Solving a riddle with my life on the line & the god of dreams
Tonight, we go from a silly space adventure to hunting magical succubi in one of my most meaningful dream encounters ever.
night of march 22nd, 2022
Tonight’s dream starts with a beautifully silly Mass Effect reference.
Ifind myself on a spaceship, very much resembling my beloved Normandy from the game series. Surrounded by futuristic architecture, furniture, and people, I am put in charge of leading this endeavor.
While not directly being Commander Shepard from the series, I am in the same position, so until the end of this short space adventure, I shall be the great Commander Sheepheart, Shepard’s off-brand knockoff. And my first order of business, as the commander of a top-tier space vessel crewed by special operatives from all sorts of planets and races, same as it is in the games if we’re being honest, is to find a woman to sleep with.
I walk into a bar as Commander Sheepheart. It looks just as you’d expect from the series, with an extremely clean, futuristic design. There’s a white or blue-ish bar top with liquids in shiny colors on the shelves behind it. Scattered throughout are a couple of round tables with many kinds of species gossiping, while sipping on questionable drinks.
As soon as I enter, two attractive women, somewhat advanced in age, approach me. I suppose everyone knows I am the famous Commander Sheepheart, and that makes me quite attractive.
They make their eyes do most of the work and flirt with me until I let down my guard. But before anything can happen, Sam & Dean from Supernatural burst in looking for trouble.
It turns out the ship was haunted by succubi, that famous demon race known for seducing, then draining or killing humans. Well, I shoulda been the latter, if it weren’t for Sam & Dean.
As they burst in, two things change. I actually switch to Sam, so now I experience the scene as him, and also it all changes to a more rural-style roadhouse, so no more space bar, just a regular bar as you’d see on Supernatural.
And as soon as we charge in, the women know they’re in trouble and stop playing nice. The succubi, despite always looking like normal humans throughout this dream, throw some heavy spells at us, which we dodge or simply take head-on. Fighting through the pain, we move forward and get into close range with them. I start throwing punches as Sam, Dean lifts his up and throws her down on a table, now wooden and easily broken under the force. Both of them get knocked out for a moment. During that time, Dean strings his up upside down with a rope. I gently put mine on a chair, then shove a gun against her temple. When they come to, we talk. Dean and I try to figure out their motives, while they attempt to talk their way out of it. Yet again, before long, we are interrupted.
A hunter friend calls us. Apparently, he noticed what was going on. A disturbance in the monster force, I suppose. As we tell him about the ones we have tied up here, he just asks us if we are horny right now…
Of course, my first thought is that bro must have turned a little gay, just like everyone who watched 15 seasons of the boys fighting demons would, and I appreciate his interest in my body. Since the girls are quite hot, and still keep flirting with us even after being tied up (maybe that actually makes them hotter), I give him an honest yes.
Sadly, despite being shredded Sam in this story, bro was not hitting on me. My ego just can’t catch a break tonight.
It turns out there are more creatures out there like them, hunting the hunters, specifically us now, and they have a sixth sense for horny men. Now with their race here and us attracted to them, they can smell us from miles. Soon, they will swarm us. We are fucked, and not in the way I had planned in the beginning.
We need a plan.
I proceed to call up some friends, namely the next dream team of brothers: Itachi and Sasuke from Naruto Shippuden. And with that, the scene changes again.
I am now teenage Sasuke, you know, the Shippuden version: white kimono, purple obi belt, katana tucked in there.
I’m about to meet my brother Itachi in this huge, realistic but somehow magical compound. The ceilings are tall, like in warehouses. Endless hallways lead to many gigantic rooms. Despite there being no exit in sight, every room had large windows at the top, so it was flooded with light.
As I meet Itachi, the god of genjutsu, and my older brother that perpetually eludes me, it becomes clear that he is toying with me, similar to in the anime. We exchange a few pleasantries, go over the mission brief, yet his words never sound sincere. Sort of like… he is not taking this seriously, like he already knows what will happen, or even set this all up.
He even gives me an accidental cut from his blade as I walk by him. An accident like that, from a master shinobi? How strange…
Yet the cut is only skin deep; it conveys a warning, not a threat. I don’t hear any malevolence in his voice either. So with a layer of trust remaining, I decide to go along with the mission.
The mission is simple, well, at least at first. Since the other squad is being hunted by their race, we will head straight into the succubus lair and hunt them down. Now here’s where it gets complicated. What awaits us isn’t a battle, but a riddle. There’s a certain game to it that we need to play to defeat them. This is where their real magic begins.
As we explore the labyrinth of hallways and connected rooms, we discover a myriad of these creatures, or in other words, we are trapped in a maze with an endless number of beautiful women. It is a nightmare!
We walk along the endless hallway, dark and uninteresting. Every time we peek into one of the large, light-flooded rooms connected to it, there they are. Dozens of them in each room. Deadly succubi in the form of women with all kinds of different appearances and outfits, yet each is undeniably beautiful. They turned the rooms into an assortment of colors, like a painting. But… they were weird.
As I said, there was no battle; no one attacked. They wouldn’t even talk to us or look our way, or bloody react at all to our presence. It was like inactive humans. They were all just there, each in a different position. Some standing while looking into various directions, others sitting on a couch, others just lying on the floor, some actually with a blanket over them, so you couldn’t even see them. It all felt eerie and surreal.
The energy they gave off didn’t have anything doll-like, though; it wasn’t dead or passive. It was more like walking into a den of sleeping lions. One wrong move, you trip, you step on a twig, and they pounce and tear the flesh from your bones before you can even blink. I was on edge.
Itachi, of course, is perfectly calm, always with an almost undetectable smirk on his face, and just following as he lets me take the lead. We actually have some small talk while we search the compound. He tells me about his colleague Reinhardt (from Overwatch).
“After every mission, people always praise him so much for protecting his team and bringing everyone home alive. I really don’t get why they keep saying that. It feels like nonsense to me,” he says.
That makes me realize Itachi, the 200IQ legendary shinobi, must have zero need for a protector with a shield as he can easily outplay any opponent on his own. In Overwatch terms, I guess you could say he’s the Genji who deflects attacks and dashes out before anyone can hit him. Just with fewer “I need healing” callouts. Our little interaction really made me smile. But we were here for our mission.
So this is the game: In an endless hallway that leads to endless rooms with deadly sleeping beauties, I have to choose one, only one, that stands out somehow. Only one does not belong. Only one is the key… though I am given no clue whatsoever that might help me identify her.
How do I make the right choice? There are so many of them, and I see no pattern that most have except one; they are all odd.
I understand now, years later, how this dream was such a great metaphor for choosing a partner. There are so many people out there you might feel attracted to. Everyone is different the closer you get to know them. And everyone has their issues. How do you choose? Do you pick the ones that stand out? That feel the most attractive? Do you follow your instincts?
We get to a room with a few that stand out a little bit more than the others. Many of the girls are wearing fancy evening dresses, but one here is dressed in a dark blue garment that stands out with its intensity. Plus, she is surrounded by duplicates of herself. That’s weird, right? Then, in the corner nearby, is a seemingly tormented girl with dark energy, trapped, as in actually stuck to the wall. Those two attracted my attention the most, and yet, I had a feeling it wasn’t so simple.
It felt like reverse psychology, that they were trying to make me choose the obvious ones, when the real key was someone hidden in plain sight, someone I had to sense just through pure intuition. And so I did exactly that. In the same room, I left those two suspicious ones be, and turned towards a girl underneath a red blanket, who my mind was just drawn to for some reason, even though nothing stood out visually. I couldn’t even see her. I wasn’t allowed to peek either; unveiling her means choosing.
So I take the risk and remove the blanket.
Underneath, I find, to everyone’s surprise, a beautiful woman. She’s wearing a fancy evening dress, like many others here are. Her’s is crimson. The moment I choose her, she comes to life. She sits up and smiles, it’s a very friendly and warm smile that makes me feel safe. She has innocent features, too.
Itachi supports my decision. He tells me I have chosen well, then smirks. He walks out of the room as the mission is now essentially over, but as he does, I get a bad feeling. Why did he smirk like that?…
I feel unsure now, but there is no going back on my choice. Now I must settle the deal. Fitting to the succubi way, I must sleep with her now. Perhaps the idea is that I was looking for one good one amongst the wicked, one angel among demons, and when I sleep with her, it lifts the curse, and all the other succubi also become good.
She pulls me in with her eyes first, then actually pulls me closer with her hands. As she was sitting up before, she now lies back down with me on top of her. Yet underneath all her smiles, her beauty, and her willingness, I sense something else.
She is afraid of me.
…
Why is she afraid of me?
Doubt keeps creeping in.
I am the final form of Sasuke in this, as he was at the end of Shippuden, so I suppose that makes me quite intimidating. However, if she really is the angel she’s making herself out to be, then she has nothing to be afraid of… right?
I put my weight on her and start to kiss her lips. It feels nice. I move my way down, over her chest, her stomach, then kiss her other lips. Despite a few doubts, I really enjoy it, so I suppose everything is fine. I must have gotten the right one.
Then I notice blood on her body. It isn’t hers.
With my head lifted a bit, I now see it dripping, drop after drop, slowly trickling down onto her vagina.
Before I can think, they keep coming faster and faster, as my lips begin to liquify. I don’t notice any pain, only the terror that floods through me.
Within seconds, more and more blood pours from my mouth. My vision fades. I try to fight it, but in the end, I collapse and die with my head between her legs.
In retrospect, I wonder what influenced the story for her not to be the one. I really felt a sort of gravitation towards her, and in the end, what is it that determines the one? This isn’t a video game; it’s not preprogrammed. What will happen can still be decided at any point in time, even after I’ve already chosen. Often in dreams, what you believe in is what will happen, so if I had felt more confident she was the one, would it have been so? Or am I wrong, and it really was predetermined that even before I chose, my mind had hardcoded who was the right one, even before I had noticed her consciously? Was the person hidden underneath the blanket coded in the neurons in my brain before I unveiled her? Was it irrelevant if I believed or doubted if I had just chosen the correct one?
So many questions that arose through this night…
Now, years later, I have also begun to understand what the dream pointed out to me so early. How dating is this wild, often terrifying maze of trying to choose one in a billion. How can you make that choice? Do you just go with whoever comes your way and hope for the best? Do you analyze and evaluate before making a decision? Do you follow attraction, trust your instincts, or make the logical choice? Years later, after having been with many women, at least for a brief time, I understand that no matter what you follow or how right it feels at the time, you can still go horribly wrong and well… bleed out with your head between a girl’s legs, or whatever the real world equivalent of that is.
Then there is something else I want to talk about. For a long time, I have been chasing god within my dreams, the essence of creation, the one who builds the worlds I explore. And through this dream, I had felt an unusual connection to that idea.
Itachi Uchiha, the god of Genjutsu. In other words, the god of illusions, or in other words yet, the god of dreams.
I realize now that he is the perfect embodiment of my subconscious. Just like in the anime, he is my big brother, who is always many steps ahead of me, knowing many things I don’t, while leading me on, yet never malevolently.
Throughout this dream, I had noticed something off about him, and I feel like this is it. I believe he might have been the direct representation of my subconscious mind. What does this mean in practice? Could he teach me the secrets of the human mind? Could he grant me answers that are normally inaccessible? What would happen if I… killed him?
This leads to more questions, similar to the previous topic: What part does, if I believe in it or not, play in this? Is he it, and that is already set in stone, or does the dream at any given time redecide what he is and may offer depending on a whim?
Or perhaps he is only another character with no deeper meaning whatsoever. It is only a theory after all…
But aren’t you also curious what would be possible were it true?
My relationship with this being, this manifestation of my subconscious, has always been rather special and meaningful in my life, and it began long before the story you read today. It has changed a lot, too, over the years. But all of that is a story for another day.