"Shark Tank Hotel" - 11/08/2021 (Lucid)

"Shark Tank Hotel"

11/08/2021

(Lucid)

 My earliest memory of this dream was of being in a hotel or condominium hallway. After wandering, aimlessly, for some time, I realized that I was in a dream. There was a short, older cleaning lady making her rounds, through the hallways, and I decided to follow her out of curiosity. She was a pretty mundane, character, though, seeming to really have no sort of direction or purpose, as she stopped at one room or another, then just continuing to walk along without really "doing" anything. I noticed a few, small animal cages that lined some of the hallways, which seemed out of place for a hotel, but mostly uninteresting. The woman finally stopped a small storage room with a single toilet inside of it, and it was then that, feeling that this particular thread wasn't really leading anywhere, I decided to ignore her and wander off on my own.

Heading downstairs, I took a moment to look at my hands and focus on the details of my hands, to ground myself into the dream state. My fingers were a bit warped, as if being viewed below a watery surface, but otherwise unaltered, and the environment around me was brought into greater clarity when I looked away from them. Heading outside, to the parking lot, I saw that a number of people had gathered around, and that there was some sort of altercation going down. I don't really recall the details of the situation I'd stumbled upon, but I soon found myself being accosted by a group of 3 or 4 "bullies," who seemed as if they were just looking to start trouble with any and everyone around them. 

Since I was already lucid, I had no problem taking these guys on. Though I don't remember much of the actual fight, I do remember stopping, for a moment, to run my hands along one of the wooden tables nearby, in order to keep me grounded and prevent the dream from fading during the action. Sometime during this skirmish, the crowd he become aware that some kind of giant housecat had roamed onto the property. The animal - which was about the size of a lion, but undoubtedly an exaggeration of a normal housecat - began stalking in my direction, the moment it saw me, and I wasn't exactly getting a welcome feeling from it. 

Immediately, I shifted my attention from my previous, human attackers, and took a defensive stance against the approaching beast. Feeling a good bit of dream control, after taking on multiple opponents, I attempted a superpowered move against the cat, trying to conjure up a "Hadouken!" and throwing my palms out toward it to produce a fireball. Nothing happened, though, and the cat was still coming. I tried once again, yelling the command out, even louder, to try to really get the feeling of willing it into existence. Still nothing, though, and the cat was just about to encroach upon me, so, I did the very first thing that came to mind, instinctively, as it came within reach: I gave it a sharp slap across the face. Unsurprisingly, this didn't seem to faze the big cat, at all, and it simply chomped its jaws down on my hand, and held on tight. The bite didn't really hurt, at all, and it was more annoying than anything else.

Instead of taking the time to continue trying to fight off the animal, I simply turned around and attempted to ignore it, walking away from the crowded lot and back into the hotel. I could feel that the cat's teeth were still closed around my hand, but I noticed that there was very little resistance while I walked. When I looked back, I could see that the cat - which was still locked onto my hand - had shrunk, slightly. It was still big, for a housecat, but not quite as imposing as it had been, before. I passed a reptile tank, which had an alligator inside, and I placed the cat inside. In no time, the two creatures were battling it out, on their own, within the tank. Noticing that there were more tanks in the hallway, I saw one that contained a shark and - for no other real reason than curiosity - I reached into the gator tank, grabbing the two, quarreling animals, and dumping them into the shark tank. On cue, the shark joined into the fray, and all three animals started fighting in the tank that was far too small to fit them comfortably.

Another glass tank caught my eye, nearby, which held some less-threatening, tropical fish. Also inside was an intriguing miniature of internally-lit castle. The windows glowed brightly, in the dim water surrounding it. Since I had become a little tired of this - fairly mundane - hotel environment, I decided to try a scene change and see if I might be able shrink myself down to explore this underwater castle. I figured that phasing through the glass of the aquarium might be the easiest way to make the transition, so I pressed my palms and face against the glass and tried to 'push' myself forward. I encountered just a little resistance, at first, but then I felt myself pass through the glass like a thick, gelatinous fluid. Pushing myself further into the tank, I could see the castle coming closer, though the water was growing more dark and foreboding, the further I advanced. It still felt like my entire body wasn't 'inside' the tank, and I could still sense the discrepancy in my size to that of the castle. It didn't feel natural, at all.

Then, I started thinking about the animals fighting in the tank with which I'd just interacted. The thought of the carnivorous creatures, in an underwater setting, started making me really uncomfortable, as if they were starting to converge on me, in this enclosure, even though this tank was even smaller than the others. Now, unsettled by the notion of being stuck in the murky depths with predators, I reversed my forward progression and pulled my head back out of the tank, through the glass. Upon emerging from the surface, I could see the large head of a great white shark, filling up most of the inside of the tank, just near what my head had been, as if it was swimming toward me to bite my head off of my neck. Since the tank was so small, it was only big enough for the head of the shark. The length of its body, though, was sticking out of the other side of the tank. The head, it seemed, had phased through the glass wall of the tank, just as mine had done, and the body of the shark was just suspended in the air, horizontally, while its head remained stuck inside - as if a pencil had been stabbed a portion of the way into a plastic container.

I was in awe at this surreal image, and the last thing I remember was reaching out and touching the shark's body - which was leathery, damp and detailed - and remarking, out loud, at how cool it was. Unfortunately, touching the shark (although I was not focusing on grounding to the dream, while doing so) was the last thing I actually remember before waking.