Recently I've been having weird dreams. I don't think they're that odd for dreams, but they're different from my usual ones. First of all, most of my dreams will take place in areas I think are real, even if they're out of a game. Twice I've had dreams where I was at home, and I knew it was my home, even though it was obviously based on a location in WoW(once at an inn, the second time at a keep). Other times, it's in the small town I live in, even if the layout is completely different. I'm also myself almost every time. Things have been different recently though.

The first dream of this nature took place in what I think was either a University or a High School. It was all one building, but it was huge. As if every building on a normal college campus had been built as a single structure. It wasn't a skyscraper or anything. It was just sprawling. But my character(who was apparently based on Aang out of Avatar) knew the way around there fairly easily. When I told the story about that dream, I thought the city and University reminded me of Ba Sing Se or whatever that city is in Avatar, simply because bending was against the rules. The difference is, they don't have guns in Avatar, and they did in this city. Also, the design of the city reminded me of Jak 2 for some reason. It was on a beach, and I ran into a couple of people I know in real life who where training with paintball guns with the military as practice. One of the people I knew told me that I had to get out of there because they where looking for me, and directed me to a bar. Somebody there told me to go look at another bar for them(a quest!) and when I got to the second location, I saw I girl that I recognized from the school, and took her back. Then I found out she was a rebel. The dream actually started at the bar and then reset to the school when I saw the girl, then went all the way to the end.

The second dream was weird. I was myself, and I was in a huge courtyard with a bunch of other people. There was a palace or something in front of us, and we where in a walled in area with a fountain behind us. It was actually reminiscent of the scene in Assassin's Creed where the party guy is poisoning everybody with the fountain, except that nobody was going to drink out of it, because he just wanted to gloat before having us all executed as traitors. A few of the rebels cause a distraction and me and somebody else(probably a girl, possibly the girl from the first dream) jump down into the fountain. It was much lower than us, because we where on a raised platform. As I slip into the water, the words "Drowning Pool" pop into my head. I have no idea if it's a real thing, but the concept is simple. There's something in the water to make it less dense, so you have less buoyancy and sink a lot faster than you normally would. For some reason, my dream thinks that less dense means the water is heavier because there are no waves and it's a lot darker, or maybe that's just because it kills everything. I somehow manage to swim out of this and rescue whoever is with me. We're running through the city towards the beach, and an exit near there, and it's daylight so the city looks different, but I get the feeling that it's the same one after I wake up. As me and this other girl are running away, I see my ex up walking towards one of the exits from the city(like I said, it's similar to in Jak 2, where it's walled in and there are only certain exits). So anyway, I see her walking towards there, so I run up and try to stop her. I catch up to her about halfway through the tunnel, which is about when my brother and her walk up to the 3 of us. All of us are annoyed with the shapeshifter because it's trying to look like her, but it decides to stick with us. The reason I knew something was wrong is because I'm apparently one of the rebel leaders and new that I'd ordered my brother and her to go out and look for supplies and reinforcements. The shapeshifter had enough differences that we could tell them apart. That dream ends as the five of us are looking through a truckload of supplies.

I think the third dream takes place in the same university, because I've got the same feeling that I'm inside of a huge structure specifically for people in my age group. Plus, there's the whole influenced by anime and video games feeling. In this case, my character draws heavily from Lelouch of Code Geass, to the point where I tend to keep my lower face covered(even though people know who I am) and I also had mind control at some point(there's a point in the dream where I tell somebody to relax because I don't have geass anymore). There's also a girl who is apparently a more public version of C.C. that follows me around. This one is a lot shorter, and has to do with some conflict between the two major families at the school. Apparently one is the family that's in charge of the entire city while the family I'm part of is fairly powerful as well, and has a great deal of influence. There's going to be a wedding between the two families, but their family is angry at mine because one of their kids(a teenager really, and I believe he was actually really low ranking, like a second cousin or something) ran away and was taking shelter with my family. It caused a great deal of trouble, but it was mostly political stuff, and after dealing with it a little(telling them to stfu because the wedding is still on, and no we won't turn the kid over) I go to I guess visit him, because I end up walking through the halls of the building for awhile before I wake up. It was actually kind of interesting.

I really like the idea that my dreams are building up this huge dynamic world, and trying to piece it together from the little bits that I see. It's a stretch because dreams change a lot, and there are big differences between each one, but they're similar enough that I can force them together, and they've all been drawing heavily on video games and anime recently, which is something my old dreams just didn't do. I'm tempted to go a step further than just talking about them and start writing a few short stories based on them, but I need to come up with how magic works in that world and name the characters and such. It's a lot of fun to wake up from these things though. It's certainly better than dreaming about a couple bears chasing you down the street.