I “woke up” (or so I thought) in my original, IRL bedroom despite being on holiday. Quickly, a strange being entered the room. It had the face and body of my sister, but had 4 arms and legs, dangling next to her body as some kind of mix between a human and an octopus!

It was terrifying, but for some reason, I managed to stay calm, and I found out that clapping makes a loud bang and scared the demon away.

I did this every time, and while it made the demon stay at a distance, it didn’t fully defeat her!

I decided that turning in my dragon (a red dragon with wings under his arms known to others as Orebark) and flying away into the sunset would be the best solution.

It seems silly, but for some reason when I shape-shift, current monsters will either fail to recognize me and walk away or lose interest entirely.

While it turns out to be the guaranteed getaway method, it also backfires at times, when monsters that are interested in the dragon are within vicinity (and would normally walk away from me).

These monsters are entirely different looking than the ones attracted to me, so it’s easy to assess the situation. Where mine are mostly ghosts and demon versions of my family, his are typically men in black figures.

Shape-shifting was extremely realistic and cinematic, I jumped up and while I threw myself out the window of my bedroom, my body twisted.

The second I passed the open window, I spread my arms and stayed in the air, gliding happily while the window with the evil being faded from existence.

It was so nice to know I have this level of skill and confidence to pull this transition off without a shred of doubt. It makes me feel good that I’ve come a long way from having to look at my own shadow and watch it transition into the dragon (which came with its own limitations such as needing a light source).

To see my red scales transition from reflecting the lights of my invaded bedroom to the shimmer of the moonlight was a remarkable experience. It was as if my mind turned more quiet than it can get IRL. I knew my job was done here, now I was in a lucid dream. I could wake up at any point in the dream and be extremely relaxed.

Yet, there was a part of me that was a bit anxious the demon could come after me and I wanted to prevent that. This body has one big trick up its scaly sleeve, when near water it can fly faster than the speed of sound!

While having these thoughts, I was close to the park near my house, I decided to do just that, as the park is full of water. I focussed on the speed of sound and for the second time in my dreams I managed to hear the sonic boom only for a split second before the dragon body escaped its own explosion sounds!

It’s so beautiful to be able to experience this level of flight, if only there was a way to convey it in words.

After the sonic boom, everything became a white blur, and it all happened so fast, that there was no way of making out where I was.

I slowed down only after I was confident enough the demon wouldn’t chase me. Given the distance I just traveled, I expected to be in a place so exotic it’s beyond comprehension! But that wasn’t the case at all… there was one strange looking building with geometric shapes in varying colors for a roof. Near the window, a yellow triangle or circle was merged with the concrete.

But that was all, the only other thing I saw was the park near my house again, but it was different… it was as if it was cut out of its world and placed in a room. It also was surrounded by a glowy black lattice of floating stars that made me feel extremely uncomfortable just looking at it.

I decided to walk inside, and it brought shivers all over me. I began to be put in this constant state of fear… as ghosts were everywhere but none ever came. It didn’t end until I walked out of it.

I didn’t know what it meant until after I woke up and began writing this dream. The park with the black glowy things wasn’t a recent copy but rather an older looking version of it. I also remembered this park from another dream, back when the stars were white and didn’t feel so dark, as if they were frozen in time.

It was then that I realized where I was – at the edge of my dream! This was the dream equivalent of the storage unit of a large movie studio, past and future dreams stored as nothing but props. A spell cast on them to make the dreamer feel extreme sense of discomfort to avoid them wandering in dreams they weren’t supposed to see yet.

To now realize I was at a place where all I was and all I will ever be, to say it was shocking doesn’t begin to do it justice.

I began thinking, is there a possibility there’s something directing our dreams and deciding what we dream at night? Is it possible managed to get out of the matrix and found the source? It wasn’t the first time talked to the directors of my dreams (where they even explained why they cut corners in some places).

The dream fast forwarded to me being on some grassy field where a group of people including a guy with blond, curly hair that I referred to as “the nerd” throughout the dream. Unlike his nickname, he was quite a sporty figure and was playing baseball with another group. At some, point we decided to team up and continued together.

More people have joined our crew, but I don’t know where they came from.

The last thing I remembered was that we were at the house of thoughty2, a YouTuber who was showing us how to use Keeps, a treatment against premature hair loss.

The dream had a surprisingly good and normal ending, we were back at my house and the entire crew was in my mom’s bedroom, the room next to the one with the demon. They told me that it’s time to say goodbye. While it wasn’t said in words, it was clear to all that there was a portal back home down the stairs.

The crew laid down on my moms bed and tried to sleep. I wanted to know why but didn’t ask, my hypothesis was that since they are natives in this dream they need to sleep now for them to dream.

They told me that they would disappear when I go through the portal, which got me a bit emotional, to say goodbye like that, especially with the nerd I was becoming friends with.

While most of the middle dream vanished from memory, I knew we did a lot together.

They did add that ending it like this is better than suddenly waking up, as now we got to say goodbye.

I took a breath and walked downstairs. The more I did, the blurrier the dream got, there certainly was something down there.

A part of me couldn’t do it and I ran back upstairs, the entire crew except the nerd was gone already. He looked at me and laughed “haha I knew you’d come back for me”, and I laughed too, saying: “haha yeah you were right!”, but we both knew the inevitable.

“Goodbye, nerd, keep doing what you love”, I said to him, referring to the sports.

“Until next time, mate”, he said, and tears formed on my eyes as I walked downstairs. This time, I continued to the door and the second I got close I woke up mere seconds before the alarm, and not just awake, but absolutely 100% clearly awake! It was as if I genuinely stepped through a portal!