dream log

Dreamt about...an arranged marriage...? Despite what it sounds like it was actually a pleasant one and I wish I'd had more time with it.

I can't remember the reason (probably parents) but I was told I would be marrying someone this Sunday (it was Wed/Thurs-ish, much like the actual day I had this dream). I did not know her at all, not even what she looked like, only that she was a woman? It seems a friend (not a close friend but more...acquaintance-ish) actually knew her though, and mentioned she'd actually bought stuff from my shop before. I only knew her name as Bunny and this friend gave me a couple of things to look at to know her a little better (not very much, honestly, it was on the level of some posts she made on the Internet).

I don't think I got to see or speak to her in the dream, although I was hoping to coordinate some kind of a meeting - even though this was technically arranged, I felt like I had to put in effort, understand if I could live with her, etc. and honestly felt kind of shy/apologetic about it. Something about the idea of actually getting married? Wearing a wedding ring? Did we have to go ring shopping? I don't think we have rings??? Also I guess we gotta k-...k-kiss...??? And also worrying about how she felt about the whole thing - I was only vaguely aware that she was sort of a fan of my work and I wanted to also be a likeable person to her? I really wish the dream had gotten to the actual day of the wedding because I was so curious about what was going to happen.

Anyway, yeah. Gay dreams.

Dream from a couple of nights ago so I don't remember a lot of details.

Not sure where we were but there was this dude in me and my brother's social vicinity. Guy whose vibes felt kind of off. My brother and I were mourning the death of our brother named Calvin (who does not exist IRL), and this guy goes up behind me, wraps an arm around my neck and threatens to hurt me if I said anything. Brought this up to my friends when he wasn't around and they were very supportive?

I think we had to go on some kind of adventure to get rid of this guy? And it was difficult and scary but my friends were there and even the Korean guy I made friends with at KCP showed up to help (I hope he's doing well IRL). Not a terribly concrete description but even though it was a bad situation I felt comforted by how my friends were so willing to do everything they could to help.

Dreamt that I was...in a zombie outbreak of some sort? And that it was some kind of a game that could be reset? I'm not too sure. I was Sherry (in the cute winter outfit) and dropped right in the middle of the outbreak - although I should also note that it wasn't really zombies in the decomposing animated bodies sense, it was people who were like, actively attacking other people on sight. I think once they killed someone that person would become a zombie too.

So anyway I got placed in a cornered-off place. I think I had some friends who were still with me, but it was given that not everyone I knew would be safe. I was given something like a cannon where I could target zombies and destroy them effectively, but this would alert them and they would close in quickly, so I hit them with a few blasts and started running. I was in a building that was reminiscent of large buildings that aren't malls or offices...like, it was all passageways. I fought some of them at the start but eventually found it much faster and safer to avoid being noticed and kept running to try and find a safe place. At one point I felt like I was being slowed down and saw there was one zombie clinging to my bag, and she was making threats about destroying it because it was important to me - I don't know if I actually did do it, it was more of a concept in my head, but I thought of cutting off her arms and beating her face in for good measure. I was terrified. But also on some level I was thinking "it's just a game, it won't hurt, I can do it better next time".

All throughout this I was going up, on escalators, because there was just no safe way down. In open spaces I looked at lower floors and saw that there were zombies everywhere, so I could only go up. At some point I came to a place that was similar to a carpark without cars, clearly not a public facing place, and met a large...entity...that was kind of reminiscent of the Vanu Vanu in FFXIV. They talked, and seemed friendly...it seemed like they were helping people get to safety, and were pretty nice if just particularly insistent on holding hands with fingers intertwined. They had pretty big hands. I wasn't fond of the skin contact with a stranger but went with it anyway, especially since I was tired.

I was led up in an elevator and found a community of survivors. On one hand I was worried about COVID resulting from the proximity of so many people, on the other I was getting hungry...so I went to a soba shop that was there. For some reason, my family (except my dad) was there also. And they had fruit soba? I thought that was weird, so I just went for soba with some veggies...everything on their menu had soup. I think it tasted like Komoro Soba - delicious and warm and comforting. I wanted to get a dessert that had the blue and white ice cream from the Osaka Aquarium, but was told it probably wasn't available as it was a summer dessert, so went for a smaller one with shiratama, though I later found out that it was available. Didn't feel strongly about it though.

Anyway my main concern was that this appeared to be a temporary stopping point and the only way to keep going was higher, but didn't know if there was truly a way out from there. I didn't know if maybe this building was connected to something else, or if it was a dead end, or if someone would have flying vehicles waiting to collect survivors and so on. I don't remember anything else after this though.

Dream of...some kind of stealth and investigation. There was...someone...who was important? I don't remember how? And he was involved in some high stakes political things I think, and although it was known that he had died by suicide (hanging) his ghost or something like that implied that the truth was far more terrible (like it was a murder or something, probably), and bade us find it. "Us" being...apparently some combination of friends, family and goons that I don't know IRL...and so we journeyed into a building that was filled with some opposing military presence.

Somewhere on the outskirts where there were still people and "normal" business (under the impression that this business was a little shady), I vaguely remember having to casually walk across a walkway in a restaurant? at a team member's signal to join the rest of the team who was at a counter table pretending to be normal and listening to the rest of the conversation there, then joined by a family member who could not and would not stop talking despite my best efforts to shush her (this is a thing that also happens IRL). Fortunately this did not cause any problems and we moved on.

So we went deeper into the building, and had to be really careful. I remember shooting down a guy floating outside the window who was shooting at us and it was kind of like force of will, like it was pretty ineffective until I overruled the dream (still not a lucid dream). The room was filled with unidentified objects and it was old and abandoned and dark - we had to find secret entrances through some hints from deeper inside, like odd lights in a closet or sounds and all that. Periodically the ghost would show up and say something portentous...the moment got graver and more solemn...

At one point I was in a room with another person and an enemy was coming along. I had to hide, and picked a corner where there were a lot of garbage bags on the ground filled with something soft, burying myself under the pile hoping I wasn't visible. I'm not sure what the other person did, but I felt more weight landing on me and heard the sound of the enemy leaving after. Got through that safely.

And then really deep inside when we were very near the entrance of the truth there was a bit of panic over being followed, and my small part of the team at the time dove under a bed...and the other part of the team arrived, thought there was something going on, and attempted to also get under the bed. Anyway that was fine. There was a cabinet in the room on a shelf or something that was glowing blue-white from the inside, indicating where to go next, and supposedly this was pretty much it, the real truth was beyond this point.

I'm not really sure what happened around them but I was in a room where I was hunting for a sound while a friend was rummaging through some stuff - I was following the sound, touching some boxes to feel if they were vibrating from the sound, and eventually opened a box in a drawer that opened into a deep dark hole with colourful painted walls. Hesitated because it was, of course, a vertical hole, but my friend hopped in, so I did too, and I think I had to wake up around then.

Hm...this was certainly a dream...

Dreamt that my brother was suddenly going to Japan to study for 2 months, and that I had previously lived there for 3 months (rather than the full 1 year I actually did). This was something of a surprise; he was also very cagey on the details and I had to pry a bit to get the 2 months number out of him. Apparently he was going to live in a building with glass panels on the front, that was directly opposite of my old place (this building did not exist IRL, and I kind of have the feeling I may or may not have dreamt of being in this building before in another Japan-related dream). On one hand I hoped he'd enjoy it...but on the other hand, I was so immensely jealous. I think I cried in the dream, from the overwhelming emotion of missing my life there, and still feel like I could if I think too hard about it. I tried looking for excuses to visit Japan while he was there, too - checking up on Comitia (just over) and Design Festa (could not find the next date of the event), though I didn't find any and woke up before I got anywhere with that.

That's just it, really...I wonder if I've stopped having "leaving Japan" dreams and am now having "I want to go back" dreams. Sometimes I close my eyes and visualise places I've been in all around me. I'm afraid of forgetting it all or just...growing distant from it. I know it's had an impact on my life that's bigger than just being in a place at a certain time, that can't be scrubbed away by just the passage of time and fading memory...but I'm still afraid I'll forget the time when I felt like I had control at home. I don't even know what I'd do if I COULD go back - I didn't even go outside that much because of travelling costs and also I've seen so many of the touristy places in Tokyo already, and I'm not really into any anime at the moment. Back then there was a lot of just...regular life...days that were the same...days when I still felt trapped...days when I was deeply anxious about the future...those were the kinds of things that made up a lot of those days, really, just peppered with maybe more interesting days by virtue of being around different people a lot, and there being no COVID. Maybe I'm looking back at it with rose-tinted glasses, but I felt like I really had a home then...rather than a place I guess I live in. Things have improved compared to before I left for Japan, because I was so depressed when I got back that I needed changes in my life, and my parents made me a space in our cramped apartment, so I feel like I shouldn't complain...I have a lot more freedom now and some actual storage space that no one pokes around. I wish I could say this was enough, but it's still a struggle. I lost some freedoms I had for that one year and I still mourn them - simple things, like sleeping with all the lights out, picking out the clothes I want to wear, going places without being interrogated, going to bed at a healthy time because no one else was up...and I got them back for the span of a week, earlier this year, when I went to Japan with my friends. I miss it so much and I cannot explain it to my family, because all they see of it is me expending my resources, having to take care of myself, just so I can play for a fleeting moment. I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess I'm just tired and miss a time when I didn't feel so tired all the time, or at least, felt like I could make myself less tired when I needed to. I'm looking forward to the next Japan trip again, I guess...

Weird dream that was...kind of funny though.

For whatever reason (some spy operation or something maybe) I got hired as a cook for a military force that I think were actually the Garleans? I got a blue uniform and a time to show up for duty, and was also tasked with bringing along some eggs. The time was written on a piece of paper, but the notation was weird and I couldn't quite understand it. In any case I figured I needed to prepare for this, so when it neared the time I thought it was supposed to be, I asked a family member to give me my clothes but it turned out to be my pyjamas instead of the uniform, which I found infuriating, but also I didn't really have the time. I remember running around the building to locate the place I was supposed to be, and passing by a lot of other people and getting lost and kind of anxious.

At some point I did a reset (like reloading a game) so I could do this better, and also get eggs. I went downstairs again and to the nearest supermarket to buy a carton of eggs. I brought these eggs back before the appointed time, a friend (Toko I think) took one and realised it was salted eggs, so I went back to the supermarket for fresh eggs. They did not have fresh eggs. I got worried about showing up with the wrong eggs, and Toko offered to help and try to visit another supermarket. For whatever reason this was America and I expected it to not be a walkable distance, but we could only walk. The dream ended here.

Had a...kind of bad dream of sorts? It's rare that I have one that I consider actually "bad", so it's more like...annoying...I think? I don't remember most of it, but there was a specific part that stood out...

This part happened on the context that I'd had a previous dream where I'd been struck by a terrible curse and was trapped in a haunted house, with a creepy void features ghost woman trying to catch and kill me (in top down RPGMaker format, even). Through persistence I managed to avoid, escape, and break the curse so I was now safe.

This time we were in a place...it's hard to describe now because I don't have a strong memory of it now but it was outside, dark, kind of reminded me of the hospital with the chickens living on the grounds. We (me and family) were there for some reason, felt like tourism, just to see the place, but it also felt a little familiar, like we knew the place. Fuzzy dream feelings I think. And we saw there were a lot of chickens, more than usual. My dad joked about the time I got cursed and ask if I should be worried about the chickens (apparently, some unusual phenomena being a harbinger of the curse), and I said no, it's only a problem if there's one with a human face.

And we found a house that was empty and dark and poked around inside and what do you know, the curse showed up...??? This part is very fuzzy and inconsistent, because I'm sick, and the respiratory system congestion was causing me to drift in and out of sleep but not completely, so I recognised on some very shallow level that it was a dream, but also I was experiencing it right now. I remember getting out and locking the door, and then thinking what if we accidentally locked ourselves inside? And so we did end up having to deal with the curse again, but also, I was worried that having this cursed dream the second time meant something terrible (terrified of a saruyume situation, no doubt).

I don't remember too much else except the terror of having to navigate the RPGMaker cursed house again (it was in a different format this time) and being so extremely annoyed that I'd survived the first time and had to deal with this again. Also: I'd never actually had that first dream. It appears to have been context made up by this one dream.

Dream of...travelling. There's some stuff that had the vibe of being vaguely uncomfortable while travelling overseas in winter clothing but I don't recall it well. Something about wanting to go to a place, I had 2 people tagging along so I felt the pressure to do this correctly and not be scolded/blamed for getting it wrong. But weirdly, I could find a bus route there but not back; it seemed like the return journey stopped short of our original location.

In another part, I was looking at an interactable photo panel thing (similar to street view) that was supposed to be for giving instructions on how to reach a theme park-like location in Japan. I was "just looking" because my parents have (in real life) cancelled any intentions/plans to visit Japan due to the nuclear waste water issue, though they were saying why don't you use a mouse it's easier. I did have a mouse. But I just used arrow keys I guess.

At some point during this navigation it was clear my parents were on it, so uh I guess I fully committed to the journey (on foot) and it became real life. This will make no sense because I don't know how to describe it but there was something about a Disney song and a twink in an Alice in Wonderland costume (reversed a transformation from being a scorpion, happy ending). Travel entertainment? Anyway we approached the destination and it was not looking good, there was a demolition? company there and the ground was looking kind of dug up. But it didn't say the park was closed yet, so we kept going. We walked past the office deeper into the place and saw someone putting up lanterns, so clearly it was still open for business? Or at least...the only thing that I saw open was the gift shop so I went to have a look. I'd come all this way after all, so I wanted a souvenir at the least...a nice lady introduced some stuff they had on sale. That was roughly where it stopped being interesting, I think.

Oh it's been a while since I had one of these. It's in bits and pieces but writing down the parts I do remember.

I was in SG, back at home, but getting ready to head back to Japan. I remember sighing and saying to Papa that I missed having my own room. Not that I didn't appreciate having a work room, but having a bed in my own room, you know? But also at the same time, that would be bad, because then my bed and my work would be too close together and I wouldn't have anything resembling a commute. (I think he understood but didn't have any solutions.) This time when I went back to Japan I would be going back to a room that I had been staying at for school - not Grandeur Kotobuki, but a new place I was renting after that. It was a smaller room, with blue walls and a single bed. I didn't see this room but recalled it from memory, so my mental picture isn't complete, but I still felt relief at the idea of having my own bedroom. And so I think I did go, and there was a bit about textbooks and study materials and stuff - I'm not sure what I was studying. It felt like general education. But...you know. It was about the yearning, both for my independent life, and also for being in education. I wish I could go back to education for no reason other than to be in school.

In a later part I was sort of exploring? an area that I thought was FFXIV but actually isn't, just some kind of big mall or something. Ang was around and playfully chasing me so I was trying to avoid him, and go to a quiet place to log out...but the game bugged and I couldn't log out, so I'd have to close the window, but while fumbling with the controls I ended up having to talk to him anyway and just explained it, said sorry I'd have to go. I don't know if I actually DID close the window successfully, but later I met Lulu and apparently she knew some of my NY classmates, which threw me for a loop with the small world coincidences. There was also something about some displayed knitting with variegated yarn (displayed in embroidery hoops) that didn't stripe in the expected way, and turns out it was because it was printed on after it was knitted, or something like that. Weird stuff.

I had a dream about...a situation...that I don't clearly remember...and I just realised it's still affecting me, somehow.

I don't remember exactly what happened, but I ended up having to defend queerness (might have specifically been genderqueerness) to my parents/Mimi and I may have come out, and it was just taken really badly and it was awkward and sucked. I was sad and angry and trying to act like I didn't care, or at least trying not to show weakness knowing that it wasn't safe. That was mostly it...I was friends with a small boy who was going through some awkwardness of his own and he cheered me up a little, somehow, or at least distracted me.

I remember having a very small car (it was more like a box on wheels) and carrying/pushing it through residential streets to get it to school and park it (because I couldn't drive, and also because it wasn't convenient to drive through these narrow and messy streets). I was running late but I had to do this and this was my excuse, I guess. The parking part took some of my friends to convince someone who was going to leave his parking lot to...actually get moving immediately...and it somehow turned into a group effort to push the car into place, and we cheered. My parents/Mimi were watching, for some reason, and I felt like the cheering was part of pretending to be OK despite everything going on.

Now, awake, I realised that the homo-/transphobia wasn't real when I was digging around for why I felt off today...and I'm kind of a little sad that that's what I expect and my reaction and all, but I guess I've also had at least one other dream where they were supportive, so maybe it's just a random thing.

Dream where I was in a place that was...like an activity place for roller blading, but they weren't normal roller blades. In fact I'm pretty sure they were Air Treks from Air Gear but weren't called such. There were upgrades for parts and it was one of those expensive hobbies, but had a game-like system where parts were obviously better than other parts and ranked as such. I had the cash to spend on upgrades and I wanted to spend a little, though I did have a decent pair already I believe. I say "I believe", because I didn't actually get to use them much. I kept thinking throughout that I wanted to find a spot and time to start practicing with getting comfortable moving around on them.

I slid around with regular shoes at one point and got praised for that, weirdly enough.

Also there was a...beach, or something, a very small one, with water that was not passable, and it was apparently evening or so...and when I stood on the left side facing the water, I could see constellations outlined in the sky with pictures. It faded when I moved to the right though, where it was still brighter and didn't really look like evening.

All in all it felt like a "could've been extremely fun" dream except I never got to the fun part (skating). I guess I don't really have action-filled dreams very often to begin with.

Dream of...taking an exam. It was a complete mess with several sections and stuff. I don't even remember what the exam was about, only that it had written portions and I had to organise them within a file. I did this exam honestly, though I had a minor panic moment when submitting my work because I was worried I didn't get the format correct. The examiner was nice and helped me make sure they were arranged correctly, though.

Another part of the dream - we (me, Yang, Mummy and Mimi) went to some...kind of shopping mall thing? There was some kind of a zombie/monster apocalypse or something and we were trying to...find somewhere to wait, or something, in relative safety. There was this big building that was pretty much safe, but there was a security guard and a queue, so we tried to get closer through maybe a side entrance. We reached a small metal gate (like, not a turnstile, but similar to a Minecraft fence gate in metal pipes) and saw Doraemon running around on the opposite side. Exercised caution and waited for him to come around to see if he was friendly, but he ran to the gate and opened his mouth to reveal a lot of sharp teeth in a cheap 3d horror game way. We were, at least, safe behind the fence so we turned back and headed towards the building entrance to see if we could get in.

The entrance consisted of a grumpy security guard who was more or less gatekeeping entry to the building, but it was admitting people at least. However, there was a lizard place at the narrow entrance people had to go through, and I watched as it lunged and bit off a man's hand for no reason. This appeared to be completely random, but there was no other legal way to enter the building, so we went through. The lizard did not bite us.

The building was quiet and kind of dilapidated. I remember seeing something like a crane game machine, but it was old, dusty and broken. Just...abandoned. I think we were supposed to wait here to be fetched in a car or something? Walking through the building showed we could exit from the back side, but for safety purposes we didn't go that way. I think we were all wary, but it did appear to be safe.

Received some packages at the door (currently I'm waiting to receive sticker sheets and some art card, so that's where that came from). One of the packages was ok, but the other was supposed to be black tissue paper, and it was brown instead. Mentioned this to the delivery guy who was checking if the goods were correct.

Offered on an adopt that was...sort of like, Instagram aesthetic? It was a full ref sheet, but also done on a base. The previous person offered $20, so I doubled that to $40, and was waiting to see what would happen while running around physically. I was running around as a black wolf with feathered wings, but this was only visual and I was basically running on hands and feet. So I ran around some place that looked like a mess of void decks and the outside of a small mall. If I spread my arms I could use the wings, and sort of...flapped to fly higher, then pointed towards the ground to glide fast, and did that repeatedly. Was half awake at this time.

Eventually went inside a mall and tried to trick my way into getting food (think I was some character this time rather than myself) and sort of got caught by some women who knew I always did this stuff, and got dragged to sit with them probably receiving some food in the process.

Something about an AR game, I think. Doing things granted you stuff but also there were UI rewards that allowed you to change parts of the UI theme. I don't recall what the game itself was about but I was really fascinated by the UI skins and was trying to collect a particular clean white theme with blue accents and a 4-pointed star motif. It looked really good although it kind of felt like I was the only one of my friends to particularly care about it.

Then...going shopping with family. I think it was a crafts store, and I felt like I wanted stuff but wasn't sure what to get. There was a B-movie? on display that I can't recall the content of but was slightly morbidly fascinated by. It was, for some reason, in medium format (camera terms). Looked around, particularly for transparent adhesive film to seal my sticker sheets with for home cutting. Saw some paper trimmers and stuff. But things were, for some reason, all in weird sizes: letter, B, C, not even a common size like B4 or B5 or something. Probably thought that it was an American thing.

Later, before going home pretty late, Yang decided to play some...prize game...not sure if it was a crane game but something similar. Managed to catch a couple of things (stand-ins for the prizes, which were figures like the floats for water games, and were metallic in colour) and he asked me to get them out of the machine because he was going to do something. There was a skip here between me reaching in to grab them and redeeming the prizes (that I also noted in the dream because I couldn't remember what just happened) so I came to already holding the prizes. So I went to look for him and introduce the prizes, which were...various flavours of primary school uniforms but adult-sized, which was quite funny. Think there was a camp/class T-shirt in there as well. I think there were other things, but I just remember the shirts most.

One of those...mildly anxiety-inducing dreams.

I had what looked like a butadon on me, but it was actually human meat and it was evidence of a murder. I didn't kill the person or had anything to do with it really, except that I was supposed to...dispose of the body? and I couldn't decide what to do with it, and so was holding on to it. I didn't want to eat it because I felt kind of guilty, like, I wanted to at least bury the meat. But I didn't want it to be found by people investigating the murder and tracing it to me as the person who buried it (suspecting me of the murder). So I should eat it, but that would be cannibalism, and even worse if it got traced back to me despite destruction of the evidence.

I did somehow lose the food at some point, but wasn't sure where. Might actually have eaten it. Not too sure about what else happened, but something about meeting people, and being worried that they'd find out about the human meat and be a lot less friendly (I think they might've known the dead person and/or thought they were still alive, or something in that vein), so I was very nervous and trying to act normal. Looking for information about an anime I don't watch? I didn't really care about it, but it felt comforting to do something that made me look busy for other reasons.

A dream about going on (family) vacation. I don't recall where to, but not too far away. I was still quite excited nonetheless, and panicked a little when I realised I wasn't prepared because it was so sudden...though mostly, I just wanted to grab my red flannel and hat. I was told I could grab them later since we weren't taking our luggage yet, but the hat somehow ended up on my head anyway (before that I was wearing a brown baseball cap that I think was my old AXN cap).

The hotel room was extremely large with a high ceiling - it could, in fact, have been a small house. Just enormous, and fully furnished with couches and stuff. Except that in the far end of the room there were large bugs (moths, probably) flying around a blue flame and getting themselves set on fire, which was...a hazard. Also there was artwork on the wall, something like a phoenix painting? on wood? that I thought was also prone to catching on fire. As it turns out, the largest moths were...humanoid? and then some weird sexually explicit stuff happened that I won't describe in detail (not that I can, having forgotten most of it).

The dream kind of struck me as...being of something I used to consider quite...mundane (vacations to nearby locations)...and I thought, what a momentuous occasion it'd be to go on the first trip after COVID blows over! I've not had a vacation in 2 years. I've had times when I shirked work for a day or so to work on other deadlines, or a "mental health day", but...not a true planned vacation. I've been finding myself dreaming about summer...sometimes, winter. Even though I hate the clothing part of winter vacations...the weariness of putting on and taking off outer layers, hauling myself with all the extra weight upright to go outside for a few minutes for the sake of some attraction that I'm not really that into, shuffling along paths that are slippery...not to mention my sensitivity to having things on my skin in general...I kind of miss it now.

More than anything...I miss going around at my own pace...not having to wait for people...I think those experiences were filled with the nervousness of not knowing what to do because I wasn't told anything, but knowing my own plans...and being able to act on them...was good. I wasn't the best at taking care of myself, walking until I was way tired, and getting hungry because I was too anxious to go into a random small restaurant. But...being able to stop because something completely mundane caught my eye...being able to walk past something that should've been an attraction but wasn't really to me...changing my plans because why not...I'd like to experience that again.

A dream in parts.

The part I remember most clearly is being with friends and being, for some reason I don't entirely remember, immune to being charged for crimes. It might have been on a reality level (it's just a game) rather than realistically not being found and caught. I know Twin was present, and I THINK Jay was also present, so it was probably the SG crew of my most immediate friend circle. For some reason it was cold like in winter. I also vaguely remember something about wearing my winter jacket and fixing the fur ruff on the hood. Wearing it with the hood down, hiding in it. Maybe that's why I felt I couldn't get caught?

We decided to rob a bus, so we got on, and threatened the driver to give us all the chocolate. Even though we were immune to any possible comeuppance we were still a little nervous (though didn't wear masks or anything) and didn't make eye contact with people as we got the chocolate in a bag and escaped.

We quickly made our way back "home" (did not resemble any home I'd been in, though Mimi was there) and tried to act natural like we hadn't made off with a bag of stolen chocolate. I offered Twin my mochi jellyfish for warmth. Very warm.

Dreamt that I was in...something like a mall...and was trying to draw a piece. For a zine. I don't know why even but I think it was a group piece of Genshin characters? Probably commissioned or something because I felt no attachment to these characters and was treating it like a job, though since it was a zine piece I was also in that space of awkwardly trying to draw soomething good for print.

And so I was trying to use a particular corner of a mall as reference for a background. A friend (some kid) was there; I don't think I know this person for real. She was talking to me while I was trying to work out the background reference, although I was just a little annoyed that I had to talk while I was trying to do work. This had me drawing pencil lines to trace the interior of the mall, on the floor...literally, on the floor, tracing out the edges of the walls where they met the floor (which had glossy cream tiles). The walls were...stucco? and a lighter cream and the lighting wasn't great. But it was mostly empty and so I traced the walls, and then later realised I had no idea what this was supposed to do. I didn't know how to do the reference/trace off of it. Incidentally I was drawing digitally on a tablet (like, an iPad). Tried to come up with some ideas.

Later, had Burger King. And then wanted Burger King again for my midnight snack so I went into a shop to order, though this shop was kind of...weird. It was not a Burger King and I'm not sure what it was - probably something to do with crafts/clothes. But it did have a BK display out the front entrance and you could order from the cashier, who had a lot of spools of thread of various colours in a large box behind the counter, and I thought "hey I could use one of those for my sewing kit" (true, since I'm running out of white thread). But I did order the food first and thought I'd ask if I could buy some thread when she got back. My alarm was going off around this time however so didn't continue.

Interesting segment of a dream.

Mock mission/something vaguely stealth-related. Was participating in a "camp" kind of thing that was also a stealth mission simulation...I think that's the best way I could describe it. Also, it was something along the lines of B-horror, so more adrenaline than being actually scared.

One part of this "camp"? involved a section at the start that was a simulation of breaking into? a high security area (a prison) that required us to go under the gates (I think?) via water (the prison was surrounded by deep water). This was possibly the most dangerous part of it, even though it was overseen by the instructors well and should not cause any issues. Apparently I'd done this before and had a memory of a previous time that was fine, and in this memory, the procedure was to take a very deep breath, then an instructor would grab your ankles and pull you down, under the gate, and release you on the other side. This was very quick and even though it was scary, it was doable in the span of one breath. But it seems like the new procedure was different, and we were given "gills", which were small plastic bottles that I presumed were for holding a small amount of air - they didn't look very reliable/useful and I wasn't sure how to use them. Mostly it worried me that this might not go well because even though it seemed less dangerous to let the participants swim to the other side on their own rather than forcefully pulling them under, the equipment provided was...inadequate, and there wasn't a guide to show me the correct direction in the dark waters...I didn't have goggles or anything that would let me open my eyes underwater.

In the end I never got to that bit (so it was a relief I woke up before then). I thought it was interesting though.

One that sort of made sense at the time.

Saw a weather report...? that it was storming really hard in some areas (Simei being one I remember) and I felt like I really needed to go there, because with someone to watch the storm, after it ended there would be a double rainbow. So even though people were avoiding the area, I decided it was my duty to go (and also got a friend to go to another location).

Walking around some bookshelves, listening to an audiobook or something? Had a music player in a bag I was carrying, except it wasn't actually mine (was my brother's I think). Something about Arknights - I don't know Arknights so it was heavily "people talking to me about characters they enjoy and me nodding at them while listening to them talk and show me pictures of anime women".

I think I did attempt to go to the storm but it was either over or disappointingly weak, not the solitary adventure I was hoping for.