Dreamriders a work of Fiction by loud7@enternet.com.a (Craig Garrett) Dreamriders exist between the waking and the dreaming. Unable to dream themselves, they rely on others to dream for them. They enter ìdreamalityî (the reality of dreams) by the falling dream, but instead of falling to the ground and waking, dreamriders fall into flight and enter "dreamalityî. Once inside they must ride the dream until its end, which could take days, weeks, months or years. If they donít ride the dream until completion they risk endangering the fragile balance that exists between the waking and the dreaming. To dreamriders, dreams are all that is real. Proem: I am flying. Soaring. Gliding. Manoeuvring. Over a maze of dreams. Connected by tenuous ideas, flimsy reasons and feeble explanations. The dream-world. Volatile. Whimsical. Lively. Colour explodes. Darkness is interrupted. Flashes of purple. Bursts of green. Blazes of orange. Flares of red. Combining. Rising. Falling. Breathing. I touch visions, caress emotions, stroke sights and taste sensations. I am not in the waking. I am not in the dreaming. I am falling. Dropping. Plunging. Tumbling. Through misty-wet dream-clouds. Amongst the tangled tentacles of reality and myth. Surrounded by all that is dreamt, all that has been dreamt, and all that will be dreamt. Searching. Learning. Exploring. Becoming. What is real? What is known? What is unknown? I sense disconnected illusions, confused adventures and babbling revelations. I perceive incoherent thoughts, anachronistic ideas and absurd events. I behold circling dreams, spinning visions, knotting fantasies and unfolding hallucinations. I am embarking. Entering. Arriving. Starting. Awareness and the subconscious collide. Clash. Smash. Conflict. I join someone elseís dreams. Unique. Individual. Rare. Pursuing awareness. Acquiring understanding. Securing knowledge. Procuring wisdom. All I know is the dream-state. Birth: 1. Blood. Blood is all I can see. All around me. Blood. In my eyes. In my hair. In my clothes. In my thoughts. Drowning in coagulating, clotting blood. The redness astounds. It becomes part of me. My flesh is stained blood-red. Drowning. Living. Dying. Diving to the bottom of the ocean. Drowning in an ocean of blood. Submerging into a dark redness. Let it take me. Let myself drown. Let myself feel. Become one with the ocean. Become one with my subconscious. The ocean. Where inner thoughts meet, intercede and merge. Where new ideas are born, grow and die. Where old ideas are forgotten, ignored, unthought. Where forgiveness is sought, granted and abused. Where grievances forgone, pity dealt out, sympathy left stranded. A place of solace, birth and rebirth. Of life and death. Of time and anti-time. 2. A once silver fish is now red. Swimming. Propelled through the blood-red water. Streaming through the blood-red water. Flying through the blood-red water. A stained-red fish. A tinged-red fish. Gills moving. In and out. In and out. Swimming. Moving. Floating. Bobbing. Blood pumping through its veins. Oxygen supplying muscles with nutrients. Blood-water tarnishing the scales with red. Catfish. Slimy. Eel-like catfish. Red fins. Red mouth. Red whiskers. Spiky. Hairy. Pointy. Protruding from the sides of its head. Feeling. Sensing. Seeking. Hunting prey. Wanting a mate. Avoiding an enemy. Parrotfishes. Piranhas. Pipefishes. Copulating in the depths of the blood-ocean. Almost black depths of the blood-ocean. They migrate. An estuary. A nursery. A river mouth. An inlet. To give birth. To create life. To procreate. 3. I am floating. Wandering through the blood-red ocean. Resting on top of the water. Drifting just under the surface. Flowing. Ebbing. Rising. I am Laden with paprika and saffron. Fresh. Spicy. Aromatic. Leaving behind a trail of jewels and LSD. Red jewels. Rubies. Rubues. Ruber. Lysergic Acid Diethlamide. Librae. Solidi. Denarii. I am gelatinous. I am silent. I am see through. Coelenterata. Red-stained Jellyfish. Sac-like body. Twisting tentacles. Freely hanging in the red water. The blood-water. The viscous water. Moving gently with the tide. With the current. With the flux. Drifting towards the periphery. The edge. The threshold. The fringe. A meeting of two separate realms. The conscious land and the subconscious ocean. Apprehensively confronting one another at the littoral region. Water. Edge. Threshold. The waves. Blood-red waves break onto the shore. Smashing. Crashing. Shattering. Reddish-pink foam grasps at the land. The conscious. The cognitive. The aware. Blood-red waves leave no mark. Wash in. Wash out. Crash. Shatter. Emerging. From the blood-red ocean. Parrotfish. Piranhas. Pipefish. Catfish. Eels. Jellyfish. Men. Women. Crawling into the conscious. Onto the land. Out of the subconscious. From out of the ocean. I am synapses. I am bones. I am flesh. Blood. Deep red blood. Not water. Pours over my naked, male body as I am pushed from the womb. Unconcealed. Bare. Defenceless. The dream is over. Enlightenment: 1. I look down upon a time. An ancient time. An antediluvian time. A venerable time. Deep valleys. Wide valleys. Unhindered valleys. Carved into the ancient earth. High mountains. Craggy mountains. Jagged mountains. Formed by rain, drought and wind. Flowing rivers. Cascading water. Coursing floods. Forged a watery path through the land. I sit in solitude. I sit in silence. I sit with myself. Seeking enlightenment. Searching for answers to unasked questions. Looking for questions that have no answers. Pursuing answers that have no questions. Becoming aware. Becoming insightful. Becoming judicious. Knowing that wisdom can never be attained. Conversations from below meld. Coalescing. Blending. Complementing. Fragments of conversations intertwine and mesh and tangle. A rich tapestry of voices. Woven precisely. Using the dialects and languages of a million peoples. Woven preciously. Using golden words. Woven lovingly. Using languages both living and dead. Words placed amongst the warps that hold the voice-tapestry together. Words from the same mouth. Words from the same place. Words travelling the same, long, arduous journey. 2. I rise above the grounded mountains. Circling. Diving. Accelerating. Gliding. I am an explorer. A navigator. A voyager. A journeyman. I am amongst the hovering clouds. Fleeing confusion. Retreating from chaos. Avoiding disorder. I am flying above the amalgamated voices. I am soaring beyond the tangled utterances. I am floating upon the muttering zephyr. I search the misty, opaque clouds. For opinions. For conjectures. For theories. For answers. Answers to elusive questions. Answers to unasked queries. I approach an edifice. A cathedral. A castle. A palace. A citadel. It sits in the sky. From afar it looks strong. It looks daunting. It looks impenetrable. Protected by dreams. Surrounded by deceptions. Stabilised by reverieís. I come to the edifice. It is crumbling. On closer inspection it is cracking. It is decaying. It is dying. Dreams plaster the walls. Stuck. Surrounded. Entombed. Crumbling walls. Disintegrating ceiling. Fractured substructure. Dreams serve as tiles for the roof. Dreams act as stones for the walls. Dreams function as cement for the foundations. Dying dreams. Mutating. Altering. Transforming. Becoming nightmares. Visionless. Hopeless. Faithless. Becoming shadows. Dim. Obscure. Remnant. The cathedral tumbles. Tile-dreams free themselves. The edifice crashes. Stone-dreams rip away from decaying walls. The palace collapses. Cement-dreams destabilise. The walls move. The ceiling caves in. The foundations slide. It falls from the sky. Bowing to reality. Yielding to actuality. Submitting to myth. Entering into folklore. The dreams are free. Colourful. Energetic. Inexhaustible. The dreams are released. Dancing. Frolicking. Cavorting. The dreams are unfettered. Twisting. Turning. Twirling. Out of the rubble. Out of the remains. Out of the ruins. The ruins of the edifice. The ruins of forgotten dreams. The ruins of decaying visions. Flowers appear. Trees grow. Rivers begin. Nations evolve. People develop. Cultures emerge. The citadel was filled with joys. With wonders. With delights. Where the crumbling cathedral was I see flowers. Flourishing. Mature. Unfurled. Open. Living. I can see snow. White. Crystallised. Freezing. Melting. I can see rivers. Clear. Unpolluted. Crystalline. Virgin. I can see intoxicants. Ale. Wine. There is beauty in each and everything. Look. See. Behold. Contemplate. Not up here. Not in the cathedral. I came to find spirituality. To find enlightenment. To find meaning. I found a void. I found an emptiness. I found nothing. I couldnít find what I was looking for. Opinions. Conjectures. Theories. Explanations. Answers. Answers to elusive questions. Answers to unasked queries. 3. I fly north. Speaking. Conversing. Communicating. To the mountains. To the clouds. Sternly. Forbiddingly. Rigorously. The mountains advise me not to listen to the whimsical clouds. Flippantly. Encouragingly. Humorously. The clouds counsel me not to heed to the authoritarian mountains. I search for confirmation. Of my thoughts. Of my speculations. Of my visions. Of my vagaries. I canít find confirmation. So I sit. Near a lake. We talk. We laugh. I weep. I love. I become smitten with the lake. A storm closes in. Tempestuous. Passionate. Violent. I fall. I jump. I dive. I drop. Into the lake. Pushed through the water by the wind. Jagged. Mutilated. Rocks. Knotted. Twisted. Trees. Flash past. Fish in nets. Bleeding. Writhing. Convulsing. The water around fishing boats bubbles. Churns. Agitates. The water becomes red. Stained with the blood of the fish. Stained with the blood of the bait. Stained with the blood of the womb. The shore is upon me. The edge. The threshold. The fringe. Conscious. Subconscious. The meeting of many realms. A party. A Fire. Ale. Wine. People from my past. Friends from my present. Acquaintances from my future. I warm near the fire. I ask after Kate. ìShe is deadî, somebody says. ìI think we lost her at the beginning of our journeyî. ìWhere have you all come from?î I ask. ìThe same place you have.î The dream is over. Death: Running. From someone. From something. From somewhere. The night is dark, overcast, wet. I am running. Running from the dark, the mysterious, the obscure. The dampness bites at my bones and eats at my concentration. Streetlights attempt, vainly, to light up my passage. The street looks sombre. The street looks joyless. The street looks dismal. The shadows cast by my yesterdays obscure my pursuer. Rain falls on me as I run. Rain falls on the streets. Before me. Behind me. Falling. As it lands it swirls, and splashes, and explodes. The tiny droplets hit the street and combine, connect, bond. They form torrents of water in the streets. Water. Full of pollution. Urine. Faeces. Blood Rushing to get away. The water advances past tired, old houses, and cracked, crumbling footpaths. Collecting debris as it progresses down the street. Picking up litter, refuse, rubbish. The dirty water slows. At the stormwater drain. It sighs. Laments. Suspires. Plunging headlong into the sewers. I run on. Passing drunks, dipsomaniacs, alcoholics. Sitting in the rain on the side of the street. Dirty mouths opened. Like baby birds. Spewing up deep red blood and brown-black bile. Passing junkies, addicts, debris. Lying in the gutters. Stopping the water-flow. Blood trickling out of bruised and punctured veins. Syringe-fingers on shaking hands ready for the next shot. I run on. My pursuer will find me soon. I hide. In a doorway. I crouch down close to the earth. I close my eyes. If I canít see them, they canít see me. I feel visions. I see thoughts. I hear voices. Calling. Yelling. Speaking. Many languages. Many voices. Many questions. I canít speak. I canít answer. I must lie. I sense a presence. A shadow falls across me. Not a shadow of light. There is no light. It is a heavy shadow. It weighs upon me. An emotional shadow. It evokes feelings from my depths. A feverish shadow. It heats up my discontent. A painful shadow. I can crouch no more. I have been found. I canít make out my pursuer. He remains anonymous. She remains aloof. It remains mysterious. They remain enigmatic. Created on Fri, 5 Sep 1997 and last modified on Thu, 19 Feb 1998.

LOUDonline - http://www.loud.net.au - Fri, 10 Apr 1998