I meant to write about this much earlier today, when the whole thing was a good deal fresher in my mind, but oh well. Anyway, I had one of those super long involved dreams today, where even though I woke up a few times, I was able to get back into it, about where I left off. A lot of the broader storyline is lost to me now, but I remember the beginning section of it pretty well.

It started out as me and a few other people outside in some random place. I don’t remember what it was or who the other people were. It was understood that we would each be given a different quest or agenda or something to accomplish. We could each kind of choose our role or path to completing that goal. Sort of like at the beginning of a complicated role-playing game on the computer. I remember everybody else chose theirs, and then it was my turn, and the person who was “dispensing” the roles or whatever once we chose them, kind of had their hand hovering over me. And then I decided that I was going to choose some kind of left-hand or negative path. Meaning, in video game terms, a necromancer. But more accurately, I think that I somehow assumed to the role of a Grim Reaper. Not necessarily THE Grim Reaper though. And when this role was cast onto me by this person, I remember everything kind of taking on this different light and feeling weird and stuff.

The first thing I had to do was go to a place called the Black Gate. We were in some kind of small town. I didn’t know where the Black Gate was, so I had to walk around and find it. I was told not to “tarry” or it would complicate my quest. Anyway, I walked around this town, and found an old spooky graveyard. At one of it’s corners, I found what I knew to be the Black Gate.

I didn’t go through it right away, of course. I wanted to look around and do some other stuff first. So I walked around a bit more, tried to come back, but was informed that I had missed my window, and would have to find some other means. At this point, it seemed like behind the Black Gate was a big amusement park ride. One of those ones that looks like a ferris wheel turned on its side, and the cars spin, but also vary their height and stuff. I don’t know what they’re called. Oh, and the implication was that it would transport me someplace else. Anyway, since I had missed my chance to go through the Black Gate, I couldn’t catch a ride on this dark amusement-park ride. The Gate was shut to me, and wouldn’t open.

Somebody then told me that there was a matching ride like this on the island of Manhattan, at a specific location that I now forget. They said I could take a boat to get up there, but that along the way, I would have to pick up my appointed passengers, and I could choose a few more if I wanted to, and there was room. So I go to board this open black boat, with some kind of guide who was now teaching me about this path and role as some sort of Reaper. We pass first through a sort of mall or something, by the edge of the water. Like those malls they have at the Harbor in Baltimore.

And we’re passing by invisibly all these people inside this place (they can’t see us). But then I look at one girl, and she looks back up at me. I knew right away, this meant I was supposed to “take” her with us. But felt bad, because I didn’t want her to have to die (which she would, in order to come with us). But then, I realized I had to do it, looked back at her, and she understood and got up and joined us. Oh, also, this was weird… when we were in the boat, the first of the scheduled passengers into the land of death was Bono, the lead singer from U2. He came in singing, of course. There were some other people who we picked up or joined us while our boat was going. Don’t remember their details though.

Then, eventually we got back to some land. We still had all these souls with us though, and for some reason that meant that I had to pick up and bear the boat, with all its weight on my back. The boat was now full and extremely heavy. But I struggled on. I walked through this strange city, passing a cemetery on a hill to my left. On the hill sat two upright throned sarcophagi. They were red and white, and glowed orange, and they were obviously royal, and magical. I knew immediately that I was supposed to have picked them up in my boat from the start. But it was now too full, and there was no room for the King and Queen. And so I had to walk on, leaving them there, and abiding by the choices I had made of which souls to pick up earlier in the trip.

After that, I know there was a bunch of parts where I joined back up with the others in my group from the beginning of the dream, and we were struggling against some kind of big evil force or something from the sky. I can’t really remember the details of that at all. But I remember us being in this big old house, and the stormy chaotic sky rending outside, and us exerting all our powers to keep whatever was happening from destroying everything. I also remember physically fighting some people, and having to choke them too.

I seem to have a lot of dreams like this, where I’m part of some kind of group that’s fighting against some kind of great evil. I’m more or less positive that it’s because of all the mental conditioning and story-patterning that video games, comic books and fantasy novels have had on my mind. That’s cool though. I like it. It makes for super-cool dreams. A lot of those kinds of dreams have me transiting death in some fashion too, now that I think about it. This is the first time where I’ve become death personified, I think. But I know other times I and the people in my group have been killed, and reincarnated, and scrambled and stuff like that. But I don’t think I’ve ever had dreams where I knew I was gonna die and was scared, or that I died and was freaked out. It’s usually just another interesting thing that happens.