Him again

I'm walking along the side of a lake that is bordered by a lot of big rocks. There isn't exactly a path, just an area that is kind of more flat than the rest, made by smaller rocks and stones. There are also trees and bushes around me, and I can't see very far ahead, but I can hear the repeated sound of something patting against the water.

The foliage starts to thin out as I continue moving forward. I can see a guy up ahead skipping stones along the water. Something about him makes me mildly uneasy, like I'm hanging out with people who are going to get caught doing something unacceptable, and I'm going to be implicated by association. I seriously consider going back the way I came, just to avoid him.

Before I get the chance, he speaks up with my voice, sounding simultaneously petulant and reproachful: "Don't bother, stupid. You can't get away from me."
He flings another stone across the water. This one really goes, traveling quite far and getting several hits before sinking. It moves so fast leaving his hand that it makes a whistling noise.

For a moment, I feel scared because of what he said, but I don't get the feeling that this guy is going to physically harm me. I can tell that he is angry, but he's not acting aggressive. He's sulking. He's also right, I realize. I can't avoid him. If I walk back the way I came, he'll just be somewhere along that path, too.

As I approach more closely, I can see who he is. I've met him before. He's me, but he's not me. I used to try to keep him on a leash, but now I can't do that without destroying part of myself. I was right about my uneasy feeling. This guy gets me into trouble all the time.

I am just a few feet away from him. Now that I know who I'm dealing with, I know I need to get him to talk about what is bothering him. I start to ask, and he cuts me off with "Why are you asking questions without wanting answers?"

He turns and walks away from me. I chase after him, and he runs. The chase takes us into a little brick building. From the outside, it looks unimposing, like maybe a little storage building. Inside, it's quite large and ornate. I can't help but stop to look around. When I do, I realize I'm in the lobby of a courthouse.

He enters a room at the other end of the lobby. I follow. Inside, there is a hearing going on. The judge is me, in a powdered wig, with half-sized bifocals , a robe, and a sledgehammer as a gavel. The prosecutor is also me, in a pantsuit, with a briefcase, rectangular glasses, and a really severe looking bun in my hair. The defense attorney is me with wispy curls, a whimsical tie-dyed hippie dress, and huge, bookworm glasses. There is a "me" baliff, too, a six-foot amazonian thug with short hair, bulging muscles, and no glasses, dressed in a uniform and standing with crossed arms glaring down at the defendant, my boss. There are several versions of me sitting where a jury should be. Most of them don't stand out, but one is dressed in my work uniform, and another is completely naked, though no one seems to notice.

The judge looks up and says, "Is this the witness?" The male me says "Yes, I brought her."

Suddenly I'm on the witness stand. I can see the seats behind the participants, where my family and some of my friends are sitting. The prosecutor gets up and asks me questions about things my boss has done to me and how they have affected my family. As I talk about my experiences with her all in one sitting, I begin to understand why the male me is so upset. The jury is glaring hatefully at the defendant by the time the prosecutor says there are no more questions.

I'm sitting in the audience with my family. The judge is talking, but the boss is turned around and glaring at me. She keeps throwing little things at me, and missing. When one lands close, I realize what she is throwing is little round turds. She is laughing, even though she looks angry. When the turds don't hit me, she pulls a bunch of little knives out of her purse and starts throwing those. They are hitting my family.

I yell for the bailiff, but before she can get there, the male me jumps between my family and my boss. He has a huge club, and begins pounding her while I move my family away out of her reach. He is shouting obscenities as he strikes again and again with the club. She stabs him in the ribs with one of the little knives, but it's tiny and barely does any damage. His club, on the other hand, is leaving huge bruises and even broken bones.

I send my family into another room where they will be safe, and shout for the bailiff to stop the beating. The bailiff rushes over and grabs the male me, pulling him back just as he swings the club at my boss's head. The club grazes the top of her head, and there is blood, but she will survive. Behind her on the desk is one of the cash registers from work. I realize that in the process of beating her, he has smashed it, too.

He looks at me and says, "Really? You're defending her after all she's done?" and then we are back at the lake, and he's skipping stones across the water again. I see several of my co-workers swimming near the edge of the water, and they don't look happy. One of them tells me that they have to just keep swimming here because there is no place else to go.

A shark fin appears behind them, and I tell them to climb out of the water. They look at me sadly, and I realize they can't get out. The shark swims closer, and my male self starts skipping stones at it. It shies away from those, but it is still circling the swimmers. I can see parts of bodies floating in the water, and I realize these are her previous victims.

On the ground beside my male self, I see what looks like a cannon with a harpoon sticking out of it. I tell him to use that on the shark. He gives me a sharp look, and very quickly says, "I have your permission?"

Employees are friends, not food!

Somehow, I feel like I'm giving him permission to do something much bigger and more complex than this, but if I don't give it, that shark is going to eat the swimmers. I realize that there are versions of me in there, and worse, members of my family as well. Frightened, I tell him, "Yes, do whatever you have to do! Just stop that shark!"

He drops the hand full of little flat stones and grabs the cannon, turning it to aim at the shark. He fires it, and makes a direct hit. The water around the fin darkens with blood. Grabbing the attached rope, he hauls the shark over to where he is standing, then pulls it up out of the water onto the ground. I move closer so I can see it, even though I am terrified of sharks. I see the tail, the back, and the big fin on the top, but above the fin is a manager's uniform shirt from my workplace. Above that, a warped version of my boss's face stares at me. It has human eyes, but a shark's mouth, complete with teeth. The mouth is opening and closing as if she's still trying to bite, but she can't move from the spot where she is, so I am safe. There is a huge gash along the side of the shark body, and the rocks are covered with blood. Down the way from us, the rock border around the lake turns into a beach. One by one, the people in the water pull themselves out onto the shore, including the versions of me, who work together to pull my family out of the water.

The male me looks at her, then at me. I realize that if I don't let it happen this way, she's going to just keep eating people. I have to let him do what he thinks will be most effective, even if I am going to feel bad about how it turns out for her.

Bowled Over, and an old dream that led to a life-changing epiphany

I am at my 20 year class reunion. One of the students who was with us up to junior high, then moved, comes into the reunion with a gun and begins shooting everyone. He doesn't kill anyone, but he does injure people and he does some damage.

One classmate who is a lifelong friend of mine and my brother's is also a former marine and a war veteran. He tackles the shooter and takes him down. I help to restrain him so that he doesn't get injured too badly. I do this out of concern that somehow if he gets injured while being stopped, he might get away with what he was just doing.

The shooter begins talking, saying things he would never say. It is apparent that he is possessed or something. He is speaking about our classmates, telling us personal secrets which, in the context of how we knew them in high school, are shocking to us and embarrassing to them. People are becoming very upset.

My buddy is afraid the shooter/demon is going to tell everyone about his combat experience, and they'll all think differently about him because he'd had to kill while he was there. I point out that I don't think differently of him, and neither would anyone else. Several of our classmates are the kids of Vietnam Veterans. They know better than to forget his personality just because he was in combat... but I (and everyone) would totally understand that he wouldn't want to spend time thinking about those experiences, and that he probably didn't want us thinking about them, either.

The demon inside the shooter turns to me and calls me crazy, then says I am misdiagnosed, that I don't have the mild mood disorder for which I've been treated during the last 20 years. I think he is going to tell everyone I have a more severe mental illness with symptoms that may be scary to other people, and I brace myself for the response I hate so much - people giving me wary looks and moving away from me. It's something I've experienced before after verbally defending myself, and that response is always hurtful. It makes me feel like a monster. Even knowing that I haven't done anything wrong, those looks always make me feel horribly guilty as though I've been unjustly mean.

I didn't want the demon to tell my secret, whatever it was. I put my hand over its mouth, and it bit me.

The pain from that woke me, but it made me think of a dream I had a few years ago. I had it two nights in a row, though it was incomplete the first night. The second night, there were more details, and I woke compelled to write an account of it. I still have the old dream journal entry about it, which I'm going to post here. Sorry that it's kind of long, but this was an oddly detailed, complex, and very symbolic dream.

The horse is black . There is no saddle, no reigns. It is a stallion with an unusually long mane.

The path is a dirt road with ditches on either side. There is grass on both sides, a meadow to my right. To my left, 20 yards into the meadow is a woods - mixed (pine and deciduous), no debris/ruts in the path.

I am headed for a perfect - picture-perfect - stone masonry cottage further along this clear path. I desperately want to be there. The place looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting - flowers, tall grass, gables on the house, and a river - the house is nestled into the side of a hill.

The horse changes pace from a walk to (a trot?) a more bouncy, faster step, and holding on takes a lot of effort. He moves off of the path, to the left - into the woods. I don't want to go in there. It isn't the path of my choice. In fact, there is no path here. As the horse carries me unwillingly into the brush, I am slapped and grabbed at by low-hanging branches. My clothes protect my legs, but the branches sting my face, neck, hands, and arms. There is a white buck ahead, and the horse follows him. In the first dream, I tried to make the horse go back - I pulled his mane and nudged him with my knees - because I didn't want to go this way. I didn't want to see the buck .

This time, I follow him to the clearing. He says the same as last time - that I am running from what I need not fear, adding this time that I cannot escape, either. I tell him again that the horse brought me - ( am not running - and he says, "what horse?" By now, he is a man with leather hunting clothes (or just winter clothes), a rifle (old) and a horn (older). I look, and the horse is gone.

He tells me again that after all this running, that from which I've fled is right behind me. (Last time when I looked, there was nothing but the woods.) This time I can feel it, and when I turn to look, there is a crowd of people, all with my face. They are all different - different ages, hairstyles, clothes, stances (attitudes?), but I recognize all of them in me. I am nervous, but not scared enough to run.

I turn and he is still there. "What is this about?" I ask, "This doesn't scare me. What am I running from? Surely not them."

He says, "look again." and I feel ice growing up my spine - this time I am afraid to turn.

"Do you want me to turn you?" he asks. The thought of his touch is more intimidating than whatever is behind me, and I take a step away. He speaks again. "You refused to see last time. I will not allow that."
I feel really guilty at this point, as if I have taken something for myself - something wanted but not needed - and hurt him in the process.

I can hear movement behind me and my mind floods with ungly images - what is behind me? A zombie? a psycho killer? are the multitude of myselves going to eat me? are they dying? am I?

I am afraid to look, and I am afraid to not look .

I feel a disturbance behind me - something dark and heavy. My mind adds sinister to that, but a breeze blows the thought away.

"Look... now."

My body turns without my consent. My heart is pounding and daggers of electric sensation are shooting through my stomach and chest, and down my arms into my hands. My mouth is dry and I can't close my eyes - can't even blink .

The crowd of myselves is sort of milling around - it is a pretty large crowd - and one of them from the back is coming forward. This one is a little taller - I can see a "crown" of brown hair, almost black, moving among the others toward the front. This one scares me - I want to run, no specific direction - just somewhere that is NOT HERE. If not for the fact that my feet seem firmly rooted ( I can't move my legs) to the ground, I would flee wildly into the forest - anything to get away from the aproaching figure. I don't want to see this - I don't want to know. I am crying, but there are no tears. That makes me feel weak - like a wuss. I make myself stop before the figure emerges.

HE is defiant in his attitude, daring me to deny that he is there. He wears my face, but it does not look feminine. He is wearing a black shirt, black pants, a long, black coat, black shoes - his fair skin (my skin) stands out against all that as if it doesn't belong in it. He just stares at me.

My insides turn to a mass of worms and water - I think I am going to puke... or lose control of my bowels. I am terrified of him - he can't be part of this group. I don't want him to be real - or I just don't want him to BE. I am angry at him for doing this to me. I want to kill him.

I can't run away, but I can move toward him, so I attack - I rush him and begin pounding on him, but he just keeps looking at me without defending himself at all. His eyes are dark and full of something undefined (to me) that I'm afraid to understand. I draw back and punch him in the eye (right handed - left eye) as hard as I can. I am so scared and angry - I just want him to go away.

The punch knocks him down, and a bruise forms instantly around the eye, and my hand hurts. A little girl-me; small, skinny, with round eyes, bangs, and short pigtails, rushes over to him, puts herself between us and yells "STOP!" She looks afraid. "Can't you see you're hurting us?"

My attention is drawn to the damage I've done to him - bloody nose, fat lip, black eye, scratches on his neck... the other ones all have the same injuries... and their hands are all bruised where mine are.
I touch my lip, where the nosebleed is flowing, and I feel wet, sticky warmth. I can see blood on my fingertips.

Behind me the Hunter says, "You see."

I look, but he is gone, and in his place are more "versions" of me.

There are so many...

 - a naked woman with green hair... another with butterfly wings. Two more men, one with dark blond hair, one with red. The blond is dressed like a logger, and the redhead like a hunter, but with some kind of canvas pants.

There is a little boy carrying a slingshot and a book of matches. In his shirt pocket is a small book entitled "1000 really offensive dirty jokes." He is lighting the matches and letting them burn until the flame gets too close to his fingers. He grins at me and I see he has no upper front teeth.

The wounds are healing as I look through the crowd and see a clown, a catlike hybrid, a female me dressed in my dad's sunday best, carrying a briefcase and a dry-erase marker; there is a circle of myselves dancing - some are naked, some in different clothes, ranging from stuff I wore in the 80s to hippie/rennie stuff to pornworthy lingerie.

A hand grasps my shoulder and sends ice up and fire down my spine. I turn - more jerking away than turning - so that I face the dark-clothed male me. He is standing close. He asks why I am afraid of him. He says others in the group are much more worthy of my fear. Behind him, I see a brown-skinned me guarding a pale albino-like me who is wearing a straight jacket and a muzzle. She is struggling and kicking. Her eyes are red and she looks angry and hateful. I don't want her to see me.

The brown me says, "It's ok - I've got her under control." I realize he actually does. He has her on a leash.
Then I realize I'm also holding a leash. The me I'm facing - the guy in all black - has a choker collar on, and the leash is attached.

He looks really sad now, and is not so intimidating.

I feel bad about how mean I am to him, and he sees the change in my face. He begs me "please turn me loose."

I am afraid to take off the collar - I feel a need to keep him under my control. He keeps looking at me. He says the collar is suffocating him, and that he's going to die. He grabs my jacket and I get scared and yank the leash when I step back . That pulls him down. He repeats his statement and looks desperately at me, and I feel as though the collar is on my own neck. I reach up to my neck and my fingers find the collar. I have the leash, but the collar is getting tighter. I look at him and see that his lips are turning blue.

I try to tear the collar off my throat, but I can't. It pulls me down, and I feel my knees hit the ground. He grabs my hands and pulls them from my throat to his. I realize I have to take off his collar to get rid of mine, so I unclasp the buckle and remove it, and give it to the boy with the matches. In my hand are 2 collars - mine and his(mine) - and the boy, who now has a lighter instead of matches, burns them.

I feel really relieved about the collar. I look at the dark-clothed male me and say, "I still don't trust you."
He smiles and tells me, "That's ok... you shouldn't."

I wake.

I can still smell the forest.

My heart is pounding, and my legs hurt.



There is a lot of symbolism in this dream. The horse is that aspect of life that represents things you cannot control; time keeps moving, other people do what they're going to do no matter how it affects your life, and reality is what it is regardless of what you want. In a way, it's beautiful because it takes you to positive experiences you would have been too scared to seek out, but sometimes getting there is a rough trip.


The cottage is my "ideal" life; everything perfect, pretty, and cozy with needs met and nothing scary. It's pretty, peaceful, and quiet. In other words, the impossible. The horse is never going down that path.


The deer and the horned God showing up are my relationship with deity. I more often find myself identifying with pagan traditions, and though I do have Christian principles, I've learned along the way that those same principles exist in pagan practices as well. I've found that for me, self-examination through spiritual practice is more effective when following pagan traditions, and the deity form which "visits" me most during spiritual meditation is the Hunter.

Though it took time, I've figured out some of the "selves" from the dream.
The albino is my temper and my "wild" side. It's that bad, and I make a point to keep a tight restraint on myself because when I don't, I do damage to people's lives.


The brown me with the leash was a connection to my Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) ancestors. I did not learn until I began attending Pow-wows during the last year that some of my techniques for moderating my baser instincts, and in particular my volatile temper, are characteristic of the spiritual traditions of my ancestors. Because of my "civilized" life experience, I saw that moderation as a straight jacket, a muzzle, and a leash, but I've seen those two "selves" since in other dreams, and that's not how it is. The temper "me" is managed more through verbal and nonverbal cues, touch, and eye contact, and is kept very subdued without ever having to be bound like an animal.


The guy I didn't want to see is kind of my animus, but he also represented the aspects of myself trapped by inhibitions I've subconsciously assigned myself in order to make myself fit the profile I though I should fit. I was so intent on being who and what everyone wanted of me that I had forgotten not just to be myself, but how myself was defined. I'm really a very independent person, and I have kind of an attitude. I push back rather than giving in. I don't give a rat's ass about other people's taste in aesthetics and am prone to choosing odd things that I like over what is in style or even considered acceptable. (Because of that, I was kind of a goth in high school.) I guess you could call him my inner rebel, but I wouldn't use that strong of a term; I'm just independent, not rebellious.
Anyway, I had also been deliberately but subconsciously interpreting a same-sex attraction as a serious interest in fashion that I do not really have, and I think that was the one of the biggest reasons why he was there. 

When I had this dream, I had been trying to be a conventional person, when I'm really, really NOT.
The reason I was so scared of and angry about him is that I didn't want to confront what I had been hiding from myself; that the carefully constructed fake self I was presenting to the world was unsustainable, and trying to maintain it was killing me. I was exhausting myself trying to be that person. My beating on him was my last ditch effort to avoid admitting the dishonesty of that construct.


The little girl who protected him is my sense of right and wrong. No matter how much I learn, that part of me still remains childlike and naive. If I were to look at it now, I'd probably see a young adolescent instead of a child, but that's about as far as I've progressed. That makes it hard to deal with situations of injustice; No matter what logic dictates, somewhere inside I always expect fairness, and am always indignant and offended when events don't go the way I think they should.


The naked woman with green hair and the dancers are my inner attitude about how people view me. I try to be sociable, but in reality, I just don't care. I am who I am, and it doesn't really bother me if people don't want to associate with me because of the definition of "me." The only distress I've ever suffered over being socially awkward came from my sense that others view it as inappropriate to not desire acceptance by people in general. In the past, I have sought others' acceptance because I've been led to feel that not doing so is an inappropriate choice. I don't do that any more.

The woman with butterfly wings is an aspect of my artistic side. I don't care if others recognize or even like what I create. I just enjoy the process of creating, and desire the freedom to continue. I'm kind of sporadic and chaotic in my art. In the way that a butterfly's life is fleeting and unpredictable, so are my creative energy, my inspiration, and my level of production.


The lumberjack and the hunter are my work ethic. I'm a git 'er done kind of girl. These are guys with tough, dangerous jobs, who can't just ask someone else to cover their shift if they get sick or injured. They're competent and hard working, common sense oriented, and rough enough around the edges to not be above stepping outside their given roles to address an issue or achieve a task. That is how I approach work. I have a reputation for not calling in sick, even when I should, and for solving problems no one else can. The "me" in my father's clothes with the dry erase marker is my father's influence on my work ethic. I do often feel like I'm trying to "fill his shoes," and I feel under-qualified to do so.

The boy with the matches represents the obnoxious little brat I can sometimes be, and my fascination with fire. 
My sense of humor is definitely more gutter than society. I'm terribly lewd when I'm with my friends. Contrary to my expectations, when I'm ornery like that, the people close to me treat me in a similar manner to the affectionate way that I treat those I view as adorable rather than similar to the impatient way I treat those I view as irritating, so I don't feel too bad about the behavior. I guess it is appropriate for my inner "problem child" to cut loose my sexuality and my stubborn defiance.  That little brat has no clue what it's like to have to navigate the maze of rules and expectations that makes up the rest of the civilization with which I have to interact every day!

The clown represents my dismayed sense of not being taken seriously when I am being serious, an experience I loath and kind of fear, which happens way too frequently. I'm not going to focus on that one, though, because I find clowns creepy. I'll just point out that I'm pretty sure this happens to everyone, not just me.

There were changes in how I experienced the world after I had that dream. I went from being upset by dreams in which I was male. I began to stand up for myself more in situations that had previously intimidated me. I felt differently about people, and become more comfortable admitting that female friends of mine are attractive, and that if my husband were female, I'd be just as much in love as I am. 

Most of all, I realized that with the exception of my temper I keep myself, particularly my emotions, under too tight of a restraint, and that is why I was over thirty years old before I was able to admit to myself that I am bisexual. Under the surface, I was making that a much bigger deal than it actually is. 
Since then, I've made a point to not take my restraint beyond what is required to keep from hurting others. I've started standing up for myself more, and being myself more, and things have been a lot better.

Oddly, though none of my classmates know of my epiphany and I don't plan on telling them, in the Bowled Over dream, I had no fear that the demon was going to "out" me to them. It was revealing things that people would be uncomfortable having others know, and I don't feel uncomfortable with that. I was afraid it was going to say I have an anger disorder that makes me dangerous, or something similarly awkward which would cause my classmates to mistrust or fear me. Whereas it would not bother me that some of them would surely disapprove if they knew my sexuality, it would cause me a great deal of distress, embarrassment, and guilt if they were afraid of me. I guess there is an aspect of others' opinions that I value; while I don't need or desire approval, I do care about how I affect the experiences of others.

There is more to write about this, as after I had the dream about the class reunion (which I didn't attend in real life, though I did hang out with a few classmates the night before at a local bar) I had a dream about that male self in all black. That, however, is going to have to be my next entry, as this one is becoming entirely too long.

Another World

Before last night, I hadn't had this one in a long time. I'd almost forgotten about it.

Growing up, I used to dream all the time that parts of my house were actually portals to another world. I would just walk through the wall like it was an illusion, and I'd be somewhere else. Sometimes, these were just good dreams about going somewhere nice. Other times, the other world was an escape from something that was chasing me.

There was one particular spot that was always the same.  I had it again last night, and even though I haven't lived in that house for years, that was still the setting. Everything was as it had been when I was in school.

I am running from a monster that wants to hurt me. I can't see it, but I can hear it thumping and bumping through the house. I outsmart it by running down the hallway, and trying to circle back around to the living room so that I can go out the front door. Unfortunately, the path is blocked, and I cannot get out that way. I turn and go back down the hall, through the foyer, and up the stairs. The monster is falling behind. It can't find me, and it's still downstairs. I can hear it going the wrong way, getting further from where I stand. If I just stay still, it won't know where I am, but it's going to run out of places to look in the downstairs eventually, and then it will come up here anyway. I might as well make a run for it while I have a head start.

I can hear the monster banging around at the furthest part of the house from the stairs. It's right under the room where I'll be going when I run. I have a plan. Carefully, I set myself as if to start a race, and then bolt down the hallway to my parents room. As I near the door, I hear a crash and a series of thumping noises from downstairs as the monster tears through the house toward the stairway.

In my parents room, I jump over the bed and open the window. I quickly turn the lock to hold it open, so that the monster will think I went that way. Then, I run to the closet, enter, and shut the door. The door has a little push-button lock, which I engage. Then, I turn toward the back..

I walk through the wall.

Turning back, I see a screen-and-glass storm door, with a little hook-latch to secure it shut. I engage the latch. 

Then, I turn away from that door. I am in kind of a tunnel. In front of me, about three running steps away,  is a cheap, thin wooden door, the type you would put on a closet.

I push the door open and go through, turn, and lock it. It has a little twisty button in the middle of the knob.

I turn away from that door, and face the next one. It's another wooden door, but heavier and sturdier. It looks like it would be tough to break this one. Even the hinges are thicker and heavier. I push it open, and go through. On the other side, it has a deadbolt lock and one of those chains that attaches to the wall. I engage both, then turn and face the next door.

I can hear the monster in the bedroom. It's really noisy, pounding on the furniture and stomping around. It roars loudly. I hear it smash the window and the window frame. It steps out onto the roof of the family room, where I hear it thudding around. There, it will discover that there are only two ways down, climbing on the UHF antenna tower that someone put in years ago, or jump. The monster weighs too much to climb that. I don't, but I don't know if it's smart enough to figure that out. It may come back into the room. My heart is beating so loud, I'm sure it must be able to hear it.

I keep going, facing the next door. This one is metal. I think it's aluminum, but it's thick enough that I can feel some serious weight to it when I push on it. I go through, close the door, and turn around. This door has a push-button lock, a deadbolt, a chain, and a metal bar that swings down to block it. I engage them all. It goes well, until I move the bar. That makes a noise, and the monster is instantly quiet. I can't hear anything.

I am terrified. It knows where I am. I can only pray that it doesn't realize it can go through the back of the closet. There is no use trying to be quiet now. In a split second, all hell will break loose on the other side of those doors.

I bolt to the next door. It's much heavier than the last one, and sounds like it's made of steel. Even if I had not made a noise with the bar, the sound of the metal grating against the floor would have gotten the monster's attention. I slam it shut with a loud, echoing thump, turn the deadbolt, engage the extra large, heavy chain, draw the bar, and pull handle that is beside me on the floor. A slim steel panel in the ceiling opens, and a three inch thick, iron portcullis the height and width of the door falls to the floor, inches from my nose. I can't see the top of it. At that, the monster roars loudly enough that I can hear it through even the door I just closed.

I hear the first door crash open, then the second. As the monster begins pounding on the third, I turn away and run. There is a good twenty yard hallway in front of me. There is no discernible source of light, but I can see another door in the distance. I run.

I hear the monster crash through the third door. It slams into fourth with a resounding gong sound. That is not going to hold for very long. As I cross the short distance to the hallway, I can hear that the fourth door is beginning to warp under the pounding it is taking.

I don't go through this door. Here, there is a trap. On the other side is a weapon that will fire hot oil at whoever opens it.

I find a crack in the wall, stick my fingers in it, and pull open the front of one stone. There are two small levers. When I push the first one down, the base drops out from under the last fifteen feet of floor I just crossed. The floor is still there, but anything weighing more than a cat will fall through upon trying to cross. I push the second lever down.

A section of the wall opens. I close the stone. It looks just like the rest of the wall. If you didn't know what to look for, you would never find it.

I go through the opening. On the other side, there is another stone I can open. Inside, I push down another lever, and that closes the wall. It looks as if it had been undisturbed the whole time.

I hear the fourth door give way. The monster roars, almost a scream. The sound sends shards of ice up through my back.. I could begin to cry. Instead, I quietly pray that my tricks will slow it down.

I run down another long hallway toward yet another door. This one is smooth, and it's standing open. There is light on the other side. I hear the monster slam into the steel door with a thunderous crash. I only get one chance to do this. I can hear the door breaking free of the wall, and I can only hope that the portcullis buys me some time, but I have no such luck.. The sound of the portcullis giving way seems distant through the wall. Right after, I hear the surprised yelp of the monster as it falls through the floor, followed by grunts and groans as it hauls itself out of the hole.

I slip through the opening. The vault door is two feet thick, steel-reinforced stone, and is built into an equally strong steel door frame that runs along the wall for a couple of feet on either side. It is incredibly heavy, but the hinges are well oiled, and it's made to assist in closing it. It will be harder to open than it is to close.

Once it is closed, I face a huge wheel in the middle. Turning it counter-clockwise, I activate several rows of two inch thick metal bars which extend out of the middle of the door's thickness, and into the frame on either side, into the ceiling, and deep into the floor. I can hear the monster's angry bellow as it bashes open the last door, and is hit full on by the oil. I hope that in its flailing, it will fall back down into the hole, but instead, I hear it pounding on the walls. Soon, it discovers the secret door, and begins to bash its way through.

I have two final touches. The first, I activate right away. Pulling a lever mounted in the wall, I drop another iron portcullis across the door, and I hear an identical one fall on the other side. I wait. Beside the lever is a handle attached to a chain that hangs from the sloping ceiling. I take hold if that, but do not pull until I hear the monster's footsteps approaching the door. As soon as I hear the metal straining as the monster pulls on it, I give the chain a good hard yank, and sparks jump across the door as thousands of volts are fed through it. On the other side, the monster screams a terrible, thunderous shriek that would put the Bean Sidhe to shame. There are huge clangs and crashing noises as it thrashes around trying to break itself loose from the hold of that current.

I turn from the door and run again, this time into a great hall. There, waiting for me, is a band of knights in armor. They give me a welcoming look, as if I am returning to my home instead of fleeing it.

Each of them is armed with at least three weapons, and they tell me to suit up and arm myself, but to stay back.. Behind them, on the walls, are various medieval weapons.

I'm strong, but not incredibly so. I know I'm not going to be able to handle any of the bigger, heavier weapons enough to do any good. The bow is equally useless, because without having practiced with it, I have no way to predict my aim. I choose a shorter sword. It's still pretty heavy. Between the handle and the blade, it's as long as my arm. Next to that is a suit of armor, but I'm afraid if I put that on, I won't be able to move. Instead, I grab a silvery chain shirt. It's too long, the body reaching my knees, and the sleeves falling down over my hands. I wrap a belt around my waist, sliding a sheath for the sword into place.

On a table, there is what looks like a chain ski mask.. I put that on, as well. It feels weirdly cold against my skin, and I expect it to pull my hair, but I can feel that there is fabric underneath that part of it.

This is as ready as I am going to get. I stand behind my guardians, and listen to the creature bash its way through the door to our world.

The metal doesn't just give way. It explodes into the room, chunks of debris preceding the biggest, most bizarre looking thing I've seen on two legs. He stands twice as tall as the biggest knight in the room. I can feel my stomach drop to my knees, and I momentarily have to fight the urge to heave.

Atop his massive head is a scraggly mess of sporadic strands of hair jutting out in all directions from various points of origin. His upper face, nose included, looks like a Neanderthal man, but below that is more of a huge dog's mouth, including the teeth. His huge, glaring eyes are red, with tiny black irises and black veins that stand out. He has tusks like a warthog. His upper body has the shape of a gorilla, with a massive, hairy chest - much more hair that is on his head. In fact, the further down his body I look, the hairier he gets. His broad shoulders lead to long, muscular arms that end with huge, fuzzy, clawed hands. Below the waist, his legs are bent like those of a four-legged animal. His long, thin feet look catlike, with long, sharp claws sliding in and out under huge tufts of hair on his toes as he moves. A scaly tail snaps back and forth behind him. At the tip is another cat-claw-like appendage that I have a sneaking suspicion would inject poison if it hits anyone.

He leans forward in an aggressive stance, and his jaw unhinges, dropping nearly to his chest, as he shows all of his teeth and lets out a massive roar. He pulls his second pair of arms out from behind his back.. Each of those two hands holds a huge club. Next to his massive size, they look like bowling pins.

The monster rushes forward, and so do the knights, bellowing war-cries of their own. As much as I was afraid for myself moments ago, I now am desperately worried about them. How can they survive fighting such a terrible beast? Yet the first to reach him lands a resounding blow to the gut with a huge morning star, and the creature loses its breath and its momentum.

The second knight uses his shield to shove the monster back further, and then stabs at him with a sword not much longer than the one I chose. The monster swings one of his empty hands, and knocks both knights halfway across the room. They flounder, trying to get back on their feet in their heavy, ungainly armor. I flinch, watching the impact. This is terrible!

The whipping tail comes around and nearly hits another knight, who cannot get out of the way. The biggest knight saves him, slamming his claymore into the claw and knocking it back at the monster. With a howl of pain, the monster grabs at the sword, and swings a massive club at the knight. The knight slices off all of the fingers on the monster's one hand, and he lets out a high, angry shriek..

The battle continues, knights and monster exchanging blows, but it soon becomes clear that we need more knights. The monster is able to stand up to terrible damage, and though the knights are armored well, their armor is slowing them down. I am sobbing with fear and anger as he batters my friends. Soon, he will take one of them down who will not get back up. They are showing signs of fatigue and pain.

The only thing I can do is join the battle, and I'm not very confident that the addition of my hand is going to make much difference. The smallest of my knights is head, shoulders, and chest taller than me. All I have is a glorified dagger, and barely a hint of armor.

Then, there is a break in the action. The monster pounds his way through the line and charges at me. I brace myself, ready to slash at him with the short sword, but I know that there is no way this little toy is going to stop anything that big.

The knights attack from the side, and the monster twists and turns, shoving and throwing them aside with his hands. One knight manages to disarm the hand on his side that is holding a club. On the other side, three knights grab one arm. The monster stretches toward me with his free hands, and wraps that tail around one of the knights. They let go of his arm to help their comrade, and he lunges toward me. I am so startled that I drop the sword.

Thinking quickly, I grab two of the fingers on the hand closest to me and pull as hard as I can, leaning back and hauling his weight around to my left. The monster stumbles, staggers, and falls forward past me as I let go. I have to jump away to the side to avoid getting hit by his flailing legs and that tail, which has whipped its way loose from the knight. I grab the sword and bring it down as hard as I can, not on the monster's back, but on the back of its ankle, slicing through the tendon. The muscle above it immediately snaps up, and the monster screams. Before it can react more than to draw into almost a face-down fetal position, I slice the other ankle, too, and then slash the sword across both of its exposed butt-cheeks. Dark, thick blood oozes from the wounds. It looks like half set up black cherry gelatin.

The knights thrash forward pounce on the creature, bashing and stabbing, before it can get to its knees. That tail comes down into the crowd, but one gauntleted hand grabs it and with a jerk, breaks it off. Then, it's all over, and the pommel of that claymore is sticking out of the back of the beast.

At that moment more knights arrive, bursting in through two big wooden doors at the other end of the room. With them is a lady about my age, who is a little taller than me. She's kind of muscular for a woman, but not so much that she looks like a man. She runs over to me and grabs me by the arms. She looks me over like a mom checking out a kid who just missed getting hit by a car. Her face looks worried.

Her hair is really long, hanging down around her like a golden shawl. She is wearing something that looks like a simplistic but elegant prom dress, and she has jewelry all over. She seems both relieved and disappointed. She proclaims thanks to multiple deities that we are all uninjured, though with the knights that statement is slightly questionable. At least no one was hit by the poison tail, but the men are definitely beaten up.

When I look at her, I realize that I have to go back through that passageway. The longer I am here, the more this place feels like the place where I belong, but if I stay, there will be many more monsters, and many more battles, and they will get hurt. She does not want me to go, but she does not want me to stay, either.

I pull the mask off and lay it on that little table. The woman lays one hand on my cheek and opens her mouth to say something.

This morning, I woke before she could get the words out. I've had this dream periodically from shortly before my teen years. Back then, the lady was just a girl. She didn't have quite as much jewelry, and her hair was shorter.
The last thing she always does is ask me if I am going to stay this time. I can't remember ever having the dream without that happening, except when I am awakened before she speaks to me.

Often, the dream goes past that point. I tell her that I have to go back, until I learn what it is that draws "them" to me. Until I can solve that problem, I am a danger to everyone here. It isn't always the same monster as the one I dreamed of last night, but it is always something horrible and scary.

My friend always insists that I at least have some time, and she is right. I can stay there for a few hours without incident, especially since we've just defeated one. Another won't come along for days.

If I don't wake up before we are done talking, a dinner is laid out, and though the knights are banged up and bruised, we all sit down at this long table and eat. There is an amazing amount and variety of foods at this meal, every thing I've ever eaten and enjoyed. Needless to say, if I get to the dinner, I totally pig out. If I do not wake up before then, I always wake up at some point during that feast, but I can't feel too badly about it. I know they expect me to disappear.

It seems odd to me that in these dreams, I always run to this place, at first to escape, then to receive help, yet at the end, I always have to leave to avoid further endangering everyone there. It seems to me that I've ended up there that way many times, yet it doesn't make sense to me that I would go there when I'm being chased if I'm worried about the safety of those people. Once or twice, there's been some hint or inkling that there is a reason, something to do with having control over where the monster goes and who encounters it... but I've never come to any definitive conclusion, and I still run there whenever I have that dream.