Detective Casmir in Calgary

The second dream where I saw the world through the eyes of Detective Casmir took place in my home city, Calgary Alberta.

I was planning something or I was here to stop something from happening. I was talking to a woman on a cell phone and promising her the spell would work.

The spell would work? Somehow I knew what this meant; I had cast a sleep spell on the entire city, ensuring they would not be awakened when the dead came back to life. Oh and by the way the dead are coming back to life tonight.

At midnight everyone was asleep and safe. I walked my way to the Bow River and waited for the first signs of life, or death depending on your perspective. Slowly zombies emerged from river, and I drew my long sword and began to cleave their heads off. I was quick and graceful and never in any danger, killing zombies at my own leisure. I was keeping the city clean from some strange necromancy.

In many dreams a flood of ideas enter your mind explaining the impossible location or scenario you are in. You just know who you are and what you are doing like you have lived this life your whole life. As this dream stood I was Detective Casmir and apparently the natives of the area used to bury their dead underneath the currents of the Bow River. But old forces had awakened these restless souls and they were emerging slowly. How I knew any of this, and how did I know to be where I was needed and when, no explanation, but that is one of the funny things about dreams, if you do not think it is important you will not think about it, and therefore you will never think of an explanation. Dreams are after all, all in your head.

As I was working away killing zombies with incredible efficiency, I saw out of the corner of my eye a young girl watching me. I finished the zombies quickly and rushed over to her. She should have been asleep, I had cast the sleep spell, and it had worked on everyone else in the city, but here she was awake.

She said something nice to me, about how amazing I was for taking out all those zombies. She was remarkably unfazed by what she had seen. Her enthusiasm along with her heavy compliments was a delightful thing, but I was curious about her. She was clearly immune to my spell, and the only explanation I could think of was that she was immune to all magic. She was a miracle birth, a random human completely immune to the affects of magical spells, so rare that I needed to remember her.

I asked her name, “Samantha.” I asked her how old she was “ten.” I asked her how curious she was about what she had just seen, and she told me she thought it was amazing, amazing to learn that zombies and sword wielding necromancer detectives were real, which is fair. I promised her I would show her more of the world of magic when she was older, but she had to promise me that she would not tell anyone what she had seen here tonight. She agreed, and I took her hand and cast some spell marking her. With this mark I could find her again ten years from now, and I would remember her, Samantha.

So that was nice, but the dream continued.

I report to my boss, the woman I was talking on the phone with earlier. She is sturdy black woman, and she is mad about Samantha, but much less mad when I explain her amazing immunization to magic. Samantha would be very useful to us when she is all grown up, she could help us fight the evil of the world.

This woman, Doris, and I talk at length about the world of magic, and now humanity has forgotten all about it, which has made us vulnerable to the forces of evil that use magic. I remember only one specific line of dialogue I said to her, I was responding to her concerns of all the recent magically activities across the globe, to which I said;

“That is why I came to this world;” ominous.

She says something about how she does not care for my strange ways, but she knows she needs my help, the lone necromancer in the world.

Later we go to a building, a tall skyscraper, and break into the underground of the building. There are traces of magic everywhere, they light up to me like a pale green fog or dim grey lights in a prison cell, but I see them, I can even fell them. This was why Doris brought me here; she wants me to find the hidden cult hideaway.

A very elaborate maze of tunnels and secrete doors unravel before me. I find the secrete passages and solve the winding tunnels with remarkable speed, but then again, of course I do, I am a necromancer detective. This is reminiscent of the “Death Maze Race,” insofar that I am able to solve the maze and secretes before me incredibly easily because it’s all me. This whole situation is all in my head, I literally have to invent the hidden passageways before I discover them, but in this dream there was an excuse preset to explain to my brain why it was possible; I am Detective Casmir.

Eventually we come to a hidden meeting room/sleeping quarters. It is empty but there is evidence of recent use, I recommend to Doris we station some men and try to set up an ambush. She agrees but is concerned, the sleeping quarters could house hundreds of people, and she never thought the cult could have become so great in number. Furthermore the ridiculous number of spells that were cast to hide this place was alarming; they clearly had some strong sorcery on their side. I promise her I’ll look into it.

This was about the time I woke up.

I really enjoyed this dream. Nothing haunting or horrible was happening to anyone. I was incredibly capable and enjoyed killing zombies, and unravelling a mystery. But most of all, it was such a pleasant display of my imagination. I learned a lot about the fictional character Casmir, he was clearly not form earth or at least not from this earth, he was sociable and kind, he hides a long sword under his grey trench coat, somehow, and he can sense and see magic. Also the world building was nice, this world there is a lack of use of magic, but evil doers are aware of this and hope to catch civilizations off guard by using ancient evil magic to cause havoc. The best thing of all, there is still the air of mystery to everything. We still don’t know who or what Casmir is, and we don’t know what were up against in regards to the cult.

I am a story teller, even in my dreams.

You Must Fight

“My father said to me, ‘Lyoto, you have warrior’s blood. You must fight.’” – Lyoto Machida

When you sleep your brain releases a chemical that paralyzes your body, this is why you don’t move in your sleep, this is what prevents you from sleep walking. The name of this chemical eludes me, but I know this is the case.

Night terrors are often caused when you become half awake, as in you become aware but the chemicals released by your brain have kept your body paralyzed. These are often terrifying ordeals since you are still partial asleep and dreaming but cannot move.

I do not have any memories of night terrors, not exactly anyway, but I have a lot of experience with sleep paralysis.

Frequently, recently, I have not been sleeping well. I am worrying about school and work, and other things, but since sleep and dreaming is all your thoughts swarming over one another, when you are troubled your thoughts become very hard to handle. So while I’m thinking up solutions to international economic quiz questions and trying to think of some way to find work that will actual pay the rent while I finish school, and some other things maybe I’ll talk about some other day, I grow very restless. I am not accomplishing anything lying in bed worrying about things, I need to get up and solve my problems. The workaholic in me, demands I forgo sleep and get back to work, but the exact words I start yelling at myself is, “Colin you must fight!”

When I realize I’m only dreaming, I start getting upset, feeling this is a waste of time, and when I can’t move, because of sleep paralysis, I begin to get really agitated. I try to twist, and move, and open my eyes, but I can’t, and I struggle for... god knows how long, until my fingers begin to twitch, and then slowly my hands can form fists and reach out, then my legs began to twitch and then usually my eyes open and I’m awake. The whole time my mind screams at me to fight.

I find myself amusing. I’m not yelling at myself to wake up, or get back to work, I tell myself to fight. I look at the problems in my life before me and my subconscious has only one solution, combat. Perhaps it says something about my testosterone levels in that I want to solve all my problems with violence. Maybe it says something about my superhero complex and I want to rush into battle and fight the good fight. Maybe, and I think this is it, I feel that life is constant battle.

My favourite girl in the whole world once said to me, “Colin why is everything a fight with you?” Like most insults throw my way it did not have the intended effect.

I replied with, “of course it is. Life is an endless series of battles, you must fight.”

I think I intimidate a lot of women.

But it’s true you know, life is a forever ongoing series of fights, and there is choice, you must fight.

Just a few days ago, it was happening again. I kept awaking in locations that I was familiar with and yet had no reason to be in, and gradually these dreams within dreams began to make sense to me, I was dreaming, and none of these was real. I began fighting the dream trying to wake up, violently forcing myself to move, my fingers began to twitch and for a moment I thought my eyes opened and I was looking across my bed out my window and tall demonic figure was standing on my thirty-second floor balcony looking into my bed room. My hands began to clench and I began to thrash and yelling at the figure, “Fuck you, you are not real!” I repeated this exclamation a few times and even my eyes shut tight I continued to see blurry visions of my bedroom, my legs began to twitch and my arms began to move, slowly and awkwardly, and then like before my mantra came to me, “Colin you must fight!”

In the next moment my eyes opened and I found myself perched up in my bed on one arm, my other clenched in a fist and at the ready to strike, and I was pleased with myself. I was able to fight off a dream and force myself awake very quickly while suffering sleep paralysis. I was pleased when I looked at the clock and saw it was one-thirty am, I had only been asleep for a maximum of an hour, and in that time I could awake on sheer will power. How Green Lantern of me.

Psychologically this fighting perspective of mine works twofold. First it seems unhealthy to consider everything in life a enemy that needs to be conquered, but conversely it is very healthy to march forward unafraid of the obstacles in your life thinking of them as just another fight in the never ending battle that is life.

I find it interesting anyway.