Neth Smiley

Night of 2/1/24

I was at work, and thinking about alternative histories for crossing the Atlantic. I was thinking of this idea for a story with a man and a Brontotherium on a boat, and then the dream changed.

There was an article in the paper about how a young woman with a Lipizzaner had been asked to dismount at a police protest, and she had the horse give a mocking bow to the police. I didn't finish the article. My advisor (?) had many figures of white horses in the back of the car, in a toy set of box stalls. They appeared to be made of felt or wool over a wooden frame. I touched the Lipizzaner figure he had, but I knew I could not bring it along. As we drove up to the mansion, we saw shepherds and fat-tailed sheep, which I was impressed by. I was left at the mansion, told to figure out what was wrong -- in my advisor's words, "how much is incompetent malevolence and how much is malevolent incompetence".

It was very damp inside, and there was an overlap between the two parties. There was Gwen and Ali and Roger (the characters from The Owl Service), and a girl whose name I forget, so I will call her Ilk. And they were all in this house/estate that used to belong to a writer, and he had been very wealthy, but also spent his money in bizarre ways. He had a pool, for example... but there was a crocodile in it! It was very dark water and in a grotto, so I couldn't see where the fellow was.
An old grumpy man showed up, with a toolbox and a little grey terrier -- an Airedales or Cairn terrier, it looked like. I asked if the man what he was there for (I was late to get the door because I needed to get on something to wear, and he unlocked it anyway, or was trying to).

(CW: death, murder)
( CW: Death, murder )

I realized then that the trouble here was much deeper than I thought. And then I woke up.

Night of 1/29/24

(a dream about the Locked Tomb series, even though I am not particularly into the books and I haven't read them since last February or so)

I was trapped in a rather windowless place. The floor plan suggested a "ranch"-type layout, but with a creepy dormitory attached. There were other people there, I could not tell you much about them.

We were all in this place to solve a series of scavenger hunt style puzzles, related to necromancy. Colors and doors/gateways were important as well.

There was an electrical thingy in the wall, outlined in red ink or pencil, and I marked this down as a door. It was in one of those narrow little between-room passages that you see a lot in older homes? And then I turned around.

There was a side table there, well used, facing a weird mirror, more shiny than truly reflective. That was when I noticed that the door frame was painted, and I realized that this is where the necromancer goes to prepare before entering into the sacred world of the ritual space. I called to the others that we found another door, but they didn't want to get near it. Even when I stepped through to show them it was safe. The painted doorway led to an curving, faintly egg-shaped chamber, painted gold, and then when you turned the curve there was the dormitory
Somehow I knew that the table had been Harrow's space as she prepared to seek for Gideon. I don't know if I was with them, felt like then, or were them.