Week 1 Day 3
Tag Archives: Dreams
The Belly Of The Dragon
I dreamt of dragons over the weekend and I am shaken by the content. Two previous dream types were referenced; one a classic, a child living in a Baobab tree (see Dragons), the other more recent. You’ll see as you read. I am left wondering who the puppet and who master.
MY DREAM:
There was a knock at the door below. A knock is not strange by itself, but the gentleness of the rap; almost ladylike in its strike. For just a moment, the boy thought of his mother. Possibly she had found him and was here to take him home. For only a moment though did he pause, the boy had learned never to trust and a knock in the night, no matter how appealing its chime, necessitated caution.
So, with lance in one hand and shield in the other, the boy walked carefully downstairs to his front door.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
No response. Looking through the peephole only revealed barren landscape. Carefully, the boy cracked the door but at the moment of opening a burst of energy blew it off its hinges. First, a scaly hand grasped the end of his lance and tugged. Before the boy could let go, a tale shot through the opening like a serpent striking a mouse and coiled around his waist. The boy could not counter and was flung out into the sand, both lance and shield knocked aside.
In the middle of his chest, a very large dragon muzzle pinned him. With every breath exhaled, the boy felt a blast of fiery heat from the dragon’s nostrils. The dragon parried the boy’s feint by pushing harder into his chest. The boy gasped for breath and the dragon pulled back shaking its head ever so slightly as if to say “No.” This stilled the boy. What else was there to do but await his fate? Sharp teeth and sticky gums appeared as a grin spread across the dragon’s lips. With a grunt, the beast grabbed the boy, flung him onto its back and was airborne leaving no chance of escape. That is, unless the boy coveted certain death by leaping off. They were already hundreds of feet in the air.
Dragons are very fast.
Holding on, the boy watched as the dragon flew towards the distant mountains where its cave lay. The boy’s thoughts were of defeat. The dragons had finally gotten the better of him and now he would become their dinner. But as they approached the lairs of his numerous enemies, it become clear that was not their intended destination. Flapping vigorously, the dragon cleared the peaks by mere inches.
The boy looked back and in the distance saw his home in the Baobab tree, light from its open door spilling out onto the front yard. Looking ahead he saw rolling hills as far as his eyes could see. He looked back again, but this time, there were followers; nine dragons pursuing in tight formation. The boy’s mount never acknowledged the chase. Actually, now that the boy had time to look, this was the dragon that had earlier attempted communications or at least some form of writing.
“What are you doing!?” he screamed at the beast.
The dragon ignored the boy and kept flying over hill after hill. Looking down the boy saw they were covered in grass ruffled by a breeze. On each hill stood a small boy, about his size standing at the summit silent, still and staring off into the distance. He tried calling to them but none noticed.
He gave up. This night’s adventure had become a complete mystery. The boy had never been beyond the mountains, had never seen the hills and had no idea other boys existed in this realm. He was not alone. But on closer scrutiny, the boy noticed something, something very important. The child atop each hill looked just like him. It was as if he had been copied multiple times and thrown about the hills like planting seed. For the first time fear gripped the boy.
Watching from above, one of the pursuing dragons dove full speed at one the children. The boy cringed at the violence about to occur. But, mystery, not carnage happened. The dragon swept down but did not devour the child. It flew straight into the child’s body, disappearing in a ball of flame that when dissipated, left only the little boy still standing on his grassy hill. The dragon became part of the child.
A perplexity of reality, dragons eat boys not disappear inside them.
Then, another dragon flew into another child. Again and again it happened until only he and his mount were left in the air. The implication drew a shiver down his spine. Was he, too, to be host to this beast who had kidnapped him?
They flew on for what seemed like days. Finally the hills ended at the edge of a green sea. The dragon dropped gently from the sky landing at the foot of a man. The boy looked into the man’s face and saw his eyes were deep black and sightless. The dragon knelt so that its shoulder touched the ground. Carefully, not sure what was happening, the boy climbed off the dragon’s back. He looked at the man whose eyes remained a void first and then back at the dragon. The dragon’s eyes were filled with many emotions but nothing the boy perceived as malice.
With a thrust of its snout, the dragon pushed the boy towards the sightless man. Confused, the boy watched as the dragon inhaled deeply. Then he understood.
“No! Don’t!”
But it was too late. The dragon exhaled a line a flame that engulfed both boy and man. Then flapping its wings, the dragon took to the air, gulping both boy and man as it lifted off. Neither had been burned and both sat comfortably in the dragon’s stomach. The boy could sense their direction from inside. He felt every hill pass underneath again. This time, the trip back to the mountains lasted less than a minute. The dragon opened its mouth allowing the boy to see the approaching jagged rock face. The man never moved, just laid against the wall of the dragon’s belly. The boy watched as the mountains grew closer. He kept thinking the dragon would pull up but the beast kept a true course straight at the mountains harsh wall. When it became clear there would be no deviation from death, the boy pounded on the reptile’s teeth, tongue and cheeks, anything that might get attention. But as before, to no avail. Resigned to their fate, the boy sat and watched as the mountains ahead loomed larger and larger until he could see the small seams of individual rocks.
The dragon hit nose first, exploding in a great fireball leaving nothing behind. First there was intense heat and pain and then all went dark. Nothing for an eternity before light appeared once more. The boy stood next to the man who now had eyes blue and full of sight. Across from them stood an Indian typing something into his phone, face lit by its screen in the night air. The man next to him spoke.
“Ray, what are you doing?”
The Indian man looked up.
“Texting.”
“Texting?”
“Yeah. Finding out if I have to scalp you or not?”
“Oh,” was the man’s only reply.
Here the dream ended and my eerie questioning begins. Of course I’m the man and Oliver the boy but who is the dragon? Ray gave me permission to post this. His response, “Hell, I like being the bad guy.” But I am not sure who the bad guy of this dream really is. The memory of it sits in my gut like bad Mexican food eaten the night before. It growls in my subconscious without the substance of reason.
THEY’RE AFTER ME!
I am being chased, tracked, pursued and even worse, forced to follow where I’m led. Mysterious and dangerous as this sounds, while true, nothing close to a Ludlum novel. As stated earlier, I don’t see men at the edge of vision but I do sense a presence at perception’s periphery.
Dreams, archaic research left in places it shouldn’t, synchronous concepts played out on cable documentaries, this is the core of my paranoia. But as yet no David Warner, or Morgan Freeman charged with my torture have shown themselves.
Last night I woke every hour on the hour. And every time I fell back to sleep, the same dream continued in my head like a bad horror film interminably looped in some East Village art house. Every version of the dream started the same. I stood at the base of a grassy hill. This hill towered above and at its apex, someone stood facing away into the wind.
I always called out but the figure never responded. Every time I would dutifully climb that hill. It was difficult with rocks sticking out at odd angles or loose gravel under foot. The higher I climbed the steeper the pitch. Once summitted, I would speak again to the figure. He remained facing away, completely unaware of my presence. I would then walk up, turn him around to face me. Each time I faced myself.
JEKYLL
Me … except the eyes, they were black as coal and completely unaware of my presence. And each time, I would back away in horror only to fall down the hill. Waking and gasping for air I would be unable to untangle myself from the bed sheets. I couldn’t stop the dreams recurring theme because an unseen weight secured me to my pillows. I’d toss a bit but always fell back to sleep only to re-live the dream once more.
Then, somewhere between five or six in the morning the dream changed. Again I was at the bottom of the grassy hill. Again, the figure on top and I obediently climbed. This time cresting the hill I saw the figure was different. He was a child. I didn’t bother calling just spun him around.
It was Oliver that stared back at me. He looked up; eyes blue with a tinge of green and clear as mountain water. We searched each other’s face for answers neither had questions for. Then, without a hint of malice, this little boy leapt, huge canine teeth breaking from his gums, and began devouring me. It was neither painful nor terrifying just this sense of bits and pieces of me dissappearing.
When the child was done, he wiped his face and took up his vigil once more. There was nothing of me left, not even bones but still I had presence. And in this ethereal existence, I rose. I rose from the ground and floated into the air. When my ascent was complete, I looked out over hill after hill after grassy hill. Each topped by a little boy. The first was Oliver. The next, too was Oliver. I floated over figure after figure, all Oliver until I reached one last, lone form. It was me again with eyes so black, they sucked me in. Literally, this figure made in my image became a new body for me to look out at the world from.
I turned to view the long line of Oliver’s I’d passed and in the distance I saw a glow emitting from the very first, the original.
Of course I woke then. This time, I was able to get out of bed. In the bathroom, staring back at me from the mirror, my eyes were now my own. No pools of inky black.
Why the dreams? Implications? It seems I should understand yet like steam from a kettle, meaning slips through my grasp leaving a boiled barren residue at the bottom of my psyche.
Dragons
Earlier I posted about dragons, battles and a little boy. Be it the holidays or just too much time alone, these dreams resonate strongly with me. Below is one I had the other night.
Dragon Dream:
The little boy woke to a thumping. Not so much at the door of his tree but at its midpoint. As if some large hand were slamming fist to trunk on his home and the shock vibrated all the way down to the tree’s base.
The boy slipped from bed, stepped over his crayons and paper left from the previous night and snuck downstairs. At the foot of his door, balanced on it’s thresh hold, a folded piece of paper.
Another thump rattled cups and bowls in his pantry. Not trusting the situation, the boy selected his favorite lance, and with great care dragged the note across the floor where he stood near the stairs. Outside he heard the snarls and bleats of the large beasts that lived high in the mountains. The boy opened the note. It was unintelligible but he recognized the writing.
Dragon.
Today’s opening move or declaration of surrender, his or theirs, the boy had no idea. He could not read dragon. Every time he tried, it changed and so he had given up ages ago. Piercing the page with his lance, the boy walked to the door, the dragon’s note a fragile banner.
Carefully, he spied out the door’s peep-hole. They were all spread out around the far side of his pond nipping at each other. All except one. It stood close, using its snout as a rapper on the tree’s bark. Bits had fallen to the ground near the beast’s feet.
Opening move then. Unlatching the door, the boy stepped quickly back. Leading with the note stuck through on his lance, he walked slowly outside. The dragons stopped their teeth gnashing and focused on the boy. Their eyes gleamed either out of hunger, triumph or fear. There was no telling with dragons. He stood a moment contemplating his next move.
The dragon closest to him, the one who thumped his tree, looked down at him. He bobbed his snout at the note. The boy, taking this as a cue, began to slowly move his lance towards this dragon. He moved slowly so that the dragon would not think he was attacking. His intention was to drop the note at the dragon’s feet. Instead, a wind whipped up and blew the note off its perch on the lance and floated it into the middle of the pond.
There was a tense moment as the dragon in front of the boy watched the note sail away to sink onto the water’s surface. The boy sensed no attack from this beast, but before this thought was thought, the others flew across the pond in ferocious formation. The boy found himself trapped between his pond and nine fierce dragons. The monsters reared up and snarled, forcing the boy backward by measured steps.
At the ponds edge, the boy stopped. He had no place to go. The dragons fell back on their haunches, readying themselves to pounce. But this boy was no stranger to combat. He’d beaten these beasts on more than one occasion.
With a practiced move, he flung his lance from a defensive position in front, up and around to a back handed sword grip. Its weigh dropped it’s tip into the water. With a quick turn, the boy stuck the lance into the middle of the pond and with both hands jumped, flinging himself above the water to the other side like a pole-vaulter competing for gold.
Without thought, the dragons tried to follow. In their hysteria to catch the boy, they had forgotten a very important thing. That is that water does not like dragons. In fact, water is to dragons what acid is to little boys. Pulling back onto the shore, the dragons cried out nursing wounds and looking very cowed.
Without thought, the boy vaulted the pond again landing behind his foes. With a staunch swing of lance, he paddled each dragon’s behind with the sharp end of his weapon. This sent each of the dragons into frenzied flight, each taking off in a different direction. All but one flew off without looking. It was the one, the one who had thumped his tree so mercilessly. The one who had slipped the note under his door and watched as it fluttered off his lance onto the pond. This one, scorched by the water and whipped across his rump, looked back. The boy could not tell if the look was one of anger, embarrassment or sorrow. This dragon turned his head and flew off to his lair among the mountain caves in the far distance.
The boy watched until the dragon had become a speck. The pond’s surface was calm with the wind’s leaving. The boy walked back into his house. He was shaken by this encounter. Not from the peril he had been in but by the curious behavior of that one dragon. Sitting down at his little table, he tried to recreate the note with his crayons. But every time he tried, his memory of it changed. The lines, all squiggly, never met the representation he thought he remembered. Finally, he gave up. Dragon was not a thing he was to understand.
M. Haygood
I Dream Of Dragons
There be beasties in the basement of my subconscious. Yes, dragons, monsters, fiends of grisly portent. In my dreams that is. Important piece of information I have yet to divulge … I’m not the only mysterious being to cross swords with my particular piece of desert.
I suppose I should call it our slice of desert. Two years prior to my appearance a young boy disappeared. Same spot. Never found. The relevance? When I dream, sometimes it is of this boy. Long before I became familiar with his story, I witnessed his battles with all sorts of dragons while I slept.
There is a desert plain. The boy lives in a tree near a small pond. Ten dragons live in caves in the far mountains. And every day, the beasts come down to do battle.
Why should I dream of a child I have never met? Saw his picture years later when I found newspaper stories on his disappearance. Could this be synchronous? Our misfortunes tied by shared sand?
Oliver Williams left his mother’s side while stopped along the same stretch of road. He never returned. Where did he go? I ask because maybe the answer correlates with where I came from. And why does he battle dragons? Why, in my dreams, is it not me fighting reptilian villains with lance and sword?
This is where all research leads, a perplexing crossroads where there are more questions than answers. Each dream seems familiar, with meaning that I should be able to grasp. Yet, I am left awake in my bed without the book of ciphers to break this nocturnal code.
So, I witness the monster battles only to wake up hoping I am not somehow aligned with the dragons fighting fragments of a lost child. A child who represents what to me?
M. Haygood
Moses Haygood
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Moses Haygood 