Voices

[TRIGGER WARNING: This journal entry contains content that recalls the shootings in Aurora, CO. Reader discretion is advised.] Non-lucid, Lucid, [Commentary made while awake] I am on the second floor of a big office building, and I take the elevator down to the first floor. There are a lot of other people in the elevator with me. I get an odd feeling that something big and important is about to happen in just a few moments. I exit the elevator and walk out into the ground-floor lobby of the building. It is a large space with lots of glass that let us in sunlight, and there are lots of people walking through the lobby, going in all directions. Suddenly, a man with some kind of small-to-medium-sized automatic weapon fires a short burst of gunfire into the air, in the middle of the room. Everyone in the lobby panics and tries to take cover, including me. [I know this nightmare was inspired directly by the recent Aurora theater shooting tragedy.] As the gunman continues shooting random people in the room, I hide under a long, low, rectangular wooden table with another young woman, about my own age, with brown hair. She and I whisper to each other about how this is not very good cover, and how he is going to find us here any moment know. We are right - he does find us there, and threatens us with the firearm. I am terrified that I am about to be killed. Fortunately, I realize that I am dreaming, and that that means I can just fly away. So I do. I fly away from the gunman in a straight line, passing right through the wall of the building without even realizing that I have done so until I am well outside the building. When I am some distance away, I look back at the tall office building I just left. I am far enough away that the gunman is now little more than a dot, still visible through the windows. [There was more to this dream; I went on to explore the rest of the dream while lucid, but I do not remember any of the specifics.] * Side notes: *derisive snort* And I call myself an oneironaut! I was having a nightmare, I became lucid, and I just used my dream control abilities to run away from the danger. Next time I go lucid during a nightmare, I will try to remember to stand up to the threat and talk it down. By the way, I had this dream at a hotel, on Night #1 of my big relocation road trip.