My Battle with Evil

I imagine that many, if not most, will believe this story none at all. For that I cannot blame them... But these are the things that happened to me, and trying to deny any of it happened has only served to make me feel even crazier than I already do. I feel that it is a story worth sharing, though, for whatever it's worth.

I would like to preface this post with several things:

First, that names of persons and locations will be changed or omitted in such a way to make individuals and locales as unidentifiable as possible. I understand that obfuscation of facts is almost anathema here, but the Temple I've been in hiding from for the past two years has many, many resources to expend finding people who cross them.

Second, that I am Bipolar I, with the added bonus of delusions when I'm really manic. I feel that failing to mention that important fact would do a disservice to the readership of ATS. It is the grain of salt.

And finally, that there is a very broad divide between white magic and black magic, the right-hand path and the left-hand path. True evil in the world triumphs only if those who carry the light give up or die.

----------

I was only fourteen when he came for me in dreams. It's been nine years, but I can still remember the first dream like it was a recent waking experience. It wasn't long before my fifteenth birthday, and summer break was less than two months away. It was a weekend.

In the dream, I had gone on a jog and somehow wound up in the Inland Empire of California. Hopelessly lost, I found my way to a truck stop to ask for directions to a town in Riverside County, where a friend of mine lived. A trucker stopped me as I was leaving. He was tall and broad shouldered, bespectacled, with whispy silver-white hair; he was older, and dressed entirely in black. It began dimly throbbing in my mind as he approached that I needed to wake up before he did something to me, but by the time I realized it, I was too late. It was like he put me under.

When I came to, still dreaming, I found myself in a small room with a bunch of other teens around my age and younger. Most of the other kids were people I did not know, though two of them were girls I knew from school, Jessica and Ashley. They did not feel like dream characters as I was used to; they felt like real people, real kids, the real Jessica and Ashley.

The room we were in was long and rectangular, with yellow-grey walls and no windows. There was a white table in middle of the room, leaving a few feet on all sides around it, almost like a table in a meeting room, and with a white bench on either side. The floor was pavement. Though there were no light fixtures, the room had an ambient light to it. There was no door, and the man would suddenly appear and disappear, seemingly at will.

We were being held captive, and that is all I could tell for sure about what was happening. I knew by that point I was dreaming, but I could not wake up despite my best efforts. That part disturbed me nearly as much as the situation itself, since I've been able to wake up at will since I was four years old, and I've been lucid since I was eight. My retrospective theory is that he used the same principles behind the creation of the internal temple in ceremonial magic, to create a purpose-built prison, and trapped our dreaming minds therein.

Whenever he came into the room, he would line us up sitting at the table, and pace, watching us. He made us sit perfectly still, hands folded in our laps, our eyes gazing downwards at the white table, or he would punish us. We were to be quiet, and not look at him, or he would punish us. He could read our thoughts, and if one of us thought about escaping, he would punish us. He would just stare, and it would hurt.

Once he had finished his inspection of us, he would allow us to sit on the floor away from the table, but that was worse. It meant he was ready to pick out a couple of kids and torture them, or use them to torture each other, while the rest of us could do nothing but watch, holding each other helplessly and weeping. Even if it weren't a ToS violation to post the ways in which he tormented us, I still would not post it. It was beyond horrifying, and some things do not deserve a voice. One by one, though, he started breaking us down that way, including Jessica, and all the remainder of us could do was pray that we weren't next.

It felt like this went on for weeks and weeks. As time as it existed there went on, I got better at hiding my thoughts from him, and my intentions. I marked my progress by how many stares I recieved, and once I got no more stares, I pretended that I was totally broken. I had a plan. I had found that there were a few of my lucid dreaming abilities that were not removed from me in his construct: that I still had pyrokinesis.

And, finally, when he came for one of his inspections and rounds of torture, I was ready. As he stood across the table from me, giving his stare to the blond boy in front of me, who writhed in terrible agony, I directed all of my focus into where the man's liver would have been were we in the flesh, focusing my fire through his dream body into his real one.

He heaved and clutched his gut with both arms. He began looking at our solemn faces, frantically trying to figure out who amongst us was hurting him. I kept at him. As he began to weaken, the room got dimmer, its features less distinct. The other kids started freaking out, jumping up from the table and moving away from the two of us. They started flickering out, one by one, and those who were left scratched desperately at the walls. The inexplicable light in the room began to pulse.

"You," he wheezed.

I looked up into his eyes, and I opened my mind to him, to show myself and let him know that he would not get away with doing this to the other kids and me. He got this crazed expression on his face, almost leering at me, and he chuckled. He stared, and the pain started. I dug my fingers into my thighs and focused harder. He stumbled backwards towards the wall, still laughing and giving me that psychotic stare. He hit the wall and crumpled onto the floor of the fading room. Everything went black.

I awoke slowly, with a blazing headache and sore eyes, drenched in sweat. My alarm was shrieking at me; I'd forgotten to turn it off for the weekend. Based on the time, it had been going off for just over four hours. I knew that something profound had happened that night, that it wasn't "just a dream".

There was something palpably wrong with Jessica and Ashley at school on Monday. They looked grim, and they would break eye contact with each other and with me as soon as it was made. Jessica was a wreck. And I was too afraid to ask them if it had really happened; I wanted desperately for it to be nothing. But everywhere I went, I couldn't help but watch for that man.

Jessica strangled herself to death with her shoelaces less than a year later, whilst under suicide watch, after she'd tried the same thing at home. It happened with no warning. She was doing better, and then she just up and killed herself. Almost two years to the day after the dream, somebody murdered Ashley. Their deaths haunt me to this day.

Before they died, we three had become close, though we never spoke of the dream; then we became two, and we didn't speak of it. Now I am alone, and I have nobody left who was there with me. The pain of losing them both pierces my being; I am in tears writing about them, and I can't convey how much I miss them still.

----------

Over the next year, the man was a fixture in my dreams. Some of his appearances were my psychological impression of him; other times, he himself would come through what was previously a prop character and attempt to kill me. Week after week, we fought each other in dreams. Then, abruptly, it stopped.

A few months went by, and my dreams were peaceful. I went back to having awesome lucid dreams about being a rock star in my favorite bands, about visiting friends who lived far away, flying around, and going places I always wanted to go.

School let out for summer, and everything was chill. I still worried about the day he would come for me, but it seemed like a problem for the future, and at sixteen, the future was forever away to me. I kept working on my esoteric stuff, though, primarily lucid dreaming and meditation. I had the fortune of learning about chi from my summer theatre teacher, and my mom decided it was high time for me to learn how to practice magic. I strengthened the tie between my body and spirit, ending whatever aims at full astral projection I'd had before, in case someone tried pulling me out of my dreams into another construct. It was an acceptable trade-off to me. I felt okay.

Then, in mid-July, he came back with company. I was dreaming about rocking out with Marilyn Manson (I was very much a goth kid), when suddenly the dream changed. I found myself lying on the hood of a big rig truck speeding down a highway, as if I'd fallen from the sky and landed on it. The passing air whipped around my face and roared all around me. There was a woman standing on the hood of the truck next to me. She gave me a kick in the ribs.

"Get up!" she screeched over the wind and called me a word that rhymes with 'witch'. I pushed myself up and looked around. The woman was skinny, lanky, and homelier than a bad sex change. She wore a green plaid blouse that matched her eyes, tight faded jeans, and doc martens. Her hair was stop-light red. Driving the truck was that damned man.

"You can't hurt me here!" I yelled. I leapt up from the hood of the truck. She grabbed my ankle and threw me back down before I could fly away.

"Yes, little girl, We can," she growled back. She leaned down and picked me up by the throat, squeezing hard.

"You're in my dream, though, moron," I choked. I jerked myself awake, still with the feeling of her hand around my neck and my heart jackhammering away in my chest.

There was more than just that man. They were a group, and the verbal italics provided by the redheaded woman stuck. I was scared once the gravity sunk in. I went on high alert once more, and I waited for Them to come for me.

A few months went by. There was something uncomfortable in the silence from Them. It scared me more and more as the months dragged on, one after the other and still in silence, like the calm before a storm. I would find myself looking over my shoulder whenever I walked home from school or went out with friends. I was jumpy and on edge.

Thanksgiving rolled around, and, as always, my mother and I went to my dad's house. We had an extra guest that year, a hard luck case my dad had met at a bar and taken pity on. He had been living in their guest room for three weeks, and my mom and I hadn't been introduced.

The family sat around the living room talking and catching up, the lodger not yet amongst us. As dinner got closer to done, I felt a rising unease in my chest.

"Paul, get your *** out here already, the turkey's gettin' dry!" Dad hollered mirthfully through the wall when it was time to eat. My heart started racing, blood thundering in my ears. Every fiber of my attention was glued on that bedroom doorway.

I knew who was behind door number one. I heard him get up from the bed, heard his heavy tread along the creaking floor. As he opened the door, a black clad arm emerged, then broad shoulders and an all-too-familiar, bespectacled face. Paul... so that was his name.

He looked at me with something like disbelief, and that psychotic expression flashed briefly across his countenance. I flinched slightly at the memory, which seemed to please him greatly.

He turned his attention elsewhere and introduced himself to my mother. I stood watching him, eyes wide as the moon. He looked like he was on death's doorstep. His hair had gone all the way white, and he had lost a lot of it. Had he not been so ill, I think he probably would have killed us all and stolen away into the night with no evidence a crime had even been committed. But I was healthy and skilled enough to get him if he tried anything spooky, Dad was a tough mofo for anything physical. Paul knew both of those things.

Over dinner, he ignored me entirely. He seemed exceedingly interested in talking with my mother. He told her he was a trucker by trade, but a recent health issue had prevented him from working enough to support himself. When my poor, sweet mother asked him what ailed him, he shot a glance at me. "Bum liver," he said. It was as if he wanted to make sure I knew beyond a doubt.

I lied and said I had a menstrual emergency after dinner, so that my mother and I could leave as quickly as possible. As soon as we were in the car, I told her everything, about the dreams, about frying his liver with my mind in order to escape from him, about the red haired woman. She asked if that was why I hadn't said a word all night. I wanted to warn the rest of my family, but she said I shouldn't, that my dad and stepmother don't buy into that kind of thing and it could provoke Paul.

Fortunately, before Paul could regain any strength and harm my family, my stepmother found out that he was a convicted rapist. (The fact that he was convicted of it was the only news to me...I had already seen firsthand that he was a rapist.) She threw him out and alerted the police that there was a registered sex offender about. That happened a few days after Thanksgiving, and I am so glad that she got rid of him. I have never told my dad and stepmom about the bullet they dodged.

My dad still felt sorry for him, so he put him up with a buddy. A few weeks later, Paul took a tylenol for a headache, went into acute liver failure, and died. The tylenol was apparently too much for his damaged liver to process. I still had nightmares about him on and off, that he kidnapped Ashley's niece or killed one of my brothers. But Paul was dead, and I had helped him there. I had taken the life of one of Theirs, and I hoped They knew it. Jessica had been avenged. Paul was gone. It was over...or so I thought.

Ashley died that spring. Her murderer has been caught, and by all accounts he is Catholic and not remotely associated with any Temple, whether right- or left-hand. But I cannot help but wonder if she had been marked for death that fateful night in '02. I wonder what happened to those other kids, if they're still alive, if it haunts them as it does me. I feel sorrow when I think of them, and I hope that they have had it easier. I hope it was only me that Paul and Co. went after, since I was the one who got him, and that They left the rest well enough alone.

----------

I got out of high school in December of 2004. Over the next four years, I would move several times, even living a few miles from one of their Temples in California. No one bothered with me. Not even spirits bothered with me. Los Angeles made me invisible, and I liked that.

Though I was depressed beyond words for years after Ashley's murder (even my manias were downers), I kept up with my occult training. I considered joining the OTO for the instruction, but their hierarchy turned me off, and I continued studying alone. I began wanting something more along the lines of enlightenment from my practices. My focus changed from physical practicum to inner work. I refound my god.

In early 2009, I took on an apprentice. I had met him in 2005 on a music forum. We had an instant liking of each other, even over the internet, but I got myself banned before we could get too close. I felt the need to find him again in '08, after three years of not even thinking about him; at the same time, he was looking for a master to guide him in the occult. Even when I found him again, it would still be a few months before I would accept him as an apprentice and learn how deep our connection really went.

One day, after he had begun his apprenticeship, he asked me if I had ever heard of a specific occult group with a name that should not be mentioned by any of their targets. My stomach jerked. I told him I might, and I asked why. He told his story to me, which is his and could identify him to Them, even with omitted names, so I will not repeat it in detail. (Risking my own life is one thing; risking the life of another is entirely different.) In brief, they tormented his wife, him, and his family for years before his wife, Their target, gave up and cut a deal with Them. It was at that point when he became very interested in the occult; the boy wanted revenge. He and I wept together, half relieved to have found each other, half scared out of our wits that it went as far as it did.

We exchanged a lot of information about the Temple. He had been researching Them and their founder during the years after his wife's ordeal. We couldn't find much about their hierarchy or their master plan, but They had been well-known (amongst those who peddle secrets at any rate) for their traumatic brain-washing techniques. At some point in the late 1980s or early '90s, the Temple shifted Their mind-breaking programs into dreams instead of physically kidnapping gifted "natural psychic" children and teens, though legend has it they maintained their MK ULTRA-style techniques on some "willing" but unready adult targets. And, worst of all, they have a tendency to doggedly pursue any right-hand occultist who has opposed them, til the threat is neutralized by whatever means, including death. At the dawn of the internet age, they were some of the first on the scene to begin data mining for targets. It was not long after I first got the internet at my house that they came for me. I had posted about lucid dreaming a lot, since I was heavily into it in my early teens, and I suspect that may have been how they found me in the first place. A few weeks later, my apprentice found online a goofy flowchart explaining who looks down on who in the occult and pagan "community", and the Temple was on the chart. He told me which column and what groups surrounded it on the chart. I finally had a name for Them, though it was not a name I could say.

Later that year, I made a big mistake, though. Concerned about my student's wife, I checked up on her several times by partially projecting into the bandwidth between planes. I had never before witnessed highly damaged energy bodies, but hers were in tatters and her energy field was like a hurricane, slowly eroding what was left intact of her being. They had managed to give her something like multiple personality disorder, which showed in the fragmented nature of her bodies. The final time I checked on her, I accidentally tripped whatever alarm They had put on her when she agreed not to practice anymore, and whatever not-so-passive security; it felt like something smacked me hard across the eyes with a hot iron. I was temporarily incapacitated, and I started descending blind. I crashed back into my physical body fully, with my head feeling like it was on fire. I told my apprentice what happened, but that They did not know we were connected, that I would do all I could to keep Them from finding out, and that I would protect him and his family, whatever the cost. He was shocked and was running scared for a few weeks, especially after his wife seemed worse off. But They did not come for him.

They were back in my life before the week was out, though. Most of Them weren't noteworthy, just creepy strangers to the area who would stare at me and keep staring even after I had looked them in the eyes. While my boyfriend and I were out one night, this little psychic vampire began feasting on him. My darling nearly puked on the table as soon as it started, though he was nowhere near drunk. I turned my inner attention to the vamp and started feeding him the worst, nastiest energy I'd accumulated from the day. He paled and left the bar quickly. My boyfriend felt better almost immediately, though we both wanted nothing more than to go home after that. He scoffed when I told him the guy was a psychic vampire and I had run him off, though he held me tighter that night than he ever had before.

The vamp turned up at my workplace the next day and watched me while I worked. He followed me outside on my break, and that's when I turned on him. I raised my vibrations far above my typical, off-the-job operating level and projected my best extraplanar manifestation at him. He turned and ran through the parking lot away from me, almost getting smacked by a car. I didn't see him again after that, but They had found me again, and They wanted me to know it.

My life spiraled out of control shortly thereafter when I went into a manic episode and torpedoed my relationship with my boyfriend. I had to move back with my mother. A friend in a different city harbored me for a few days on my way home. They couldn't find me deep within the city, and it was with his help that I temporarly put Them off my scent. Once I left, though, They caught my trail again, and They followed me back here, arriving two weeks later than I did.

I can feel them here in town even now, always just far enough away that they can't quite figure out where I am. I've had to oprate in cold standby except when the background energies of this place are high; only then can I raise my vibrations, perform ceremony, or even meditate usefully, without feeling Them alert to me and draw nearer. I've been in hiding for nearly two years now.

I can only hope that at the moment, my story is not well known to Them and I can't be tracked down based on this story, that I'm just another right-hand occultist who They pulled this crap on. If the ones here in town ambushed me, it's fifty fifty that I could escape right now. But I'm done hiding. In a couple of weeks, I should be back up to normal operating capacity. It does make me a little paranoid, but I have quasi-anonymous intentions worth declaring to their data miners: Their days are numbered. I will find Their leaders, and I will destroy Their organization from the top down if I can. They crossed the wrong little goth girl, and they will feel the wrath of the woman she became.

reply to post by nithaiah


Evil and nastiness lurks in all the dark corners of our world,only a shining light of pure goodness can drive it away, a very brave girl you are, if you ever need someone to talk to about what is happening message me.

You are a hero and one hell of a woman.
I admire you to the fullest.
I have had an encounter with such an evil force, but only once in my life.
I was around 16 or so and spending the night at my grandmother's house for the annual weekly visit. I was sleeping on the living room couch on my back and was quite comfortable when suddenly i awoke, or at least i believe i was awake, and i felt this great evil force hovering over me. I could not move, i couldnt speak, or even blink, i was stuck facing the ceiling as shadows formed on it and swirled in a violent manner. I remember seeing what looked like someones head came over my face and stared into my eyes, it was a shadow of something evil trying to pry into my mind. It lasted nearly a minute straight and then it released itself from me quickly, almost as if it was scared and everything became clear instantly, as if it never happened. Now the strange thing is, weeks later i had found out that my g-ma's neighbor was also a convicted incest rapist, his own daughter and he as well has white hair and kinda reminds me of the monster you had described. I dont want to put myself in a high position, but the creature ran with his tail between his legs and that leads me to believe that God has something special planned for me, otherwise i'd be in a different world right now.

That event had changed my life til this day. I am following the path of light and i have not and will never look back to the shadow that follows me, because when i do, it will take me willingly and quickly. We must stay strong against all evil in this world.

May we all be blessed with the light.
-Peace

reply to post by Swanseadog


One of my favorite quotes: "All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle."

I appreciate it; it can be a lonely road.

reply to post by AOA2012


Just...yikes man. I'm glad it didn't do anything to you, that it fled from you. The bad entities like that dislike the light of an untainted spirit, almost as if it hurts them to be around it. I believe God, whatever His, Her, or Its nature, does watch over those who have faced down the darkness and let their inner light triumph. May the Great Spirit keep you, and fortune find you on your way.

I don't think of myself as any kind of hero... I've got a vendetta, and I'm too stubborn to give up or give in.

Absolutely fascinating. Can't help but feel your braveness in facing them the way you have. Whoever They are of course.

reply to post by curious7


Part of me wants to yell their name from the rooftops...or reply box. But that would be a very stupid thing for me to do at present. When I am up and running and moving out of this town, I may actually out with Their name. I believe some ATS members may already know a good deal about their founder, and it would be...vindicating, to expose this as part of what They do to people, even if I can't prove a bit of it.

All people are capable of acts of bravery, they just have to be given the chance, imho.

Wow, that is quite some story. The idea of a "Dream Prison Construct" is scary indeed. And this group you speak of...well they are bad news.

Unfortunately, I am not very knowledgeable in these kinds of fields so cannot offer much advice. I did find your tale to be interesting though and thank you for sharing it with us here on ATS.

I wish you all the best and hope you can put these dark experiences behind you and one day experience peace and happiness.

reply to post by nithaiah


Who or what is this temple thing that you do not want to mention? also they sound like a bunch of duchebags. So just mention there name already, whats with the whole being mysterious about it, its annoying.

this was great to read about your story it creeped me and my fiance out as we read it but i have had experiences myself

Originally posted by galadofwarthethird
reply to post by nithaiah

 

Who or what is this temple thing that you do not want to mention? also they sound like a bunch of duchebags. So just mention there name already, whats with the whole being mysterious about it, its annoying.

Sorry about the mystery, times a million. I wish I could out with it already. Dragging their god accursed name through the mud would give me utmost pleasure.

However, there are two major things preventing me from doing so:

1. Their data mining capabilities are sufficient to find their name on an open discussion forum such as ATS, which I can guarantee you IS on their radar. From there... they could probably figure out who I was based on the story, because they no doubt have records of the snafu with "Paul".

2. From my apprentice and his wife's experiences with them, they do come when called. They've known when he spoke of them, so he stopped using their name. It seemed to work. He recommended that I do the same, and I have.

I have more than myself to watch out for. If it was just me, I'd tell you right this second. But there's my apprentice and his family I'm watching out for as well, and I will not endanger their lives.

reply to post by nithaiah

1. Their data mining capabilities are sufficient to find their name on an open discussion forum such as ATS, which I can guarantee you IS on their radar. From there... they could probably figure out who I was based on the story, because they no doubt have records of the snafu with "Paul".

Um OK, whatever, cant you just put a link then that leads to a link to what this whole thing is about, it still sounds annoying and that your making stuff up, and saying you cant say some things about this, just makes it more annoying, but my curiosity usually goes into strange places, so just say it in a round about way then.

I also, have horrible nightmares, sorry for that for you.

Originally posted by galadofwarthethird
reply to post by nithaiah

 

1. Their data mining capabilities are sufficient to find their name on an open discussion forum such as ATS, which I can guarantee you IS on their radar. From there... they could probably figure out who I was based on the story, because they no doubt have records of the snafu with "Paul".

Um OK, whatever, cant you just put a link then that leads to a link to what this whole thing is about, it still sounds annoying and that your making stuff up, and saying you cant say some things about this, just makes it more annoying, but my curiosity usually goes into strange places, so just say it in a round about way then.

You mean like an anagram or something? Would that work? Or a word that sounds like it?

I don't want to get anyone in trouble if that's the case but just adding more ideas to this post.

Be carfull and dont fall into any traps.
make them fight on your astral ground.

I pray the Goddess - keeps you safe.

After thinking about it pretty seriously, and sleeping on it, my instincts have continued to tell me that outing with Their name, even in a round about way, is probably far, far from a good idea right now.

Their founder already has an account here on ATS, as I told galad in U2U. If I had known that before posting this thread, I'd have never posted it. I half want to ask a mod to delete this thread. I'm not going to, because that would just let Them have one over me.

Sometime in the future, when I'm in a better location, and I know for sure that They cannot hurt my apprentice & his family, I WILL post a long thread about Them and the things Their victims have been ridiculed for saying They did. Now, however, is not that time.

I'm erring on the side of caution. If that troubles you, oh well. I'd rather you guys think I'm a liar than risk a man's life and family to satiate your curiosity.

reply to post by nithaiah


I absolutely agree that you should listen to your own instincts. You can't control whether or not someone believes you, and that's not the point of this thread anyway. Your story has already reached and affected people, most likely more than who have posted. There may be someone going through a similar situation, scared and confused, and reading this thread just gave them hope.

reply to post by nithaiah


I of course discovered your thread because you won the guessing game thingy. I get a headache just trying to figure stuff like that out! So, you have my utmost respect!

Now this thread...

I was involved in a satanic cult as a child; meant to replace my grandmother who walked away from it when her two sons drown. She was the equivalent of the 'queen' which left no legitimate bloodline when she and her daughters (my mother and aunt) walked away. So my grandfather, determined to regain his power, brought me in to replace her, much to the cult master's relief. Luckily for me though, my grandfather died when I was 6 and my parents refused to allow it to continue.

Anyway, the point of it being that from that time, I always had a demon being watching over me. Of course it had it's own agenda, but what its presence did teach me is that non-human entities 1) actually do exist and 2) can help protect you on the astral level.

With that in mind, I would recommend that you make contact with the arch-angels (who are actually the elves), Michael in particular. He has been helpful to me with my own protection, and giving the cultish nature of your problem, he might well be willing to help you too. The cult stuff often involved non-human beings and information; something the elves have forbidden the use of. If this is the case, for sure Micheal would want to know, and would be more than willing to help, I am guessing.

reply to post by DragonriderGal


That... is quite an experience, and I'd like to hear more of what you have to say, if you are comfortable sharing it.

Oddly, as if navigating by sense of smell or something, for the past couple of years, I've kept various icons of St. Michael on or near me, knowing not why but that I was very compelled to do so. Prayer card in the pocket (until I washed it), cross on the wall, novenas on the home altar. I actually got a small votive shrine a couple of hours ago. Synchronicity for the win.

I find your post reassuring, in that direction. Thank you for it.

reply to post by nithaiah


Kudos on the game. Very well played.

I guess there are Left-Handers and then there are Left-Handers. I am good with magical themes and making it work but never developed talent anyone like that would be interested in. I put myself in a magical pickle as a late teen which put me in a funk for a number of years. I emerged from that with the desire to be a better person. That quest has kept me busy for several decades now.

Interesting story. I like dreams, I find them quite fascinating with regards to how we operate within them.

They can be a bit creepy, however I view it in the mind-set that you can dream like Norman Rockwell, or like Norman Bates.

I prefer Rockwellian dreams myself.