"Burning Bridges" - 11/25/2013 (Lucid + Chain)

"Burning Bridges"
11/25/2013

(Lucid + Chain)

Part 1:

At the end of a walkway, leading from my house, was a small courtyard and a brick tunnel. Atop the tunnel’s entrance was a platform, and atop that platform lived a very large dragon.

The dragon, it turns out, was Smaug, from the tale of The Hobbit. (My daughter and I had just watched the trailer together, the day before this dream). Whenever someone would try to get through the tunnel, he would stop them – not for any real reason. Simply because he could. At first, all anyone could really see was the shadowy outline of his face while he sat in the dark. He seemed to enjoy the seclusion and didn’t really make it a point to make himself seen if he didn’t have to. As far as I know, he just liked sitting up there and blocking people from using his pathway because it gave him something to do. He was always excessively douchey about it, and talked as if he was a god among insects. Needless to say, he wasn’t very well-liked in the neighborhood. I can’t remember why, but I ended up having to use the tunnel, one night, so I came up to it, peering into the darkness at the monster that I knew resided there.

Of course, Ol’ Smaug wasn’t having it. When I tried to reason with him as to why it would be alright to let me use the tunnel, he would exhale an intense stream of fire in my direction. Stepping off to one side of the flame – seeking refuge behind one of the nearby brick columns - I got a view of him from an angle, and it was then that I could see how enormous this dragon actually was. As much as it frustrated me that he was simply being belligerent, I had to be careful with what I said, because I knew he could have easily swallowed me whole, if he wanted to. This encounter happened at least twice, and he was just as big a jerk, the second time around.

The third time, however, was different. On my way to the tunnel (I still can’t remember my reason for trying to go through it), I began thinking through how my encounter with the intimidating dragon was going to go. It was in this moment of thinking through my situation that I realized how incredible this situation actually was; how absurd it was that I was about to encounter a dragon. I realized that this was only possible because I was dreaming. The light-switch in my head came on, and I quickly became lucid.

Any fear I might have had of the dragon completely vanished. Instead, I started calling him out as I walked down the pathway toward his perch. I had faced dragons in my lucid dreams before, and I was feeling enough in control that I was ready for a little face-off with this self-righteous beast. We had a short exchange of words (that I don’t really remember), and he was soon spreading his huge wings and taking flight, charging at me while bellowing flames in my direction. Unlike my last, lucid, dragon encounter (where I put up my hand and created a force-field to block its fire), I simply braced myself and leaned directly into his fire stream, allowing the fire to wash over me, defiantly and painlessly, solidifying my confidence in the knowledge that this was my dream and Smaug could not harm me. Boy, did that piss him off.

He repeatedly dove in toward me and I took flight as well; launching, dashing and strafing in all aerial directions, constantly dodging his advances and daring him to try to burn me –  just before, of course, simply allowing the fire to pass over me again. I was having a great time at his expense, and he was hating it. Each passing moment, though, made me all the more confident in my control. There was a pool in the yard, and I descended toward it, coming to levitate with my feet just a few inches over the water. For merely a moment, I had my doubts about whether or not I would be able to maintain elevation over the pool (which often happens while flying), but I was able to stay focused and square off with him again, hovering just over the water's surface.

We played a little bit more Cat and Mouse, but when he came to realize that he just wasn’t gaining any ground with me, he finally gave up the chase. Frustrated, Smaug actually thought it best to strike up something of a friendship with me. He gave me my respect for being a tougher challenge than he was anticipating, and we seemed to get along, somewhat, after that; there was still an air of animosity between us, though, even though we were civil to each other. At one point, there was a small party in the yard that we came to share, and Smaug used his fire-breath to BBQ a cow for us. We would spend some time flying around, and I found myself just kind of marveling at what an incredible creature he was. When he would fly in the distance, I could see how enormous his wingspan was. (He reminded me a lot of the big bull dragon from Reign of Fire. He was just that massive.) Things seemed to be going fairly well, though, for a while. Smaug seemed to loosen up a bit, and there was actually one time when I caught him singing to himself. Haha. He became more open to interacting with other people, as well. It was around here that I began losing lucidity, and just fell into the story line.

All the niceties vanished, though, when a large group of people decided that they wanted to slay the dragon.

Unbeknownst to me, a band of townsfolk (it's hard to tell if they were modern or medieval. The dream seemed to have interchanging elements of both time periods) had approached the tunnel and caught Smaug completely unaware. They used some kind of catapults or 'launchers' to hurl spears at the dragon, severely injuring him, but not killing him. (I believe I watched this part, disembodied, because I wasn't actually 'there' when it happened.) When I finally showed up, after learning about what happened, I went looking for Smaug. His attackers had already left the scene. There was a great tree that towered over the yard, and I had a feeling he might be up there. I flew up to the top of this gigantic tree (I was no longer lucid, that I can think of, but still kept my ability to fly), and I could see him there, nestled among the thick, twisting branches, with a large number of the spears still sticking out of various parts of his body. He was curled up as if he were trying to sleep off the pain.

At first, he acted as if I wasn't there, hovering next to him. I tried to speak with him - to tell him that I came to him as a friend and to see if he was alright. He ignored me, still. I tried again, telling him that I knew nothing of the attack, and that even though I was one of 'them' (human), he could trust me when I said that I had nothing to do with it. Obviously, completely unconvinced, he let out a deep, trembling growl at me which, without words, told me to leave him the hell alone. I was guilty by association, and he wanted nothing more to do with me.

"Fine," I said, a bit hurt that he would have thought of me in that way, and I flew off.

(I woke up for a moment and attempted to do a WBTB and have another lucid dream. I ended up dropping back into the same story, but with no lucidity, this time.)

"Burning Bridges"

Pt. 2

I was back in the same setting as the previous dream. Smaug was out of the area, and some of us humans were having another get-together in the yard. Even though I wasn't lucid, I still had my ability to fly (as if it was a normal thing. Lol) and some telekinesis, which I periodically used during the night. My mom and her boyfriend were there and, sooner or later, I got to talking to them about my interactions with Smaug and what had happened to our brief friendship. My mom (who hadn't been in the previous dream) was skeptical of the whole 'dragon' thing. She didn't believe that I knew - let-alone talked to - a dragon. Waving off her skepticism, I began thinking to myself about how I really wanted to patch up this misunderstand with Smaug.

I drew upon my telekinesis and attempted to use it sort of like Dragonrend, in Skyrim, to call Smaug back from wherever he was. I really didn't know whether or not he would actually show up, but what I really wasn't ready for was for him to come crashing down through the branches of the great tree, above us, and landing with an earth-quaking 'Boom', feet-first, off to one corner of the party. From the look on his face, I could tell that he was quite surprised, too.

My mother took one look at the dragon and immediately screamed. Both she and her boyfriend bolted for the nearest exit from the yard, which was just passed Smaug; meaning that they had to cross his path in order to reach it. The dragon, still apparently startled by his having been summoned, suddenly shifted himself to face the frantic humans approaching him. As if by complete reflex, he lifted one, giant, hind leg and booted my mom across the entire front of her face and body, knocking her off to one side, unconscious. I ran over to her and held her up to me, trying to revive her.

Smaug - who had just been on self-defense mode - leaned over me, softening his expression and realizing what he'd done in error. After a short silence, he began to apologize. He said something like: "....I didn't mean to--" and I cut him off. I was furious, and assumed that his action stemmed from his hatred of 'us', and that he did what he did out of spite - not because he thought he was being attacked again. That table had turned, and I didn't want to speak to him at all. Figuring that I wasn't to be reasoned with, he was the one who took off, this time, and I don't remember anything after his flying away.