dream050123 flux we're fighting aliens from a space ship, holding our tail between our legs and trying to escape (i've been watching "battlestar galactica"). we land on a planet.. there are about a dozen of us and we need to get to some village that is far from here. traversing the terrain, full of life but not people. a river cuts across it, wide, deep, and with steep cliffs on either side. a mountain looms across the bank, covered with coniferous trees. we stand in a small clearing and look out across the sky.. i'm in some sort of large compound. fighting, arguing. there is a group of people with me. we want something, but we're mostly helpless to get it. a large anteroom, yellow stone floor, high ceiling, straight edges, very well lit. there is a staircase going up at the back in the rear. one person from our party, a girl, is taken and locked up in a hole in the wall. we're trapped.. we can either leave her here, or what for whatever fate holds for us. i need to get supplies.. things to break her out and help us fight. someone else, another female, tells me she knows how to navigate the path that i need to take. i accept her guidance. the two of us leave the building, and start across an enormous plain.. running.. we quickly get to a rocky ridge, hills of sharp, blue_grey shale. it's fairly barren, only small tufts off grass grow through here and there. the isn't a path, but she leads me over and through. next we come to a swamp of sorts, or at least i think of it as a swamp. she warns me that something may attack us here, so we need to be careful and quick. she doesn't specify what it is, but we are almost entirely defenseless. the ground is spongy and red, covered in lines.. it looks like the outlines of a two_dimensional array of cell_blocks. large angry_looking bushes grow all around. we bee_line through and get to a third bit of terrain.. this is the most dangerous bit, and i can't recall what it is. black tar pulling at my ankles, and very little visibility. we make it through without incident, though. to somewhere... and then i'm running back. i've got my backpack on and a sword in my hand. the guide voices that me may be ambushed coming back through the swamp.. i see an spider the size of a large dog creeping along near us.. but we make it through unmolested. we are again back inside the building. there are eight stories above the anteroom where we need to be. i explain that the building is controlled by eight women with certain powers.. four for the elementals, for for planets.. mercury, venus, mars and jupiter. they each have their own floor. the ordering is something like fire, air, mercury, mars, venus, jupiter, water, earth from bottom to top. maybe my memory of the ordering is a bit off, but earth was most certainly on top, and the first and last two were all elements. (as a side_note, though i distinctly remember eight from the dream, i was consistently writing "nine" here without realizing it. hm.) we take a staircase down passing doors to each floor. it comes out in the anteroom, right next to where the girl in the cage is. someone voices an opinion that we need to leave and can't get her out, and someone says that we can't just leave her here. i pull a knife out of my bag and someone says, no, don't hurt her.. but i'm not going to hurt her. i'm going to pick the lock to the cage. the knife resembles one that i keep by my door in cz, but this being a dream, it has far more fluidity. i stick the knife into the keyhole, when in life it would be far too large. it has ridges along it's back (in waking life too far up to fit into the lock), and i use these in conjunction with the knife tip to tickle and rake the pins of the lock into place. i get the door open after about a minute of activity. we can leave this place now.. we start running across the anteroom, but the eight women start coming out of the staircase after us.. we are running.. and i realize that i'm running strangely. i know this.. this is how i run when i'm in a dream. it's like running while i'm up to my neck in water. i realize, then, that i am dreaming.. and i have the power to stop these people from chasing us. i fly ahead and up into the air, and say, i'm the god of this place.. but i have trouble holding on the image of the dream. i now have to consciously create all of my surroundings instead of just experiencing them. the walls vanish and the women look at me, uncertain. then i wake up. i'm lying on a table in cz. it is night, in the dining room, the lights are on and the place is busy as normal. things come slowly into place. i see some chocolate sitting on the table. a package containing several smaller wafer_like pieces. i want to eat some.. i reach for it, and wonder who owns it. i ask someone sitting at the table if it is theirs. no, he says, and walks away. i grab one out of the box. it's now long and thicker, not really wafer_like. i start to press it on the table to break off an end, then jessica darling walks nearby.. i ask her if the chocolate is hers. she says, no, it's daphne's. "daphne is here?" i wonder aloud. jessica says that she was but she stepped out for a bit and will be back later. this news makes me happy. i jump up on the table, and start running.. i jump onto the back of a nearby couch and run along that, towards the stairs down to the entrance. i jump onto the railing near the stairs, run along the wall, turn the corner, hop back onto the railing, and jump again.. someone, i believe my brother, comments that what i'm doing is dangerous.. but i feel totally in control, not at all hesitant. i get down and go into the back yard. the moonlight is out, and there is much more greenery than usual. i walk around the back of the building towards the front courtyard, where there is an apple tree, accented heavily by the moonlight. it's utterly beautiful. i go in the front door to check my mail, and run into hh, who says something. i respond, and she laughs, and then i wake up. 050124 what's it to you? who go blather from