A Duel of Dreams

Tonight I had a triple-layered lucid dream. I think that's the most layers I've had for a good while, and the coolest thing about it is that while I was partially in control of the dream, there were still other agents inside it that I couldn't directly do anything about. I realized that I was dreaming, but I also realized that I wasn't the only dreamer.

It started out fairly straightforward, with an attack on my apartment by bizarre hybrid monsters, such as a gorilla with a terror bird head instead of its right arm. I tried running away from said monsters, but then they started fighting each other; one of them was trying to help me. Before I could properly heed its warning and escape, though, two agents showed up and attacked me, and I was sucked into some kind of vortex and dispatched in a dream-world, a prison world full of mutants, some more human-seeming than others. There, I stumbled upon knowledge of who was behind the plot; one of the agents had an obsession with Napoleon, and using that information I tracked him down and learned that his employer was one of the Fair Folk, a queen of some sort.

It gets crazier. I managed to figure out that I was actually stuck in a dream world at some point around here, and so I tried to escape by waking up. I did, and then went about my day as normal, until I found myself in a grocery store, suddenly surrounded by big crowds of customers asking me how to find everything they were looking for. Eventually it dawned upon me that I was still stuck in a dream, and that my plot hadn't worked. By magical dream logic, I deduced that while I was dreaming, that didn't actually put me on my home turf; the Fair Folk are masters of dream, and can easily snare you even inside your own head. I figured out how to find one of her agents, disguised as a worker in the meat and delicacies section, and entered battle with him. An epic fight ensued, me using dream-shaping against a guy armed with a meat cleaver. Eventually I managed to turn the dream against him, making him forget who he was and turning him into a teenage girl, then ridiculing him until he ran away crying.

Then I made an attempt to wake up. Unfortunately, I still didn't escape, and woke up into an alternate reality instead, one in which I had died five years ago when an obelisk fell on me. I tried desperately to find someone who had known me before my death, but I couldn't find anyone. Eventually I met with a gang of criminals, containing some people I know in real life, but who didn't know me due to the fact that I was dead in this reality - but I managed to convince them to help me, which was good because the other agent was still on my tail.

Here's where it really gets crazy: One of my new gangster friends gave me a cup of noodles, and the cup made me remember the rules for Shaping Combat from Exalted. I realized that, since I was probably still in a dream, I could use these to my advantage. So I shaped away the final agent using the Cup of Desire, turning him into a loving family father, making him forget himself forever. Then I broke free of this dream as well.

That's where I am at now. Two agents have been destroyed, shaped away into dream-figments. The Queen is still out there. I didn't defeat her, but I managed to break free of her. I'm awake.

...at least I think so.