My family and I are moving out of a house. It's a two story "salt box" house with an attached porch. The color scheme on the outside is really hokey, pastel pinks, peaches, blues, and blue-greens painted thick so they look bright in the sunlight. Even the roof is a pastel color. It looks like whoever did the decorating wanted the house to look like candy.
The inside is more normal looking, with dark carpets, wood paneling, and light ceilings.
The house is surrounded on three sides by a mostly gravel-filled pit that was at one time a rock quarry and has been badly filled back in. On the side that isn't bordered by the pit, there is a partially paved driveway coming off of the road. Our van is parked there, with my family inside it and a bunch of our stuff loaded up.
I am going back into the house for some things. My family doesn't want me to go, because "it" will get me. I can feel the ominous presence of "it" inside the house, but whatever I'm going back in for is very important to us. I have the sense that as long as I avoid the room where "it" is, I will be ok. I think this is partly because right now is day, not night. "It" is more dangerous at night. We argue, but I insist on going in.
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I am inside the house. There are no lights on, but light is coming in the windows, so the house isn't extremely dark . The room I'm in is a dining room, with a big, oval-shaped varnished mahogany table and chairs for more people than just my family. I feel like I am going to deeply miss something associated with this room. There is a heavy, sad ache in my chest that makes me angry at "it" for making us leave.
I have to go upstairs to get the important thing. I have to open a door to get to the stairwell, which has a set of stairs going up on the left, and a set going down on the right. "It" is downstairs. I can feel a kind of spiritual radiation from it when I open the door. It feels icky against my skin, both hot and cold, and it makes me feel nauseated, like the feeling you get when you know something terrible has happened and you're too late to do anything about it. The feeling is strong enough at the top of the stairs to discourage going down.
Even though there are windows on one side of the basement, it's dark down there. When I turn on the light, I can see all the way to the top of the "up" stairs, but I can only see a few steps of the "down" stairs. Something in the basement goes "thunk" and then there is a scraping sound, and a low vibrating noise that might be a growl.
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The room I'm in is girly. The walls are pale pink on top, whitish wood paneling on the bottom, with some kind of wallpaper trim that has pictures on it in between. There is a crib in the room. It's wooden, and it's colored with some kind of a stain, not paint. It's pink and white, with little picture shapes on it. Over the crib is a little mobile. For some reason, we don't need to take those with us. I have mixed feelings about that, but it doesn't really feel like the reason for leaving the crib is something bad. There is a similar nostalgia associated with it to how I felt about the dining room.
The important thing is supposed to be in this room, on a shelf that's built in, but sticks out from the wall. It's kind of like there used to be a fireplace in this spot, but it was taken out and turned into bookshelves that are just set into the hearth. I go over there to get it, and find the bookshelves empty of all but a few incidental items. These are baby toys. One of them is a hard plastic clown that seems to have been made with the intent at producing something cute, but clowns all look kind of wrong and creepy to me, and this one is no different. It doesn't look abnormal creepy, though, just like a regular clown. When I realize that the important thing is not there, however, it really feels like the clown's overly cheerful smile is the situation's way of mocking me. It isn't talking (it doesn't - just makes a jingling noise when it's rocked) but I want to tell it to shut up.
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I'm in the hallway to the stairs. I've checked other rooms. I have the mental image of a set of pale blue curtains flapping in the wind because someone left a window open. It was hard to close, but I closed it before coming in here. I have not found the important thing. It is not up here. I have the feeling I'm going to have to get it out of the basement. I don't want to go down there. Even though I'm the one person out of the whole family who is able to face "it," I dread the experience.
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I'm outside. In front of me is the house, but it's not full sized. It looks like a 25% size scale model made for kids to play in, and it's sunk into a hill so that on one side the second story is the ground floor, and on the other side I can see the porch. The house is in the back yard of a residential property that is a mix of my parents' house and a big mansion I've seen on T.V. There is some kind of gathering, and lots of people are in the yard. Some are in fancy clothes, and some are in every-day clothes. Some are swimming in a small in-ground pool. Everyone seems to be having a fine time, and no one is noticing the little house.
I have to go back in there to get the important thing. I know that "it" is in there, and the only way for me to do this successfully is if I go in on the offensive and attack right away. When I'm standing away from it, the house is small, but when I walk up to it, it's as big as normal.
The door is open. I walk onto the porch and enter through the same dining room as before, but now I go down a hallway to the kitchen, walk through, then turn and face a set of "up" stairs. There are no stairs down in this stairwell. Those are on the other side. I recognize the layout of the kitchen and stairs as being from the home of a childhood friend, but not the dining room and hallway. I don't know if the basement stairs actually go all the way down, because we weren't allowed in the basement at her house.
I go up. "It" is in one of the rooms upstairs. As I climb the stairs, I kind of "flex" my willpower, feeling myself mentally push a "me" kind of spiritual radiation outward. It feels like kind of a mix between a light wave kind of radiation, an electrical charge, and a lightweight physical substance like steam. I can choose to not see it, or I can choose to look at it. The color is white, but if I focus on it, I can change it. I make an egg-shaped blob of it around me and harden it into kind of a whipped plasma. It isn't really physical, so it extends down through the steps I'm walking on and out past the wall. Once I've done that, I don't have to think about maintaining it any more, and I change my focus to "growing" a ball of it between my hands, in front of my chest.
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I'm entering a room upstairs. I have come from my grandfather's apartment, having made sure that another family member was taking him out to the car so that "it" won't get him. This room is different from the other rooms upstairs. The door is old and beaten up, and so is the door frame. It stands out against the nicely painted, unmarred wall and the clean, lacquered hardwood floor. The door is closed, but it does not latch. A shadow stretches out from under the door into the lit hallway the way light would stretch from a lit room into an unlit hallway.
I push it open with my foot. As soon as the door is open, I can feel "it" rush me. The movement is accompanied by thumps and scraping sounds, but those sound like they're coming from all around me. I can see into the room, but the light is dim. "It" is invisible, but I have a keen sense of where "it" is and what direction "it" is moving. I shove my ball of willpower-energy at it with a focus on knocking it back against the opposite wall. I feel the ball hit, and sense "it" moving away from me. "It" hits the wall hard enough to cause the window to rattle. I step into the room, pulling another ball of willpower into my right hand.
With my spiritual level of attention focused on "it," I turn my physical attention to looking around the room for the important thing. As I turn my face away from where "it" hit the wall, it rushes me again. I have the sense that it thinks that because I'm not looking at it, I'm not paying attention. I put up my right hand and shove the ball forward. It comes out as a kind of burning plasma ball, hits "it" in the middle of "its" mass, and explodes, knocking it back and burning it. I can see green fire hovering a few feet off of the floor, flying backward. I feel a cold wind hit me from "its" direction and know that I'm feeling "its" shock, frustration, and rage. At the same time, there is a roaring sound throughout the room that is thin, like it's coming from far away. It almost sounds like the engine of a large vehicle rather than something vocal. There is another thud and rattling of windows as "it" hits the wall again.
I can feel that the important thing is in here. All I have to do is find it. At the same time, I can feel "it" getting ready to attack, building up around itself that icky, hot-and-cold, nauseating spirit radiation I felt before. Stray waves of it hit me like hard wind. It makes a sound like the deep, resonating creaking that comes from a big wooden structure under heavy strain. I turn to face "it" and focus on hardening the outside of my egg to use as a shield.
"It" shows up to my physical sight as a ball of darkness hovering above the floor. I know that I'm not seeing "its" physical form; the light just won't penetrate the area where that nasty radiation is being gathered. Outside the darkness, the light is bent and warped for a few feet, so that everything on the other side of it looks like reflections in a fun-house mirror. The visual is even more frightening than the anticipation of the attack.This is really bad, and I am very afraid. Goosebumps form all over my body so suddenly and so tightly that they make my skin hurt. My stomach aches and my chest feels heavy.
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I'm outside in the yard again. There is a couple wanting to buy the little house, which now stands less than six feet tall with both "above ground" stories showing. They look all polished and spoiled. They're both dressed in gray and white business suits that look made just for them. The lady's suit has a skirt and a frilly collar. They keep calling the house a little cottage, and telling me it would make a great playhouse for their kids. They are trying to convince me to sell it to them. They argue that my kids are grown and don't need a play house, and the house is too small for adults. I don't want to sell, partly because of the way the house is (I don't want to explain why it's tiny on the outside, but life-sized on the inside) but mostly because of "it." I can't let anyone else go in there.
I improvise, and tell the couple that the house is contaminated. It is going to have to be professionally decontaminated and cleaned before I can even let them look at it, and that's going to be expensive. I tell them it would be cheaper for them if I draw them a floor plan and give them photos of the outside of the house. They argue that it would be less time consuming to just move the house, and threaten to use zoning laws to make me sell. I'm not worried about that actually happening, because if anyone comes to inspect, they won't see the house. By arguing with me and threatening me, the couple has made me mad, and I'm sorely tempted to let them "inspect" the house just to scare them away.
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The situation is that I have to give "it" three people. This has something to do with my family, and something to do with the important thing. It's an arrangement that happened against my wishes. I feel coerced into participation, but am going to do so because I can't force an alternative. I'm very upset about this development, and angry at myself for not seeing it coming as much as for not seeing a way out of it. I dread committing the act of exposing others to "it."
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I've all ready "given" two people. Both are people who caused my family harm, and who made an effort to force their way into the house to take the important thing away from us. A third has approached. He is also in the act of perpetrating some kind of dastardly deed against my family, and it involves violating our home, hurting the kids (who are now young and vulnerable), and taking from us something that I'm angry and distressed about his having taken. I have a strong sense of outrage, anger, and resentment toward this person and a feeling of impotent indignation regarding what he has done so far. These feelings lead me to decide to make him the third sacrifice. "It" doesn't care who "it" is given. "It" just requires three people.
I trick the third man into entering the little house, which is shorter than me now. I know that if he goes in there, he'll ransack the place, and inevitably enter the room containing "it," because he has no sense of presence. He won't feel the danger until too late. I've let him take something from my things. The something he took is consumable, and he has consumed it. It's something that "it" is kind of allergic to.
Moments later, I see him being dragged through the kitchen by his feet. He is screaming and fighting with his hands, trying to get away. I can feel his uncontrolled horror and repulsion, though I know he cannot see what is touching him. Somehow, he kicks loose of "its" grip. He scrambles through the kitchen, gets up while rushing down the hallway, stumbles across the dining room, and falls out the door. As he is crawling down the porch stairs and into the yard, "its" energy crashes through the window and reaches for him. He skitters away from the force of the energy, but a pair of arms only I can see (as a distortion of the light similar to what I mentioned before) reach out through the still-open door, grab his ankles, and drag him back into the house. I am left with a horrible sense of guilt and shame for having subjected another human being to this, even though I know that the alternative would have subjected me and my loved ones to something equally awful, and by doing this, I've reduced the number of people who suffer. Because I've transferred that suffering to others by choice, I can't reason the guilt away. Still, I do nothing to stop what is happening, even though I've been able to attack "it" before. My personal field of spiritual radiation feels grimy.
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I'm in the house again, heading into the kitchen. I have a strong feeling of wrongness and the idea that the "deal" didn't turn out the way I was led to believe it would. "It" feels both stronger and subdued at the same time. Some big change has taken place, and I have to find out what it is.
Standing in the kitchen is "it," wearing the last guy's body. "It" is no longer surrounded by darkness, but the light distortion is still the same. "It" is laughing at me, and talking about how my giving "it" a host has changed things. "It" knows that I've tried to kill "it," but not how. "It" is gloating over having a body to move around in, allowing "it" to leave the house and act in the real world to do whatever "it" wants. I realize that "it" has no idea that being bound to a body also binds "it" to the laws of physics and the laws of human society. I mentally give "it" less than 24 hours before "it" lands "its" butt in jail.
I can feel the man's spirit hovering in a corner of the kitchen. He hasn't got the ability to rationally think yet. Instead he's radiating a heavy, acidic feeling I identify as guilt. I figure out that he's coming to terms with what he tried to do to my family. I put forth that what I did to him was worse, and hope that if I can forgive what he did, that he can forgive my actions as well. A rapid series of feelings I can't identify washes across me, and I can see that the same thing is happening to "it," because "it" looks confused. Then, the area where I can feel the man's spirit fills with a white mist. That slowly fades away, and he is gone. It feels like he was able to come to terms with his life, and has found his way to another plane of existence.
"It" tries to attack me while I'm musing over the man's departure. I can tell what "it" is doing, because the margin of warped light is fluctuating rapidly. There seems to be a struggle taking place, and I realize that "it" doesn't know how to break the barrier between the physical mind and the spiritual mind, and therefore has no control over "its" spirit energy. I notice that "it" hasn't been able put up a shield, either. At the same time, there's a deep purple glow emanating from "its" belly, where the consumed something is starting to digest.
A look of extreme pain crosses "its" face and it doubles over, covering "its" stomach with "its" hands. On "its" knees on the floor, "it" throws the man's head back and lets out a scream, his jaws opening wider than they should be able to open. I see all kinds of colors flashing through the body's aura as the trapped thing inside suffers a reaction to the spiritual nature of whatever I had fed to the man before he entered the house. The sound of the scream is almost like a factory whistle, only deeper and kind of hoarse. "It" turns his face to me, black eyes glaring with a horrifying expression of hatred, resentment, and accusation. I have a split second of regret over having caused such pain, then I am shocked into taking a defensive position, as I am struck with the terrifying expectation that "it" is going to jump at me and physically attack. If it has figured out how to use the strength in a human body, it will rip me apart.
Instead, I am jolted awake before it moves.
I was so creeped out by this dream that I couldn't sleep afterward, even though it was only 4:30 A.M. when I woke. I didn't want to get up in the dark, either. I couldn't get past the feeling of anticipation that something was going to jump out of my closet. Recounting what I could remember gave me goosebumps.
I also felt bad (upon waking) about my choices when faced with the situation in the dream. I didn't feel bad about hitting first, but I can't imagine any object that would be important enough for me to go into the room and face that thing when I had my family waiting for me safe and sound in the van outside. There is no material possession that we can't either live without, or replace. Even though it was just a dream, I was kind of upset with myself for being so arrogant as to confront something that awful without a genuine need.
I felt even worse about having sacrificed three other human beings to whatever "it" was. Even though I had the definite sense in the dream that something equally horrible would happen to my family and then anyone close to us, I felt upon waking that there should have been some other way of resolving the situation. It felt like I should have found some way of defeating, or at least confining "it."
I guess I learned from this experience that if it ever comes down to my having to step on someone's throat to protect my family, I'm not going to be able to rationalize the act by choosing a "bad" (less ethical than selfish) person and convincing myself that he or she deserved it. I might feel obligated to make an effort to spare "good" (more ethical than selfish) people, but even doing that won't provide fuel for total rationalization. There will be sense of guilt over my actions if I willfully cause harm to come to another person, even if I cannot conceive of another choice.
Somehow I feel better realizing that about myself, though I hope I never have to face a situation which involves a deadly or crippling level of harm like that. It would be awful to carry the weight of having had to damage someone, even in self-defense.
My grandfather has been dead for years, but yesterday I found and watched a video that had him in it. I hadn't realized how much I miss him until the images on the screen made me cry. My grandmother wasn't in the dream, but she was in the video. She died ten years before Grandpa, and she was "gone" for two years before she died. I miss her terribly, too, but part of me was very relieved that she stopped suffering the pain of Alzheimer's when she died. They both lived with us during the end of their lives, and I helped with their care. For Grandma it was only a couple of years, but for Grandpa, it was over a decade. I would guess that is why I dreamed about making sure someone got Grandpa out of the house before I confronted "it."
My grandparents had a huge influence on my sense of good and bad, right and wrong. I am sure that, faced with the same situations I faced in the dream, they would have found a way to defeat the malevolent force on their own.
On a side note, the clown toy doesn't exist, so far as I know. I've seen the clown face before, but it was in a picture, not on a toy. The toy I had as a child that made that noise was an apple with a smiley face on it, and I have no negative memories or feelings associated with it. In fact, it was one of my favorite toys when I was little. Mom called it the "happy apple."
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