#it feels a little tma statement but im pretty proud of it

[drinker-of-paint]

Just some thoughts from listening to the first 2 eps for the Magnus protocol because brain go brrrrr

(Except I'm an idiot so any theories I have will be batshit and based on very little)

So for character alignments heres what I'm getting vibes wise

Alice: vast or spiral, haven'tquite pinned down which, maybe I'm biased but I'm leaning towards vast

Sam: eye?

Gwen: definitely eye and I weirdly like her

Colin: really not sure vaguely eye from something I cant place but mans definitely got some shit going on

And the many thoughts I felt the overwhelming need to spam In the comments if anyone's interested:

-Why do I feel like him ticking that response box is gonna be a whole thing

Tbh I'm here listening to literally everything they say being like "hm that sounds like foreshadowing" so I'm just gonna tell my brain to fuckin unclench and enjoy the ride

-Ok brain wont unclench and chill but hearing the readout im reminded I had a thought a while ago about the episode in tma with the numbers station and how when martin read the numbers out it reminded me of the voice he does when he impersonates Jon so like....

this is pretty baseless and I might look batshit crazy if this is nothing (I am feral and an idiot) but my original thought was some weird time fuckery of post 200 version of Jon subconsciously trying send a message out, but now I'm wondering If whatever amount of sentience they have their computer versions are trying to reach out

I mean obviously but if they start reading out numbers my brain is going to start making a noise like a struggling computers ventilation fan

-We thinking that the bits that sound like it's being played through a security camera are some eye avatar watching em? (Had to stop myself saying Jon because my brainrot is making me think wishfully but if our lads are only talking through technology it's not too far a shot right?)

-Haha red canary in the mine shaft

-Also "badgrav" sounds like a vast avatars username

-Really enjoyed the reddit forum one. I think ik really gonna like the less strict format for the not statements. Incidents? Is that what they're called?

-Ok fuck just call out my drawing process

Hyperfixate

Be proud

Go to bed

Wake up

Hate it

Make 100 edits

Concern those around me

[driflew]

Lucid (adj.)

Lu·cid (/ˈlo͞osəd/)

· showing ability to think clearly, especially in the intervals between periods of confusion or insanity

· (of a dream) experienced with the dreamer feeling awake, aware of dreaming, and able to control events consciously

Dream for April 8, 2021

I can’t think of the last time I wrote about a nightmare in one of these journals. I think it might’ve been in 2020 or 2019, because I don’t think I’ve had one this year. I feel most people would assume lucid dreamers never have nightmares, but that’s not true. They’re rarer, sure, since I can usually just turn them off, but I still have them. I had one last night.

I’ve written plenty about my sleeping problems. It was the same thing as always--The line between “lucid dream” and “awake and confused” is thin, and I was straddling it again. I can’t remember what I was dreaming about, but it was boring enough that I woke myself up a little trying to find something more interesting to dream about, and when I checked my phone clock it was 3:20-something AM. When a dream is boring, there’s nothing to do but wait to pass back out and hope for a better one, so I rolled onto my side to try.

My eye caught on my window. I usually close my curtains before bed, but I forgot to last night. I like to say it’s because the sunlight wakes me up too early in the morning (which is true!), but honestly, I just don’t like being able to see out the window at night.

My window faces my backyard. It’s little, and at the back it gives way to a forest. It’s cute during the day, but at night, it’s all looming shapes and dark splotches. With bad vision and an active imagination, it’s way too easy to see things out there in the dark. Especially when my body’s awake and my head’s still dreaming.

That’s what happened last night. I imagined something out there in the treeline, peering back at my window, and suddenly I’d convinced myself there really was something out there. I didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t matter. I just knew it wanted to get to me, and that I didn’t want it to.

That’s the thing about lucid dreaming. It’s not total control of your dreams, just awareness that you’re dreaming. And stuff like this is hard to control, because the less I want to think about it, the more I’m actively doing so. The more that thing in the trees stressed me out, the more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself it was actually there, the more it stressed me out... And I was still half asleep, so this all felt real, even while the part of me that was awake knew better.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was probably a few minutes, but it felt like much longer. I couldn’t stop thinking about it shuffling around in the trees, wanting to come in, until I heard a real sound from the trees. It was the crack of a branch, breaking under a heavy foot.

Now that I’m awake, I can say that it was probably some terribly timed deer, but at that moment, I was convinced the thing had actually started stepping out from the trees, and it was coming.

I got up and closed the curtains. I didn’t see it out there, obviously, but I was afraid to look for too long. Moving around was good, though. It was easier to shake my head of the dream and go back to bed once I’d reminded myself of what was real.

Writing it all down now, it all feels really silly. Nothing like a nice morning to put a bad night into perspective.

Dream for April 9, 2021

I dreamt about that thing again last night. I don’t really have recurring dreams, but I guess my subconscious wasn’t done with it yet. This time, it was inside, at the foot of the stairs, and it was coming up.

I was sort of waking up when the dream came, so I shook my head a little and rolled onto my side to try to clear the dream away. Every time I rolled over, though, my head would just put it back at the bottom of the stairs, and it’d start its climb all over again.

Sometimes, when a dream is particularly unpleasant, I sit up and try to orient myself again. The dream-thing made it about halfway up the stairs, and the dread I felt was nearly suffocating. I sat up, near-frantic as I looked around the room, taking in the details. My room was blurry without my glasses, but still more distinct than the shapeless dream-thing and the memory of the staircase.

I remember taking note of as much of the room as I could, little stuff I couldn’t remember. Stuff like the hazy shapes of my clothes hanging in the closet, or the books on my shelves. Couldn’t make out individual shirts or read any spines, but the patterns were more than I felt I could have come up with in a dream. Granted, when I recall doing that now, the memory is just as fuzzy as a dream would be--My inability to retain finer details is exactly why I did it. It was grounding.

Of course, that only made the creak worse.

A little over halfway up the staircase, there’s a step that always creaks, and at that moment I was sure I heard it. The dream-thing was out there, and was coming.

My body was wide awake, and I thought my head was awake, too. But if my head really was awake, I would have remembered that houses creak at night. So I know I must have been lingering in that dream, letting my imagination get the best of me.

I got up again. It worked to clear my head last time, so I decided to try it again. This time, I locked the door. If I was making the thing up, I could decide the lock was an effective barrier. I told myself that if I locked the door, it couldn’t get in, and I went back to bed.

I didn’t sleep well. Pretty sure I only snagged an hour before the sun came up. I still feel really tired.

It’s silly. I know that. I certainly felt silly about it this morning when I went to get breakfast--Believe it or not, I actually managed to forget all about the dream for a little when I first woke up. Then I tried to leave this morning and walked face first into the door because it didn’t open when I tugged it. My face still sort of stings, but it was pretty funny.

Thinking back, I don’t actually know what the thing looks like. That’s just how it is with dreams, though, isn’t it? At least, that’s how it is with mine. They’re all indistinct, and I just know things, even when they’re formless like that.

Dream for April 10, 2021

It was on the landing last night. It didn’t move this time. It just watched my door. I didn’t see it or hear it, but I felt it.

I tried to think about other things. I flipped through this journal before I went to bed last night, finding old dreams I liked, so I had other things to dream about last night. I couldn’t hold onto any of them for very long. I was too tired to stay focused. My head just kept drifting back to the Thing on the landing.

I got up again. I stopped in front of the door. I thought about the Thing on the landing. For a moment, I entertained the idea of opening the door. I could look out there right then and prove to myself that there was nothing, that my house was as empty as it was every other night, that I was alone.

I pictured opening the door. I pictured the Thing on the landing. I pictured opening the door and looking at the landing, and when I pictured the landing, I pictured...

My fingers closed, not around the handle, but on the lock. I was being irrational, but my courage was asleep. I didn’t want to look out there--I couldn’t! The Thing was out there. I couldn’t let it see me. I couldn’t let it get inside.

I didn’t think much about what I did next. My door opens inwards, so I grabbed the heaviest thing I could lift by myself--my nightstand--and dragged it over to the door. I told myself that the movement would wake me up. I took in as much of the experience as I could. I felt the wood under my hands--chilled slightly, sturdy and unyielding, covered in the faintest ridges making up the pattern of the grain. My arms trembled slightly, a mix of exertion and exhaustion. I narrowly missed my foot when I dropped it down, and I winced with the idea of pain.

I was only validating my fear. Every step I took as I crossed the room with the nightstand made the Thing more real.

It was stupid. It was so stupid. I feel like an idiot now, looking back in the light of day. But all I can think about is how drained I felt after I got back into bed, and how I didn’t get any sleep at all. How I haven’t got much sleep since I first noticed the Thing.

Looking back, I don’t remember what the wood felt like.

Logically, I know that the wood was cold, hard, and bumpy. That’s what all wood feels like. But I can’t feel it now. My hands can feel the rigid plastic pencil and the soft paper of this book, but they can’t feel the table. It felt so real in that moment, but in my head? There’s no real difference between a memory and a dream. How can I tell what during that night was real? I can picture dragging the nightstand. I can picture grabbing the door and opening it. They’re both hazy, draped in the films of tired darkness, poor eyesight, and imagined recollection.

Maybe I did open the door. I know I didn’t, but do I know that? I also knew the Thing was there. It’s so hard to tell. I thought the daylight was supposed to bring clarity.

I just pinched myself. If I were dreaming, that would wake me, right? Except the pain of that gesture is gone now, and all I have is the memory of it. Memory isn’t tangible, it’s not real. It’s fickle, and malleable as any dream. How am I supposed to trust it? How do I know what was real?

I’m going to put the nightstand back at my bedside now.

Dream April 11

I’m breaking my one rule with this book. I never write at night, but I need to write this down now. I’m hoping maybe it will help. I always feel more clear when I’m writing in this book. I feel the pencil in my hand, with the plastic grip I’ve picked apart. I feel the paper under the side of my palms where I’m resting on the open pages. I feel the pattern of the faux-leather cover against the skin of my thighs. I can feel my sheets, soft below me, and the slightly scratchy material of my shirt. I feel the uncomfortable bend in my back where I hunch over this journal. I feel where my thighs stick together, and where my elbows dig into my sides. I feel my eyes as they ache with exhaustion, and from looking at the reading light when I flicked it on. I feel my bangs brushing at my glasses, tickling the skin there. I feel awake. I feel real. I feel the Thing outside my door.

I know it’s there. I don’t hear it moving, and I can’t see its shadow in the crack under my door, but I can feel it, just like I feel my lungs fill and deflate when I breathe. I know it’s out there, right outside the door.

I didn’t lock the door before I went to bed. One last burst of logic. I thought maybe if I didn’t indulge it this time that I wouldn’t have this dream, but I haven’t even fallen asleep. I didn’t fall asleep yesterday, either. I’m starting to wonder if I ever fell asleep--Was I awake this entire time, every time the Thing appeared? I can’t remember.

Did I really move the nightstand yesterday, or lock the door the night before? The nightstand is next to me now, as if it never moved at all. It’s cool to the touch, but when I pull my hand away from it, I don’t remember where in my fingers I felt the grain.

I want to lock the door now, but I can’t. I don’t want it to hear me and realize the door is unlocked. I don’t know what I’d do if I got up and it opened the door. I don’t know what it would do if it opened the door. I don’t want to find out.

The line between “lucid dream” and “awake and confused” is so very thin, as is the line between memory and dream. The intersection of both is where I exist now.

I’m unsure of anything except the exact moment I’m in, knowing only what I can feel.

It’s not making any noise out there. I don’t hear it. I don’t need to. I don’t need to hear my own heart to know it’s beating. I know it’s out there, as surely as I know I’m alive. If I am real, so is the Thing. I can feel my heart, thundering away in my chest, and I can feel that Thing wants to get inside my room. I can feel that it wants to get to me, to my heart. I can feel that it wants to tear the beating thing straight out of my chest.

Some people believe lucid dreaming is awareness, clarity. Some people believe it’s control. I’m neither aware nor clear. Am I in control? I don’t feel it.

I don’t think I’ll be getting any sleep tonight, either.

April 12

There was a scratch on my door, on the outside, under the door handle. That wasn’t there before. I would have noticed something like that, right? Maybe little details escape me sometimes, but I’ve lived here for years. I would have noticed that before.

Which means it was here. It really was here last night.

The lock won’t work. I know it. When I think back to the snap of that branch, and the creak on the stairs, they both feel so significant. A resounding snap, a downed tree shattered under its heel. A long, terrible groan, the wood protesting below a massive weight. What will it do when it gets to me?

I don’t know what I’m up against, but I’ve always had a terrible imagination. I haven’t been able to do anything today but sit and think of snapping, of crushing, of clawing. The longer I think, the worse it becomes. I can’t think about anything else--The more I try to turn my head away, the more I find myself stuck.

My door is open. I can see the scratch. If I can see it, it’s real. When I look down to write, I forget the details. I can’t picture its exact length, or how far away it’s set from the handle. So I leave the door open and I look at it again and again, and I know that it’s real.

I broke my arm once, as a child. I remember lying in the dirt. I remember sobbing, crying for help. I remember staring up at the tree I’d fallen from, unable to move off the ground. I don’t remember the pain. I don’t remember what it felt like to land, or for the bone to snap. Were the trees unclear because the tears blurred my eyes? Or is that my memory?

I see that I wrote last night that I didn’t hear the Thing, but there’s a scratch on the door. The Thing must have left it last night. Wouldn’t I have heard it, like I heard the branch and the stair? I can imagine those. I can imagine the scratching just as clearly. It must have been clawing at the handle. It scratched all night. The noise kept me awake. How could I sleep with all that scratching? I don’t even want to look at the door. With all that scratching, the wood must be gouged all over. I can picture the damage so clearly.

I keep thinking about what it will do when it comes tonight. I put the book down and I stare at my window for hours. There’s a bit of light coming out between the curtains, and it’s fading quickly. I picture the Thing. I still don’t know what it looks like. I know it’s big, and heavy, and it has horrible claws.

I imagine snapping a twig below my heel. I imagine breaking a branch over my knee. I imagine crushing an empty soda can between my hands. I imagine cutting into the stomach of a plush toy. I imagine tearing a wishbone in two. I imagine crushing a bug between my thumb and my index. I imagine rending the leg off of a chicken at dinner. I imagine popping the head off of a doll. I imagine myself. So easily, with so little resistance.

I can’t begin to think about what it will feel like. I doubt I’ll know until it happens.

I don’t imagine I’ll have an entry tomorrow. At the very least, I know I won’t be dreaming.