~dreams~
a very dangerous night.
- walking through a hostile brooklyn neighbourhood (though we found a kitten shrine)
- in a beautiful national park, running away from a surging flash flood
- a fun open-world game, a mix of thief, winback, and mgs. i'm discovered, chased, cornered, and kira nerys rescues me.

i can't, like, draw, but the kitten shrine looked something like this, down the stairs in an alleyway behind an abandoned playground.

~dream~
in the Prey universe, exploring a midcentury modern complex, shooting mimics made of clay.

~dream~
a woman i'm crushing on is posted in the military, in the campground i visit often. i take pictures of tall grasses shorn evenly in half. i meet the woman. we, well. the next day, she's several months pregnant. i visit the campsite but a dark & terrifying tornado hits. i hide under a coffee table from my parents' place; she is swept away. the storm clears, i want coffee, am (as usual) disappointed there's only tim hortons.

what i'm saying is it's good that therapy starts again tomorrow.

followed up with a dream in my childhood home of 20 years~

we were having our christmas party with several guests; the dining room was full of life and movement, the kitchen was a wreck. the latter bothered me more than anything so i left and walked around my neighbourhood, wondering – within the dream – how this dream recapitulated my life, my therapy, the art that i consume/want to make. returning home, only my mum was left in the empty house, she noticed i looked tired and angry.
#nickdreams

~dream~
i somehow devised a fully-functional doom .wad... only one level, but some new monsters (squishy blue spiders), new weapons (tbf just a different plasma rifle), and a tense, close-quarter ambush & cyberdemon encounter. my mind was accurately tracking all the enemies and i think in the end i was able to de-escalate the cyberdemon.

~dream~
watching the first ever simpsons halloween episode. homer j simpson / philip j fry is dead, and we watch as he gradually descends into an interminable, barren sadness as the empty house around him, his only haunt, all that he cares about, endures into a desolate, dusty, lonely eternity.

~dream~
i'm babysitting baby me in my family's old house. i turn my back for one second and i'm climbing on the dishwasher to sneak some cookies.

~dream~
i get a kickstarter update that my friend backed a game called Knights of Lombardy.

that's basically it, but now that i'm awake i really want to know what that game is.

[my crew of mercs and i have been working the Facebook Mines for months. after striking it big, we throw a massive celebrity-rich party at a monastery. now, as Sophia Loren, i desperately want out of this life.]

me, approaching a monk: "i'll give you $25,000 and a handjob to get me out of here."
"blowjob?"
[slow, disappointed head shake]
"ok fine," he reluctantly accepts.
[exeunt]

in one dream, i see my coworkers; they've been to a party i wasn't invited to. i avert my gaze.
in another, i see my childhood buddies. they've just come back from swimming with frogs in a dark swamp. i try it but end up surfing massive waves down st.-laurent street.

last night i had one of the most terrifying dreams i've ever experienced. and then i had it again.

in one dream i was talking with ben sisko's sad ghost; in another a british mp came into my house uninvited to have a chat; in another joe biden came into my coffee shop to rap about how good he is at doom (1993). if you were wondering where i'm at.
#nickdreams

i'm tearing through the snow-blind countryside in a low-riding racer, while off in the stormy darkness clusters of howling tornadoes are hungrily chasing me down.

cf. 🐦🔗
https://twitter.com/nickfourtimes/status/846737202105200640

(also jonesing on forza horizon, and listening to #TheZoneCast and white zombie's Black Sunshine)

* nuclear brinkmanship
* trapped in falling elevator
* active shooter

making games is emotionally taxing.

it's all very vague. a back-alley surgery, mistaken identity, gang violence, nuclear war, old friends i'd abandoned, a nice dog that gave me a hug.

in one i'm running around a manor house in the rain, all outbuildings are different social areas of my life. down a dark garden path an invisible hand bangs on a gate. i approach and the vampire reveals himself, ready for me. i'm so scared i wake up in chills.

in another, i'm in a tube ride recreating the mechanics of GoldenEye (N64) in the water plant of INFRA. i'm goofing off, faking explosion noises, taking people's charts, knocking one guy's desk over. i read his name, Manch Unicorm Hummingbird [sic], and wake up laughing.

it's been a strange night.