well that was an odd dream

[njordsifusansoo]

This one was about a book. For some reason I was staying at an old house (I think it was Victorian style). One of the residents was this odd woman (around my age) that no one knew anything about, other than she belonged in that house and she had some mental issues. O yeah, this house had a small library that seemed to be haunted (which seemed to be part of the cause of the woman's mental problems). One day, I was going out to the kitchen and saw her cooking (I don't remember what). She was distracted because the apparitions from the library were in the living room. The distractions were causing her to make mistakes cooking, which was causing her to stress out. I decided to go find out why the apparitions were in the living room.

When I went there, most of the apparitions were intentionally making haunting type sounds and movements (like they were playing at ghost and not really ghost). But there was one calmly sitting down with this book. I start to try and talk to the ghost, and he is the only one who responds (and he talks quite calmly and sensibly). In our conversation about the other ghost and their behavior, I mention the book he has. Then either I or him unfolds a torn out page of the book being used as a bookmark, reattaches it, and suddenly something happens. The other "ghosts" disappear. It is just me and him in the room but I am the faded out one while he is the solid one. He then goes on to tell me how it was the book that trapped him like that (and that I am now trapped as he once was). The woman then comes out and things start carrying on like she knows him, he was never trapped, and I was not there (she could no longer see me apparently). He still talks to me from time to time while she is there, but she does not notice. He seems to be a fatherly figure to the gal from there conversation. Seeing as how the book, which he still has, is what will get me back to normal, I try and get her attention (how I notice that she cannot see me) and I discover that she can sort of hear me (a ghostly whisper you are not sure is there). Figuring that out, I try and get her to fix the book (by restoring the page). She ask the fatherly figure, but he of course says no (to fix it will return him to an apparition). She leaves and I continue to converse with the fatherly figure while he installs some lights that are suppose to keep "ghost" away (I don't know if they would work on me and don't bother caring, going off to the library instead). The library is different when I get there. I don't see the shelves of books but instead some things laying on the ground. There are a few books here and there but most of them are the personal affects of various people. The fatherly figure is there behind me talking about them (and more of how he thinks he got cursed into the book). It turns out he was a hit-man of some sort that for some reason was sent after some authors (it is their affects laying around). It was from one of these authors that the cursed book came from). He seemed remorseful about these past deeds but could not go into detail about any of it.

Then we find ourselves outside walking around town (the house is in the town, but it is not how I remember the surroundings of the house when I first entered). It turns out we seem to be in the past, especially since the gal is now a little girl. I ask her some more to complete the book but the father figure still says no. I then ask him how we can be in the past and he says something about its normal for that to happen once the book is completed (for him). I then say something about how this is like a flashback and he does not know what a flashback is (despite him being a learned man). I explain to him what a flashback is and how it is a literary device. This disturbs him. We then find ourselves near the house on some benches later on in the day. It is me, the girl, the fatherly figure, and some older gentleman (a friend or so of the fatherly figure). The fatherly figure then does something quite unexpected, he hands the book to the girl and asks her to put the age back in. She does this and I start to materialize out of thing air. The girl is happy to see me appear out of nowhere, and the older gentlemen just assumes he didn't notice me walk up and sit down). The girl hands me the book and I look at the one page. I notice how it isn't actually attached and start to fiddle with it. I start to fade and ask the fatherly figure about it. He fixes it and this time it attach's to the book. I go play with the girl for a bit, then we all go sit down at the benches again. The elderly gentlemen notices the book and starts asking questions about it. The fatherly gentlemen says something about winning it at auction today yet the elderly gentlemen points out that the pages are all blank. I remember the pages not being blank when the fatherly figure was a ghost so I attribute it to being its me not the fatherly figure that the book was trapping (now that I think about it, it could of been because of the transition that was happening with the book complete).

After a little bit more of that, things are set right with me being solid, and the fatherly figure being a ghost. We are standing outside the house where the benches were in what seemed to be another world. I ask him about why he gave the girl the book and gave me my life back (while trapping him as a ghost again). He says he figured it out when I talked about a flashback. He realized that there are big holes in his past that he cannot explain. He figured out that he was a work of fiction from the "cursed" book which must not be complete (why the story I was shown has holes in it). I start to think about plots and story to filling the holes. Like he was a hit-man. On his last mission (he had already decided this was his last mission) he orphaned the little girl. So he decided to adopt the girl and move in to the house of the author he killed. Other holes I filled were some of the transitions between various events and the working of my part of the story (since my being there because of the book was in there). One thing I did notice is the fact that the book had to exist in the story.

We then went up to the house and talked to the woman. She was quite calm and no longer mentally stressed. She also knew the fatherly figure (who is now a ghost again) and saw his being a ghost as not odd. I then mentioned about how I was thinking about completing the book. She seemed terrified of this and my name starting to materialize on the cover as an author. My conscious kicked in at this point so I could rewind that part (I can control my dreams and this is where I temporary took control), but I also kept that possibly going as I continued to elaborate the dream. I went on to the library and pondered about the other "ghost" (did they come from this book or others), about the author and the book (is this like the books in Myst where they could really link to other worlds (I woke up before I could explore the shelves for a linking book)). I also wondered what I could do safely to the one book. Could I open it and write in it to complete it (would opening it send me back to the other world), or would my thoughts on how to expand the story be somehow transcribed to the book (since the rewind meant my name was not necessarily on the cover). Right before I woke up, I also wondered if the woman was real. In both the book and out of the book, she was the daughter of the author who used to own the house. She knew the ghost of a fatherly figure when I came back out of the book. He mental instabilities seem to of disappeared when I seemed to of added a past for her in the book (she didn't even seem to be the daughter of an author who used to live in the house until I made it up after leaving the book). I decided to leave that topic alone and not ask her or the fatherly figure (who for some strange reason I thought would know the answer) about it. That is about the time I woke up.