The Witch's House

I will take you back to one of the only recurring dreams I've ever had, and only when I was little. I haven't had the dream since, that I can recall, though I frequently think about it for whatever reason. It's also one of the very few dreams that I have that involve a real place (well, partially).

We have about 3-4 acres of property behind my house, and most of it is a huge valley, so there's my house, then a big hill in the back that leads down into the valley, and there's a little pond down there too. Well, right at the base of the hill is some trees, and we have a big fire pit down there too, and it's surrounded by the sparse trees and off to one side is some woods (very small). In my dream I'm in my back yard, at the top of the hill, peering down at the fire-pit area. That is when I realize that there is a small house in the trees near it. I don't mean a tree-house, I mean a small log cabin in the trees, somehow nestled in there. It's obviously not there in real life, but in the dream nothing is out of place except this random wooden house. A rope ladder hangs down from the bottom, leading into a trap-door on the bottom.

In the dream (for whatever insane reason), I make the ascent into the house.

I honestly remember very little about what was actually in the house, except that it was eerily quiet and shrouded in darkness, with very few light fixtures anywhere to be found. These few lights adorned the walls, and the rest of the house was so dark that I could see basically nothing else, except a miniature "mine-cart" track that traveled the length of the wall, but was cast in darkness further ahead and behind. Being little, and in a dream, with nothing else to do... I climbed into the single mine-cart. It lurched into motion.

It made no sense, because from the outside the house appeared to be very small, but inside, this track just kept going and going and going. This is where I remember seeing/experiencing very terrifying things, though I can't recall a single one of them. I vaguely remember that there were a lot of flashing lights and I suppose it reminds me a little of the original Willy Wonka movie when they're on that boat going through the tunnel and it very briefly gets a bit scary and dark with lots of flashing lights and frightening pictures on the wall. I can't remember what happened, but I know I remember that I discovered a witch lived there, and it wasn't a fun experience.

I had this dream a few times, but never had it again. H o w e v e r .....

Every time I've dreamed of my back yard since, it has been there. I have never entered it again, nor have the inclination to. In fact, I very rarely even dream of my back yard at all, since most of my dreams involve people and places I've never seen.

Recently, I have been thinking about this dream more and more, nearly goading myself to dream about the house again. Two nights ago I dreamed of riding a horse down into the valley, when my dream-self suddenly remembered the Witch's house. I turned to my right to look upon the spot it has been known to reside...... but it was gone.

Flight and Elephants

Had a pretty interesting dream last night, that, as I type, is slipping through my fingers. I was at my home and I could fly (sort of). It was very w i n d y, and I needed these huge gusts of wind to take flight, and go with the gusts, but as usual, even my subconcious can't accept the concept of unaided flight. I could go much higher than I usually can (typically I'm aided by an umbrella, and on one occasion faerie dust) but I had to land if the gusts of wind stopped. I remember I had some girl that I was later trying to teach (my apprentice, if you will).

Later, I was in some... place. There was an elephant, a baby elephant, in a circular cage about 25 feet in diameter. At least 30 people were circling the cage peering in, and it was alone in there, with little to nothing else inside the cage. I don't recall being at a carnival or zoo, so I'm not sure exactly what was going on, but alas, there it was. The elephant was a girl, and I can't remember her name, but I know I knew it at the time.

Anyway, I went up to the cage and made a beckoning noise towards her and she came happily galavanting over, trotting I would say, and she held out a blue squeaky ball towards me, so I grabbed it through the iron bars and threw it to the other end of her enclosure, and she ran after it. A fetching elephant, if you'll believe it. She kept coming back to me and pretty much only me. I think I had some kind of empath link with her or something, and am fairly sure I was a witch in this dream. I couldn't "talk" to her, because she couldn't talk back, but she seemed to know what I wanted. Also I could fly, if that's not reason enough to believe I was a witch. :P

Nicholas Cage

Well, shit, it's finally happened. I've finally had a dream where I was Nicholas Cage. By the way, I despise him. I think my subconscious has finally had enough of him and my hatred leaked into my dreams! Nooooooo!

Anyway, basically I'll keep it short, but I was in some high-end security prison. Not a normal prison with a lot of bars and things, but more like a prison you would see in Pitch Black (that crazy movie with Vin Diesel). So there were things hanging off the wall and ropes and things, for my crazy ass to work out or something. I remember vaguely soccer practice with some other inmates...

Anyway, then I escaped out of this prison by being a bad ass (even though Nicholas Cage's grandmother is more bad ass than him...). Now that I think about it, although I had the face of Nicholas Cage, maybe I was also half Vin Diesel ... or... Wasn't there some guy that escaped a prison in that movie? Anyway, I escaped, and then was on the run from the feds. So I was suddenly half Nicholas Cage and half me, I guess? And I walked into a grocery store and found my parents and little brother grocery shopping. Sort of an awkward place to be when SWAT is out looking for you. Mother was of course annoyed that I was on the run. My dad just walked me outside and said "I'll help you", but all he gave me was a baseball cap.

So we walk outside the grocery store and we're right on the edge of some big river, so I jump in, and swim out towards the center where there's this little lump of raised land (It was so small, I wouldn't call it an island), and found some weird device that was supposed to allow me to do SOMETHING underwater (see, breathe?) - but I couldn't figure out how to work it. Anyway I don't remember much more of the dream, but the point is.... Nicholas Cage? WTF?

Icarus

I had a dream about Icarus, son of Daedalus. This is a very obscure person to dream about from mythology. I don't remember much about the dream, just that he was very handsome and seemed a little clever, and possibly misleading. If you don't know the story of Icarus, I'll post it here from Wiki.

Icarus's father, Daedalus, a talented and remarkable Athenian craftsman, attempted to escape from his exile in the palace of Knossos, Crete, where he and his son were imprisoned at the hands of King Minos, the king for whom he had built the L a b y r i n t h to imprison the Minotaur. Daedalus, the superior craftsman, was exiled because he gave Minos' daughter, Ariadne, a ball of string in order to help Theseus, the enemy of Minos, survive the Labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur.

Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers for himself and his son. Before they took off from the island, Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea. Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared through the sky curiously, but in the process he came too close to the sun, which melted the wax. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that he was only flapping his bare arms. And so, Icarus fell into the sea and perished.