids would do bad things to your living friends and/or relatives, and in most extreme cases they would devour you, rendering you absolutely gone.  The Voids were humanoid and all black except for their completely white eyes and lamprey mouths.  They had large torsos and very skinny limbs that ended in jagged claws.

 
All these things combined.

Breaking the rules was absolutely no joke.  But we had to do it anyway.  Kelley's mom was taking her daughter's death too hard; she had quickly sunk into depression and was considering suicide, but nobody else in the family seemed to notice.  Kelley and I decided this was why we were still here, but since this was a time sensitive issue we needed to cheat in order to stop her mother from killing herself.

Ghost Rules:
1- Do not move anything in front of a living being.
2- No writing messages.
3- Do not cause physical harm to the living or their property.
4- Do not seek assistance to be able to speak directly to the living, success in such an action will result in termination.

So basically, even being dead wasn't fair.  This is why there are so many poltergeists.  What are you supposed to do if your reason for being a ghost dies or leaves before you can do anything?  You're stuck.  So many ghosts just get frustrated and flip out while many others do as much as they can to just commit ghost suicide.  How do you not get filled with rage and just take it out on anything you can?

Seriously?  This is our only means of communication? Screw this.

    What you may be asking is why doesn't a ghost just break rule number 4 is they're done with being a ghost.  Number 4 is more difficult than you think because you cannot simply contact the help you need, they contact you.  But we were desperate and the powers that be knew it.  They didn't have a name that we knew of and we never saw them, they were more like a feeling than anything.  These entities told us that they had hidden small pearls of life all over the house and we needed to collect all 25 in order for one of us to be alive for 25 seconds.  They were hidden so that the Voids wouldn't find out about it until it was too late for them to stop us.  We had to slip sleeping aid into Kelley's mom in order to get her to sleep at all and whenever everyone was asleep we would search the house frantically, quickly collecting the pearls and hiding them away until we gathered them all.
    The day came when we found the last one and all the living were still awake so right then was a perfect opportunity.  Kelley's mom was sitting outside alone, unbeknownst to the rest of the family, with a bottle of sleeping pills that she would consume soon.  I told Kelley she had to take the pearls now, but when I looked at her her face was scrunched up in fear.  She was afraid of the Voids, she didn't want to blink out of existence.  I couldn't believe her selfishness and I screamed at her for it.  She ran inside the house as her mother poured the pills into her hand.  I had to do it, I couldn't let this happen.  Maybe, like in the movies, because of my sacrifice I would be saved.  I consumed the pearls and I suddenly felt different.  Kelley's mom saw me and dropped the pills on the ground, letting out a small shriek.  I lied to her that Kelley was fine; I told her that Kelley could see her and was with her, that Kelley didn't want her to kill herself, that it would leave her daughter in everlasting pain if she did so.  I told her that Kelley just wanted her to be happy.
    Then my 25 seconds were over and I was a ghost again.  Kelley's mother ran inside and I followed her as she almost told her family what happened but decided against it and sat down with them.  Kelley and I stood in front of them and she asked me what I said.  I started to tell her but then she vanished.  I heard a noise down the hall and saw a Void turn the corner, it was coming for me.  Why wasn't anything ever like the movies?

And that's when I woke up.
  
                          

I Am...Batman?

       My ward was the son of a very important, wealthy political figure in an alternate universe where there were people who could accurately tell the future for the right price.  My ward, Will, was eight years old and a seer had foretold that he would overthrow the current government, which was oppressive, when he grew up.  Because of his parents' political status this information was easily leaked and made public, putting Will in danger of losing his life very early.  This is where my job came in; I was your classic skin-tight, black leather wearing, multiple guns toting bodyguard.

I'm very talented in my dreams.

I had some small seer power in the category of danger happening in my vicinity; I could see things that would happen in the next minute or so, giving me enough time to get out of the way.  My services as a bodyguard fetched a high price because of this, but soon it was discovered that there were also people who could dispel seer powers for a few seconds...
    Will, his nanny, and I were on top of the roof of the building the family lived in where Will had his own personal playground.  From there I had  a good vantage point of our surroundings; there was only one building nearby that was higher than ours, but I wasn't too concerned about that.  What I was concerned about was the scaffolding that scaled the front wall of our building for a facade treatment.  The door to the stairs was near the front of the building so if I sensed something was going to happen and there were more then just a couple of people, escaping would be difficult.  So I decided to keep my attention toward the scaffolding to watch for any extra movement.

Actually, I was more like a paid Batman with super powers.

    Suddenly I felt a vision coming on; they usually lasted just a couple of seconds, but instead of a vision the feeling faded away into nothing.  That was not normal at all, it had never happened.  I felt a buzzing sensation of nervousness at the base of my skull and pulled out a gun, running to Will.  I screamed for them to go as I spun in slow circles, still making sure I was blocking at least one shot of Will, trying to find from where the attack would be coming.  The first shot cracked and I felt the bullet punch into my back, apparently I didn't feel the need to invest in some Kevlar.  I stumbled and whirled around to see a gunman on a balcony of the higher building behind us.  I shot at him but a person in the shadows stepped out and pushed him out of the way just as I pulled my trigger.  I abandoned my first idea of killing the gunman and made sure Will got through the door.

Of course I gave up, I was obviously up against Emma Frost and Bane.

He did and I the second shot came; it hit me directly in my spine and I fell forward onto the edge of the building.  I wasn't able to move myself and my body helplessly slipped forward off the building and onto the scaffolding below.  I crashed and slid down until I rolled out onto the street, a bloodied mess.  People ran up to me and told me everything was going to be fine, I was going to make it.  But their words may as well have fallen on deaf ears, because I wasn't listening.  All I could think about was what my spine looked like.  Was it split?  Were the bones shattered?  Could anyone reconnect the broken spine or fix the damage?  It must have been a mess, I thought to myself just before I died.

And that's when I woke up.

The One Dream Where I Win. Because I Cheated.

    Apologies to any readers out there on the extended delay of a new post.  I was out of a state for a while and then had a parental visit and all that made me a busier person than usual.  Anyways.  
    As you may have noticed my brain doesn't provide me with many happy endings, but a friend suggested I write up one where I win for once. So, without further ado I present my one and only lucid dream, because typically when my dream self demands I wake up my brain says "Screw you".


    I was in an odd Old West style alternate reality where we still had some present day, real-world technology.  One of the bigger differences was that the trees were all dead and it was perpetually twilight.

This is pretty much exactly what you should be imagining; 
you'd think I had played this game before  I had this dream.

And also there were magical beings running around, like griffins and grim reaper types.  My dream landed me in media res; a war was raging in this land of supernatural cowboys and automatic hand guns.  I was a soldier in one of the armies and none of us footmen actually knew what we were all fighting about, which probably meant my brain couldn't come up with something creative that night.  All we knew was that we must take this town that had been quickly abandoned at each troop's approach and that our lives were at stake.  Most of us didn't want to be involved in this and were actually conscripted in the most browbeaten sense of the word.
    We each wore combat boots and Kevlar underneath our dusters and only the higher-ups wore cowboy hats.  We sported clunky looking guns that were very reminiscent of the RCP 90 and as far as I could tell, weapon-wise, that's all we got.

If only our ammo was as inexhaustible; things probably would have gone better.
I obviously play too many video games.

We marched toward the town bathed in purplish light in silence, we were not a troop with great morale, and could you fault us?  We each had an ankle bracelet that would inject us with an incapacitating poison if we were a certain distance away from our commander; to be fair it was a pretty wide circle but that fact still didn't instill us with confidence and loyalty. well, maybe the lying through our teeth kind.
    Luckily I was not in the front lines; I was nearer to the back, fairly close to our line of griffins which are few and far between because they are incredibly difficult to train.  As we walked through the extremely wide main street of the town we began to see lights moving very quickly around the borders of the town, akin to waving a flashlight very fast. They became faster and faster until it silently solidified with a flash of light into an almost transparent wall.  As a group we faltered, everyone knew what that meant.  We all started talking immediately and in classic mob fashion some people in the front took a few steps back causing every last person to be pushed backward and become panicked.  The enemy had spell casters and we didn't have a lot of options.  We couldn't be sure what the wall would do but it was safe to assume it would be impenetrable and too high to somehow get over.  And even if we did get over the wall our commander would have to as well or we would just collapse out in the barren land of twilight; it would be like shooting paralyzed fish in a barrel, but easier because they wouldn't have to deal with that pesky water part.
    Suddenly our enemies began to materialize out of the mist on the opposite end of the main road.  Small balls of red light came at us and we all shifted out of the way, but the light ignored us completely and went straight at the griffins.  The light didn't seem to do anything but disappear into their skulls; that's when each griffin turned around as fast as a whip and snatched their riders, all of those in charge, by the necks with their sharp beaks and rip them to shreds before going to town on the rest of us.  Well, that was it.  We had guns, but so did they, and they had spell casters.  But we hadn't quite lost it completely yet.  Not until we saw those grim reaper beings I mentioned earlier.

Never had I been able to say, "I know exactly how you feel" to Bastian before now,
even though his fears were stuffed wolves and responsibility.

They weren't "Death" so much as harbingers of death.  As far an most people knew nothing could harm them and they loved killing slowly with their scythes.  So as soon as we spotted those black-robed killing machines float out towards us everyone ran everywhere else with no goal in mind except to survive.  Guns were being fired all over the place and constantly and those bullets would have helped a lot if everyone wasn't so panicked and use up their ammo so fast.  But there was nothing for it.  At this point I knew I was going to die, but that didn't mean I had any closure at all.  The primal part of me was sure I could get away if I just kept running in circles.

Exactly like this.

    Finally I opted to go inside one of the houses and it turned out to be completely empty.  But I didn't even have time to hide in a closet before a grim reaper floated in and spotted me.  Screaming, I ran through a hall and out a door that opened to an outside porch which I fell off of, since I didn't know it was a porch.  As I looked back I saw the grinning reaper heading down the hall at top hover speed.  I cried out in frustration.  "This isn't real!" I yelled.
    Then, with everything continuing exactly as things had been going, I quietly repeated, "This isn't real."

My new confidence level.

    I decided I should have the most powerful magic at my disposal and a beam of red light shot out of me and knocked the grim reaper over.  A flash of blue and he exploded into dust.  I laughed with disbelief and got to my feet, brushing myself off.  Then I thought to myself that I should be able to fly too, which turned out to be a little trickier and less cool because I wasn't sure how I wanted to make myself fly.  Since only part of my brain was aware about the dreaming I guess it wasn't working at a great capacity so what I got was a mix of Angel and Rogue from X-Men, but lacking any and all grace.  I didn't give myself the wings for some reason, but in order to actually start flying I had to flap my arms like a lunatic and jump in the air correctly.  There were a few false starts but when I got it I didn't have to flap anymore.  

Obviously this woman is just falling with style, but you get the idea.

    I got rid of the magic wall and destroyed the spell casters, grim reapers, and insane griffins, then left everyone alone to figure it out for themselves while I flew toward a twilight mountain range.  They were dream people, after all, they didn't need me.

    And that's when I woke up.