Gonna be honest, I have no idea where to post this. I figured it either belonged in Extended Consciousness or Other Stuff. I personally think it suits the former better and that's why it's here. But if for some reason it's the wrong place just move it or whatever you need to do.
I decided to write this experience up in more of a novel format because I felt it better described what happened. I can tell you this is not 100% word for word accurate but it is as best as I can remember. I try to be as honest about that as I can throughout. This happened back in 2010 or 2011 or something so I think I did pretty good. I'm also pretty sure I've missed some things in editing and I'm sure all my formatting will get destroyed as soon as I post but this has already taken me so long to write up that I just don't care right now. I still have my May 1st 2017 OOBE thing to write up.
There's the main experience with some notes throughout and then a proper appendix section at the end for a lot of terms that you'll see me use throughout this. If you don't know what I meanwhen I say things like "spirit body" or"reflex time" just go find it there.
I'm not Mod+ing this and I hope that doesn't turn out to be a mistake. I can't believe I'm even posting this as it is.
Oh and if you have no idea what Dead Space is, here's the wiki and there's playthroughs all over youtube if you're interested... have fun sleeping.
Here we go!
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So I spawn in, my visions blurry but I can see and hear lots of commotion around me. As my vision clears I can see I'm in a crowd of people, mostly civilian but some military looking ones too. I can tell I'm in my spirit body. Having peripheral vision was a bit of a clue. I'm indoors in a hallway, civilians are clearing out lockers. The military is futuristic looking. I notice the weapons the military have are straight out of the Dead Space series and I get a familiar sinking feeling. I'd been having Dead Space dreams for the past week straight and although I'd survived all of them it's never been an enjoyable experience. However this dream in particular wasn't just lucid, it was a full transition. So... I was stuck here for the foreseeable future, unable to wake myself up and who knows what else. I took note of what I was wearing. Some kind of Rig without a helmet with a plasma cutter strapped to my hip. Heavy boots and no gloves, no kinesis module or stasis module. At least I was starting off better equipped than some of the other dreams, but worse equipped than others. I could feel that I had no access to magic either which dramatically lowered my confidence and general mood.
“Hey.” I said to a passing guard, he looked at me somewhat annoyedly. I assume he was thinking he was going to to have to listen to yet another civilian whine about something he couldn't do anything about. “Can I talk to whoever's in charge here?”
He walked me through the crowd towards a guy casually sitting on a pile of cardboard boxes holding an assault rifle. I don't remember the exact start of the conversation but I believe the first thing he asked me was “This is a Full Transition for you, right?
I was stunned that he knew. I stammered” Well, no... I mean... my body is asleep right now-”
He cut me off with a wave of his hand, “Kay', whatever.” and leaned in, “You're not supposed to be here.”
“Well I'm here now.” I shrugged my shoulders “So what's the situation.”
He told me how they arrived here responding to a distress call about a necromorph outbreak, they destroyed the Marker but for some reason not all of the necromorphs dissolved. “and yes, we've already looked for another marker.” he said. Continuing that until they can confirm that all the remaining necromorphs are dead, no one leaves. They cannot risk that one of the surviving necromorphs is a Bat capable of creating more necromorphs not tied to a marker. Mentioning something about how they had already done all this so there was no reason for me to be there.
I asked him if he minded if I poked around and tried to help out since I was there anyways. He said he didn't mind. I realized that what I was doing was insane but what else could I do? Staying with a large group of people seems safe until they attract a horde of necromorphs which turn the people into even more necromorphs. Or the people are driven insane by marker broadcasts and try to kill me, each other, and themselves. Then turn into necromorphs anyways. I knew the guy said they'd destroyed it already but I didn't want to take chances. Going off on my own seemed like the safest way to survive the full transition. I'd yet to ever be injured in one, I had no idea if the injuries would transfer to my physical body the same way they do for astral projections. Everything I knew at that point told me that injury during a full transition might cause injury at a one to one ratio to the physical body as well. I really didn't want to find out. My options were to either sit in a corner and cry, hoping to wake up or be saved but probably ending up dead. Or deal with it, do my best to plan and act with what I had available and and maybe survive.
Now that I could see more clearly from a better vantage point I could see that I was standing in a hallway lined with lockers, reminded me of a school. All the lockers had the CEC logo on them and civilians were digging everything out of them into boxes and trash bins under guard by a few scattered armed military. I assumed they were scavenging for whatever supplies they cold get. Their were cardboard boxes stacked in various places in the room, probably full of various supplies.
There was a makeshift store set up in the middle of the hallway near some double doors into another identical hallway. A thick cord was run from it to somewhere in the wall. The blue holographic screens looked a little odd when viewed from behind like this. I decided I should probably see what I could get at the store while I was here. I tried using the store but it gave me an error, telling me that I needed to connect my rig's inventory to the terminal to continue. I fumbled a bit but found a small cable to plug into a slot on the store terminal. I browsed through the inventory but it was very slim pickings. The store wouldn't let me buy most things but I was able to grab a couple upgrade nodes. The store transferred them to my rigs inventory where they were stored in a pure energy state, ready to be rematerialized whenever I needed them.
I went over to a similarly jerry rigged upgrade bench and tried to figure out how it worked. In the games it was just clicking buttons while welding animations played. I Think I asked someone for help and they showed me how to clamp the plasma cutter onto the bench properly and open a panel on it. After fiddling with the little oblong nodes and watching a tutorial video built into the bench itself I learned they were kinda like micro reactors. Running bypasses or providing extra power to parts of the circuitry depending on where they were connected. Originally intended for simple modifications to equipment to meet unique demands of the job, which I'm sure didn't originally include killing necromorphs.
I decided after getting the first ones in I should go check what else I could buy. I holstered the plasma cutter and checked the store. I think I bought ammo or maybe more nodes, I don't remember. After I'd finished the screen flashed “unauthorized access” a few times in orange. I was a little confused because the transaction seemed to complete just fine so I ignored it. Assuming it might've been a glitch from the incredibly non-standard jerry rigged setup the store had.
I walked towards the double doors leading into the next locker area. I started planning for anything could think of. I Deciding to keep the plasma cutter holstered. I figured that if a necromorph suddenly ambushed me while I was holding a weapon, such a bursting out of one of the lockers as I walked past them and tackling me to the ground, I was likely to drop that weapon. But if I kept it holstered I at least had the chance of pulling it while I was on the ground. Even though having the weapon out at all times would make me faster to respond if something came around a corner ahead of me or if I spotted something in the distance.
The doors had a standard push bar mechanism like I've seen in schools and certain offices before. I walked into the next room. After the door clicked shut behind me I noticed how incredibly quiet it was compared to the room before. It was pretty unnerving. The bustling sound behind me quickly faded a couple steps from the door. I tried to stay as close to the middle of the hallway as possible to minimize ambushes from lockers. There were two large vents at the top of the walls at the end of the hallways, more than large enough for a necromorph to be hiding in. Although their height off the ground, and the vent covers still being on, meant that there would be a delay between one trying to jump out and actually getting to me, plus I'd probably notice long before anyways. The next room was a small antechamber with dirty black and white checkered tiled floor. There was a large corkboard hanging on the wall with many papers stuck to it with push pins. There was a single light on the ceiling leaving the entire room rather dim and dull. It looked like a cost cutting measures to save on electricity. Someone asking themselves “how much light do people really need?” and then buying the bulb just before that.
There was a small metal chair in the right corner, I think it was blue but the lighting made it hard to tell. It was one of those curved metal legged things with a rough plastic seat and back. To the left of the corkboard there was a small alcove and if you turned left in it there was a set of stairs going down. There were no lights at all in the stairway although I could see green lights on the left wall at the bottom indicating possible light switches. I didn't have a flashlight if I remember correctly, either that or I didn't want to use one in case of drawing attention. Necromorphs were capable of seeing a living creatures nerve impulses. Giving them superior vision in the dark. If I had access to magic I could do more or less the same thing. So if I was going to have light I'd rather the whole area be lit up.
I could hear a low hum or buzz from the lit panel. Just couple sparse dots of green. I was going to start pushing buttons but then I heard something clunk in the distance down the black hallway. The light from upstairs barely reached, but faintly I could see what could've been a bench against the left wall a good five meters away, and something awkwardly crawling onto it from the wall, probably out of a vent. I reach for the plasma cutter at my hip.... aaaaaaand it's not there.
You have to be fucking kidding me I thought. I was in a pitch black hallway, down a set of stairs, away from armed military personnel, with a necromorph in the room, in a full transition where death might actually be real and for some incredibly stupid reason my plasma cutter was gone. The holster was still there, but the cutter was gone. My day was just going perfect. It looked like it was probably a slasher type and it hadn't noticed me yet. I slowly started back up the stairs. Walking sideways so my toes wouldn't accidentally kick against the back of the steps. Inching my way back up into the light. I was really, really hoping that it wouldn't randomly turn my way while I was still in plain view. Luckily it didn't. I knew the slasher would probably be attracted to the light and eventually find it's way upstairs. I got upstairs and could hear the commotion of people again. The group had moved into the second locker room and were clearing them out. Now it was probably guaranteed that the slasher would come upstairs, lured by the noise.
I immediately dashed for the commander guy in the other room to tell him there was a slasher coming up the stairs and then headed back to some guy sitting on a box right beside the door to the antechamber. He didn't look military, but he did have a plasma cutter.
“There'sanecromorphcomingupthestairsgimmeyourplasmacutter!” I splurted and held out my hand.
He looked at me confused and surprised “What? No-”
“Give me... your fucking.... PLASMA CUTTER!” I yelled. He looked at me wide eyed and slowly handed me his cutter without saying a word or taking his eyes off of me.
I think I told one of the guards that I had a plan to go into the room and attack the slasher and they were to back me up only if they needed to. If we could keep it's attention away from the massive group of people behind the doors that would be best. In hindsight I guess it's not surprising that there were no objections to the plan. “Wait, you wanna go into a room alone with a necromorph, close the door behind you, and kill it yourself? That sounds like a great plan! Yeah, don't worry man, we'll totally be here to back you up if anything goes wrong. Promise.”
I looked through the door and the slasher was up the stairs, currently staring at the bulletin board. I fumbled slightly with the cutter making sure I knew where all the controls were. The head rotation was a convenient thumb button on the left side. I pushed it a few times cathartically. I formulated a plan of how I was going to kill the slasher. I went in front of the door and stood on my left foot, bracing my right lightly against the push bar, aiming the plasma cutter at the necromorph. Pushing the rotation button a couple more times for good luck then leaving it in the vertical position. Psyched myself up, then shoved the door open. The necromorph heard and immediately and awkwardly spun around as I cross stepped to my left, trying to move as smoothly as possible. I waited till it stopped rotating before unloading into one of it's left blade shoulder. Continuing to walk to my left and shooting, taking it off in around three or four hits, moving to the other shoulder, taking it off in another few hits. Then pushing the rotate button and taking off either its leg or its head, I don't quite remember which.
It collapsed in a pool of blood. In the games it was customary to repeatedly stomp on a dead necromorph's head, but fuck that.
I went back into the locker area and offered to give the guy his cutter back but he declined, saying I could have it. I went to the store again and bought two more upgrade nodes and went back to the upgrade table to fumble my way through putting them in again. I stored the new plasma cutter in my inventory and went back to the store. It gave me the same unauthorized access error. I thought something was suspicious and checked my inventory, the plasma cutter was gone. I realized the store was detecting the cutter in my rigs inventory, seeing that I didn't have the proper CEC licence or clearance or whatever to have that piece of equipment, and then removing it from my inventory. I was furious, the random dude I got this from was probably an employee and could grab another one for free. But here I am defenseless again.
I walked up to the commander who was still sitting on the pile of boxes swinging his feet lazily
“Do you happen to have a spare gun that I could use? The store keeps stealing my plasma cutter, something about not being authorized or some bullshit.”
“Yeah just a second I'll see what I can find.” he said and looked around for a moment without getting up, finding a pistol in a holster on a belt. “Do not go to the store with this. If you need more ammo come back here.” he said sternly, “Just a second let me see if I can find some for you.” He glanced from side to side before saying he couldn't find anything, I couldn't help but think it was kinda lazy but what was I gonna do? I undid the belt and started putting it on.
“This isn't like your plasma cutter, it's going to take a couple more rounds to bring them down.” he said
when I had it all set up on my right hip I started walking away towards the shuttle bay door.
“Oh... and death is real here. If you die there's nothing we can do for you.” he shouted a little, just to make sure I heard. I figured that was the case since this was a full transition and all but it just made me feel extra warm and fuzzy inside to hear someone else confirm it for me. Knowing I could die here and maybe never return to my physical body and no one would know what happened. It would probably be listed as some random, mysterious and unexplainable death of an otherwise healthy 24 year old male that would be quickly forgotten. I didn't really like my physical body or the life it had but it was probably better than what could happen to me here.
I walked past a square pit that I assumed was for a cargo lift. Four heavy rails set into the walls, one for each corner of the platform I assumed. Thick black and yellow diagonally striped warning paint on the ground, and no safety rails. I kept moving towards a small metal automatic door. There was a strange 2 meter long quadrilateral window to its left showing a totally empty metal room. I pushed the button on the right and the door slid open to open. Inside there was absolutely nothing there. Just a big, oh, 7 by 25 meter room. To the right was a solid wall, to the left was a long stretch of floor leading to an opening. Everything was metal, the floors were covered in big 1 meter square metal plates, the walls and ceiling were much the same. The ceiling tapered in height, lowest by the door where I was and tallest at the end of the room. Lined with bar lights every few meters creating a more or less even lighting across the entire area. Although it did get noticeably darker near the opening. Out the opening it looked like I could see stars and a part of another large metal structure. At the time I believed this room was a shuttle bay even though I could breath and see space at the same time. In most dreams this wouldn't be a contradiction but the physics in full transitions were usually pretty solid. I didn't have an explanation for why I could breathe, I had no helmet after all.
Didn't really matter though because as soon as the door closed behind me a loud klaxon screeched and red lights started flashing. A loud clunk told me the door had just locked behind me.
“Fucking... bullshit” I cursed. I watched through the window as three slashers ran around the corner from the hallway opposite the cargo elevator towards the group of civilians. I watched the commander's eyes go wide before finally jumping off his boxes. There was a clunk behind me. I looked to see a slasher crawling up the ramp in the distance. I pulled the pistol before a second slasher dropped from the roof much closer to me. If I'm perfectly honest most of this part is just a blur. Likely from the stress and adrenaline. I know that I started shooting at the closer slasher and was annoyed at how difficult it was to hit the limbs in the same spot twice because they were moving and twitching all over the place and that the game made it seem effortless by comparison. I'm pretty sure I compensated for this by using something I call “reflex time.” I took note that I liked the pistol better than the plasma cutter in some ways, it was incredibly light and had practically no recoil even compared to the low recoil of a cutter. And came loaded with 75 rounds of what appeared to be plasma.
A third slasher dropped from the roof between the second and first one, I think one of them was dead by this point already. Luckily none of them had decided to sprint at me. I was very conscious of how close I was to the walls behind and beside me, trying to not back away unless I had to lest I have no where to evade to. When there was only one slasher left I was almost out of space between me and the walls and it was within 5 meters of me when I managed to cut one of its legs off. It continued crawling forward and I kept shooting at it's arms. At one point it stopped and tensed and I just barely realized in time what it was doing as I leapt backwards. It lunged at me, clearing aiming for my waist to pull me down. But my leap made it fall short and land on my left shin instead. It's jawless mouth stuck into the rubber of my boot. I could feel parts where its side teeth had penetrated the rubber and were lightly embedded in my skin. I was freaking out, had nowhere left to go, but was trying to remain as mentally controlled as possible while firing the weak, narrow rounds into it's bladed arm. It was probably a safer bet than an emotional breakdown.
It started propping itself up, making it's teeth twist and jab me in other parts of my shin. I could feel what I assumed was it's saliva seeping through the boot onto my leg, and little squishy pressures as the muscles in its mouth randomly twitched. I was looking for good targets that could get it off me as quickly as possible. The tiny rounds couldn't cut through it's limbs fast enough and I had to fire in a pattern to get anything done. Kinda like those carnival games where you have to shoot out the red star from a piece of paper with a bb gun. Except the star was a repurposed bicep and I didn't know how many rounds I had left. I looked for anything thinner that I could take out in the next couple seconds and saw that it's “elbow” was incredibly thin. I emptied rounds into it, hitting just above the elbow, until it broke off. I grabbed the severed blade limb yelled something angrily at the necromorph as I stabbed through the back of its neck, trying to angle the blade to be as careful as I could not to stab my own foot. Twisting my hips and sheering it's head off of the rest of its body. The slasher went limp.
I was panting, adrenaline still freely flowing. The slashers head was still attached to my boot. It's teeth were holding it in place. I grabbed the sides of the head and ripped it off, pulling chunks of the boot with it revealing that my shin had several minor cuts and gouges from where the teeth pierced deep enough to get me. I wondered for a moment if it would be possible for a zombie virus to transfer through a dream into the real world via the Kruger Effect like other injuries and was happy that necromorphs did not reproduce like zombies.
I took note of my situation. I checked the ammo for my pistol. I don't know the exact number but I think it was in the 40 - 50 round range. I knew that my prospects for re-arming were pretty slim, one look outside the window confirmed that pretty definitively. I didn't know what had happened but everyone was gone, no corpses, no other necromorphs waiting to climb through the window. But there was rubble and smoke everywhere. I knew they had been fighting and I doubted three slashers could take the entire group. I assumed the rubble had come from the commander guys grenade launcher. With no prospect to get more ammo for my pistol and the stores eating my plasma cutters every time I accessed them I needed some other option. I looked at the slasher blade. I noted that it had managed to cut through the metal floor plate when I severed the slashers head. The plating was just a cheap sheet metal which helped explain why it was so echoey to walk on, but still. The blade was made of a deformed human forearm and hand. The wrist was completely fused with the blade exploding out of where the palm would have been. There was a small coating of flesh around the base of the blade, similar to gum tissue. The blade was slightly curved with the sharp edge on the inside. The forearm was quite thin, made almost entirely out of solid bone and appearing to serve no other purpose than a structural base for the blade. Giving it the structural strength to be plunged into skulls or other dense materials. With a Kinesis module I'd be able to shoot this at other slashers, but I didn't have one of those. I was reminded of a previous lucid dream where I'd taken advantage of a kinesis module's safety features designed to prevent someone from blowing off their own fingers to turn it into a limb severing palm strike. The equivalent of holding back the guard on a nail gun so you can shoot with it. It was one of those tricks that left me wondering if it would really work in real life.
But holding it the way I was, it kinda looked like a sword. I was willing to bet it'd work just as well as one too after a few modifications. There was still the severed chunk of limb hanging off the elbow. In hindsight it might've made a good tassel but it was clumsy and added extra weight.
I started trying to twist it off with my hands but it was extremely difficult I anchored the blade between my feet and legs and twisted with my whole torso, the tendons and cartilage made gross cracking and ripping noises but still didn't twist off completely. I swore at it for being so hard to rip off. I was very tempted to shoot it off with the pistol but I didn't want to waste what little ammo I had on something like that. As I worked I noticed how eerily quiet it was. I'd been listening intently the entire time for any sign of movement, anything that might be another threat, but there was nothing. No necromorphs and no humans. It felt so strange considering the three corpses I shared the room with, the broken glass on the floor and the other signs of a recent fight. It felt almost like it hadn't happened at all. It felt kind of peaceful, like I wasn't really doing what I was doing. I wasn't actually crafting a mutated human limb into a weapon, I didn't actually kill three slashers and escape with minor injuries. Death isn't actually real here. Well... to be fair... that one I didn't know either way. For all I knew if I died here I'd just wake up and all of this would just be a bad dream. But I'd nearly died in the real world from things that by all rights should just be in my head a few times now and I wasn't taking any chances.
Eventually I managed to get it free. I held up the blade an tested it's weighting. It really did feel like a sword now. I noticed the remains of fingers at the point where the blade exploded out from the disfigured palm. I shook it a few times and saw the fingers flop around. “Yeah that's going to get annoying really quick” I said and started trying to twist the fingers off. They felt weird, they were squishy and springy. Like whatever it was that made bones hard had been sucked out of the fingers. I assume to be redistributed to more important areas, like the blade.
I continued twisting fingers for a minute but they weren't even budging. Their smaller size made them impossible to grip properly let along torque hard enough to rip through the skin or anything else. I was about to bite one before remembering what it was. “Fuck it!” I pulled out the pistol and shot them off one at a time in frustration. One finger annoyingly requiring two shots because I aimed wrong with the first. 6 rounds I could never get back just so I wouldn't have to get annoyed at distended fingers flopping around while chopping space zombies apart for my own survival.
But now I had a sword, The sharpened inner edge of the soft curve relegated it to a chopping weapon with pretty much no ability to slash which was just fine with me. The only way to kill necromorphs is to cause massive blood loss. The fastest way to do that is cutting off their limbs. A heavy chopping blade is exactly what the doctor ordered.
I wanted to hold the blade in my right hand but the pistol was holstered on my right hip. I felt like I'd wasted so much time already trimming my sword and didn't want to literally get caught with my pants down switching the belt around. So I held the sword in my left and went to the door. I felt the all too familiar stress headache as I pushed the button to open the door. “This is going to be another long-ass fucking day isn't it?” I sighed as the door slid open. I felt the familiar pain of the stress headache I always get when I'm in these situations. Along with a little dizziness and disorientation from the adrenaline or something.
The whole place was a wreck. The locker area was filled with rubble and there appeared to be a small fire burning in the distance. I probably thought about searching the area for any ammo or supplies but I didn't get that far. The large open hallway to my left had similar rubble piles. But there was a dude standing there against the wall, he didn't look like much, but he did have a plasma cutter.
“What is that?” The guy said in a shaky, fear riddled voice. I assumed he was talking about my sword.
“Like it? Yeah, now I just need a sheath for it.”
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“Why do you have that? Come on throw that away!” The guy talked over me in his panicky, squeaky voice.
It didn't occur to me that I just said that to someone who might've watched a bunch of people get impaled and dragged away screaming in the last few minutes or days. Nor did I think about what getting a sheath might entail at the time. To be fair I really wouldn't've cared even if I did. Sarcasm is my coping mechanism to keep from going totally insane. I felt really, really mellow. I think I was a little high on endorphins or something.
I can't remember if I tried asking him anything else. If I did it would've been something like “So where'd everyone go? Anyone else still alive?”
But suddenly the guy points at the roof above me and shrieks “WATCH OUT!”
By this point I really should've learned that looking up was a vital survival skill. I saw a slasher falling from a hole in the ceiling a good 5 to 7 meters off the ground. It landed right in front of me and lunged straight for my face with it's left blade. I turned on reflex time and was glad that I had been holding my sword in my left hand. I swung the sword back and around trying to build up as much momentum as I could in such a tight space while moving diagonally to the right into what I now know is a Bo stance. Doing what my kung fu studio would probably call a 'partial breakaway into right bo.' Reflex time gave me lots of time to watch and see if my evade was fast enough to avoid getting stabbed in the face. I remember thinking to myself “For something called a 'slasher' they sure do seem to like stabbing a lot.”
It's blade sailed safely over my left shoulder. I bought my sword into it's 'shoulder' with as much force as I'd managed to build with both hands. Left over right or right over left I don't remember. Probably left over right.
The blade hit close to the fleshy hilt, only went in a little less than half way. The slasher was still mid air with it's leap with a lot of momentum left to spend. I brought my left leg forward behind my right into a cross step and what would likely be called a right Open-X stance in kung fu now, carving the curve of my blade down and around it's shoulder, trying to do as much damage as I could. I curved the blade around until it was horizontal then ripped back hard as far as my joints and tendons would go, maybe sliding my right foot out to add extra torque to the pull, I don't remember for sure. Ending with the blade at ear height with the sharp side facing upwards and the tip pointing at the slasher. Completely sheering off its arm except for a small flap of skin on the top of the shoulder which did little to keep the rest attached.
The slasher lands out of its failed lunge, still in reflex time I see an opening for it's right arm. I twirl the sword once to build up momentum them step forward in a large arcing golf swing and lop it off entirely. I cross step in front of myself, twirl the blade overhead, and bring it down on the back of the slashers hunched neck. Dropping low in my stance, allowing gravity to pull my body and add its entire weight to the force. The head comes clean off. Blood is gushing everywhere and the slasher is still standing upright as if unphased
Are you seriously going to keep going? I wonder. Then its knees go limp and it collapses into the pool of blood. Nope? Okay good.
I come down from my instinctive shock, exiting reflex time. I couldn't believe I'd won. I took on a necromorph in melee and actually won. Something I thought was probably impossible. “Wow good thing I was in my spirit body or I'd be dead.” I laugh to the civilian who was still freaked out.
Either I don't remember what the guy said next or I never heard it in the first place because I was kinda talking over him. But he was confused about what I'd just said about my spirit body, and I continued,
“Half blind and whose only experience is writing essays? No fucking way.”
“Spirit-? What are you talking about? You're right here!” the guy exasperated.
I paused and rested the blunt part of my sword on my right shoulder. Well.... that's an interesting response I thought to myself. The implications were a little scary, does that mean this is actually a physically real place?
“What!?” The guy squeaked in annoyance. I hadn't realized I'd been staring at him the whole time.
“Nevermind.” I put the sword down and walked up to him. I know I asked him some questions but I don't remember the wording or too many specifics. Where did everyone go, Something about his plasma cutter or if he could use it, something along those lines. I tried brokering a deal with him to work together “Look our chances of survival are pretty slim, but if we stick together we might have more of a chance. But if you run off and get yourself in trouble, I'm abandoning you. If you're willing to work together I might help get you out of here alive.” Far from the exact words I used but the message was pretty much the same.
“MIGHT!?” The guy protested, insulted.
“Look man, no promises.” I really had no time or patience for whiny, panicky civilians who couldn't take care of themselves and couldn't understand basic concepts like how there's no guarantees in life let alone in a situation like this. Or that I am not some angel who's going to sacrifice himself to save some pathetic piece of shit who's only skill is crying in a corner. I gave up on trying to save everyone an incredibly long time ago. Some peoples lives are simply more valuable than others.
We start walking towards the door at the far end of the room. There's a exposed slasher blade peeking out from underneath a large pile of rubble. Just as wee get close the thing explodes into life, throwing dust and bits of rock everywhere. The civilian starts screaming. I thought it was just a severed limb. I can't see anything in the dust and I know that necromorphs can see nerve impulses. I pop in and out of reflex time but every time I do my headache gets worse. I can tell my brain is fatiguing from using reflex time so much in such a short amount of time. But I don't have any other counter to this threat right now. I pop in and out, trying to conserve my mental stamina, trying to see any hint of pink of the slasher through the dust. Eventually I do, it walks right up to me, gurgles a scream and stabs at me with it's left blade. I stay in reflex time and push it hard for a few moments. Lining up the flat part of my blade to intercept the point of it's. A feat of precision impossible without reflex time. It's tip digs into my blade and I hold it there. Telling my subconscious to 'gyroscope' and keep the slasher blade from slipping out of mine. The guy behind me is still screaming and the slasher is screaming in my face as well. I'm still popping in and out of reflex time wondering if the guy is getting attacked behind me and then realizing he's just freaking out. The slasher stabs at me with it's other blade and I force reflex time again to catch it as well. I have a splitting headache as my subconscious tells me it's struggling to balance both of the blades on top of all the compounding fatigue from reflex time.
“Shoot it! What the fuck do you think I'm holding it for!?” I yell at the useless civilian behind me. But he didn't shoot it, he just continued to scream. It's not like he had a bad shot or anything. From his constant screaming I could tell that he was slightly behind me and to my right on top of a pile of rubble. I could actually see him in the corner of my eye a bit too. He had a perfect shot at the thing's left arm or it's neck if he had really good aim. And since I was holding it in place for him it's not like he had to deal with the jiggly arm bullshit I had to when I got locked in with three of them. And he has a plasma cutter, which was both more powerful and easier to aim than my pistol. He has literally nothing to complain about.
I can feel the tip of the left blade digging a divit into the base of my sword. I was pretty lucky that the slasher was dumb enough to try shoving its way though solid bone rather than letting go and grabbing me with it's little T-rex hands or stabbing again. But it was only a matter of time before it figured that out too. But if it digs much deeper it could seriously compromise the swords integrity and maybe snap it, and if I lose this sword I'm fucked. I can't defend myself against necromorphs with just the pistol and it's quickly diminishing, irreplaceable ammo.
I decide we'll both be long dead by the time someone like Screamy McGee gets his shit together and decides to be useful and defend himself. I growl and push both the slasher blades up and lunging forward underneath them and ramming my right shoulder hard into it's chest with as much body weight as I could put behind it. I turned on reflex time again, waiting to feel an involuntary muscle spasm so I could get an idea of how fast slasher reflexes are. I keep waiting, and waiting, still shoving forward in slow motion with my right shoulder. It passes the point where I thought it'd tighten and I keep waiting. Then to my surprise it passes the point of average human reflex time. I keep waiting, Eventually the muscles tighten. I never expected it's reflexes to be so incredibly slow. That knowledge added another tool to my survival toolkit.
I start swinging my left leg forward and wait until the distance was right to strike the slashers hands. I step down and twist my entire body to the right as I swing, adding everything I could to the torque. The curved tip completely severing all of the fingers on its right hand, some on it's left, and mangling the rest. Removing its ability to grab anyone ever again. The sword swings so hard it wrenches my right shoulder a little painfully as it stops behind me. The sheer amount of overkill was a shameful waste of momentum. It made me wonder if I had enough force to cut it in half if I'd aimed for the waist instead. But I probably didn't.
It continues to stumble backwards and skids to a stop, keeping it's balance, as I exit reflex time. I face my right side to it. I raise my sword over my head and wait just until it lunges it's left blade at my face. I hop backwards, dodging the blade entirely, while swinging the sword low , cutting off it's foot at the 'ankle.' I pop back into reflex time, grab my gun with my right hand and spin step forward to bring myself in line with the necromorph as it find outs it no longer has a left foot to land on and starts falling. I aim just below it's right blade elbow and wait until it falls into the sights of the pistol. I fire, move the gun down a bit, wait, fire again. I repeat a few more times and the arm comes off just before the slasher hits the ground. I switch to the left arm and cut it off while the slasher is prone, and probably stunned, on the ground.
I am not happy with my situation. I had to use up even more ammo because head of the screamsters union over there was too scared to use any of his. I start heading back towards the door. “I think I prefer when they're CGI” I sigh sarcastically. Wasn't really anything I could do about it.
“What are you talking about!?” The guy says, confused and angry.
“Just... nevermind.” I sigh again.
When I open the door the dream shifts. It's no longer a full transition and there's no necromorphs. Its not really worth writing here but the short version is I have a sword duel with some other guy, complete with some magic. Don't remember who won though.
When I eventually woke up I did have some cuts and light bruises on my left shin. But it was so light that I decided it wasn't a confirmed Kruger Effect.
WHAT I LEARNED:
Although this experience may seem like a lot all on it's own, it's true value didn't shine until the next night.
The next night I started slipping into another Dead Space dream and I was like “NOOOOOPPPPPEEE!!!” and just plain refused to have one. I instead focused on a spirit that I wanted to have a shared dream with and the sheer amount of emotion made it happen. It was my very first correlation between powerful, focused emotions and desired outcomes. The very first instance that demonstrated that you could induce a specific shared dream. Up until that point shared dreams and even some projections seemed random and based largely on things that happened outside of your control. But that first correlation demonstrated that it was possible to control them. It led to a number of advances in my training. The ability to astral project into someone elses future dream, the ability to poltergeist, the ability to game master someone elses dream, the ability to break dream/projection lockdowns, better detection of hijacked projections/dreams, more advanced counter sealing techniques, and so on.
None of which would've been developed if it weren't for this experience. Sure maybe some other experience would've happened instead but don't see how I could've learned what I did without it being something as intense as this. Lots of people would probably never want to experience something like this, seeing it as horrific and nightmarish. It certainly was that. But I've learned more from these sorts of experiences than any other. You don't really learn anything unless you're pushed beyond your limits and forced to deal with it. Until eventually things like this don't seem like any big deal to you, you just do whatever you need to do to make it.
I have a lot of stories like this that I can share, they're the most valuable experiences I've ever had. If nothing else they're exciting. Believe it or not if I don't have one for a long time, like a few months, I actually start getting bored and I start hoping for a good life and death fight like this even though I generally hate them with a passion while they're happening. Generally that triggers some new thing to happen that pushes my training forward by a big leap again.
NOTES:
I decided to write this experience up in more of a novel format because I felt it better described what happened. I can tell you this is not 100% word for word accurate but it is as best as I can remember. I try to be as honest about that as I can throughout. This happened back in 2010 or 2011 or something so I think I did pretty good. I'm also pretty sure I've missed some things in editing and I'm sure all my formatting will get destroyed as soon as I post but this has already taken me so long to write up that I just don't care right now. I still have my May 1st 2017 OOBE thing to write up.
There's the main experience with some notes throughout and then a proper appendix section at the end for a lot of terms that you'll see me use throughout this. If you don't know what I meanwhen I say things like "spirit body" or"reflex time" just go find it there.
I'm not Mod+ing this and I hope that doesn't turn out to be a mistake. I can't believe I'm even posting this as it is.
Oh and if you have no idea what Dead Space is, here's the wiki and there's playthroughs all over youtube if you're interested... have fun sleeping.
Here we go!
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So I spawn in, my visions blurry but I can see and hear lots of commotion around me. As my vision clears I can see I'm in a crowd of people, mostly civilian but some military looking ones too. I can tell I'm in my spirit body. Having peripheral vision was a bit of a clue. I'm indoors in a hallway, civilians are clearing out lockers. The military is futuristic looking. I notice the weapons the military have are straight out of the Dead Space series and I get a familiar sinking feeling. I'd been having Dead Space dreams for the past week straight and although I'd survived all of them it's never been an enjoyable experience. However this dream in particular wasn't just lucid, it was a full transition. So... I was stuck here for the foreseeable future, unable to wake myself up and who knows what else. I took note of what I was wearing. Some kind of Rig without a helmet with a plasma cutter strapped to my hip. Heavy boots and no gloves, no kinesis module or stasis module. At least I was starting off better equipped than some of the other dreams, but worse equipped than others. I could feel that I had no access to magic either which dramatically lowered my confidence and general mood.
“Hey.” I said to a passing guard, he looked at me somewhat annoyedly. I assume he was thinking he was going to to have to listen to yet another civilian whine about something he couldn't do anything about. “Can I talk to whoever's in charge here?”
He walked me through the crowd towards a guy casually sitting on a pile of cardboard boxes holding an assault rifle. I don't remember the exact start of the conversation but I believe the first thing he asked me was “This is a Full Transition for you, right?
I was stunned that he knew. I stammered” Well, no... I mean... my body is asleep right now-”
He cut me off with a wave of his hand, “Kay', whatever.” and leaned in, “You're not supposed to be here.”
“Well I'm here now.” I shrugged my shoulders “So what's the situation.”
He told me how they arrived here responding to a distress call about a necromorph outbreak, they destroyed the Marker but for some reason not all of the necromorphs dissolved. “and yes, we've already looked for another marker.” he said. Continuing that until they can confirm that all the remaining necromorphs are dead, no one leaves. They cannot risk that one of the surviving necromorphs is a Bat capable of creating more necromorphs not tied to a marker. Mentioning something about how they had already done all this so there was no reason for me to be there.
I asked him if he minded if I poked around and tried to help out since I was there anyways. He said he didn't mind. I realized that what I was doing was insane but what else could I do? Staying with a large group of people seems safe until they attract a horde of necromorphs which turn the people into even more necromorphs. Or the people are driven insane by marker broadcasts and try to kill me, each other, and themselves. Then turn into necromorphs anyways. I knew the guy said they'd destroyed it already but I didn't want to take chances. Going off on my own seemed like the safest way to survive the full transition. I'd yet to ever be injured in one, I had no idea if the injuries would transfer to my physical body the same way they do for astral projections. Everything I knew at that point told me that injury during a full transition might cause injury at a one to one ratio to the physical body as well. I really didn't want to find out. My options were to either sit in a corner and cry, hoping to wake up or be saved but probably ending up dead. Or deal with it, do my best to plan and act with what I had available and and maybe survive.
Now that I could see more clearly from a better vantage point I could see that I was standing in a hallway lined with lockers, reminded me of a school. All the lockers had the CEC logo on them and civilians were digging everything out of them into boxes and trash bins under guard by a few scattered armed military. I assumed they were scavenging for whatever supplies they cold get. Their were cardboard boxes stacked in various places in the room, probably full of various supplies.
There was a makeshift store set up in the middle of the hallway near some double doors into another identical hallway. A thick cord was run from it to somewhere in the wall. The blue holographic screens looked a little odd when viewed from behind like this. I decided I should probably see what I could get at the store while I was here. I tried using the store but it gave me an error, telling me that I needed to connect my rig's inventory to the terminal to continue. I fumbled a bit but found a small cable to plug into a slot on the store terminal. I browsed through the inventory but it was very slim pickings. The store wouldn't let me buy most things but I was able to grab a couple upgrade nodes. The store transferred them to my rigs inventory where they were stored in a pure energy state, ready to be rematerialized whenever I needed them.
I went over to a similarly jerry rigged upgrade bench and tried to figure out how it worked. In the games it was just clicking buttons while welding animations played. I Think I asked someone for help and they showed me how to clamp the plasma cutter onto the bench properly and open a panel on it. After fiddling with the little oblong nodes and watching a tutorial video built into the bench itself I learned they were kinda like micro reactors. Running bypasses or providing extra power to parts of the circuitry depending on where they were connected. Originally intended for simple modifications to equipment to meet unique demands of the job, which I'm sure didn't originally include killing necromorphs.
I decided after getting the first ones in I should go check what else I could buy. I holstered the plasma cutter and checked the store. I think I bought ammo or maybe more nodes, I don't remember. After I'd finished the screen flashed “unauthorized access” a few times in orange. I was a little confused because the transaction seemed to complete just fine so I ignored it. Assuming it might've been a glitch from the incredibly non-standard jerry rigged setup the store had.
I walked towards the double doors leading into the next locker area. I started planning for anything could think of. I Deciding to keep the plasma cutter holstered. I figured that if a necromorph suddenly ambushed me while I was holding a weapon, such a bursting out of one of the lockers as I walked past them and tackling me to the ground, I was likely to drop that weapon. But if I kept it holstered I at least had the chance of pulling it while I was on the ground. Even though having the weapon out at all times would make me faster to respond if something came around a corner ahead of me or if I spotted something in the distance.
The doors had a standard push bar mechanism like I've seen in schools and certain offices before. I walked into the next room. After the door clicked shut behind me I noticed how incredibly quiet it was compared to the room before. It was pretty unnerving. The bustling sound behind me quickly faded a couple steps from the door. I tried to stay as close to the middle of the hallway as possible to minimize ambushes from lockers. There were two large vents at the top of the walls at the end of the hallways, more than large enough for a necromorph to be hiding in. Although their height off the ground, and the vent covers still being on, meant that there would be a delay between one trying to jump out and actually getting to me, plus I'd probably notice long before anyways. The next room was a small antechamber with dirty black and white checkered tiled floor. There was a large corkboard hanging on the wall with many papers stuck to it with push pins. There was a single light on the ceiling leaving the entire room rather dim and dull. It looked like a cost cutting measures to save on electricity. Someone asking themselves “how much light do people really need?” and then buying the bulb just before that.
There was a small metal chair in the right corner, I think it was blue but the lighting made it hard to tell. It was one of those curved metal legged things with a rough plastic seat and back. To the left of the corkboard there was a small alcove and if you turned left in it there was a set of stairs going down. There were no lights at all in the stairway although I could see green lights on the left wall at the bottom indicating possible light switches. I didn't have a flashlight if I remember correctly, either that or I didn't want to use one in case of drawing attention. Necromorphs were capable of seeing a living creatures nerve impulses. Giving them superior vision in the dark. If I had access to magic I could do more or less the same thing. So if I was going to have light I'd rather the whole area be lit up.
I could hear a low hum or buzz from the lit panel. Just couple sparse dots of green. I was going to start pushing buttons but then I heard something clunk in the distance down the black hallway. The light from upstairs barely reached, but faintly I could see what could've been a bench against the left wall a good five meters away, and something awkwardly crawling onto it from the wall, probably out of a vent. I reach for the plasma cutter at my hip.... aaaaaaand it's not there.
You have to be fucking kidding me I thought. I was in a pitch black hallway, down a set of stairs, away from armed military personnel, with a necromorph in the room, in a full transition where death might actually be real and for some incredibly stupid reason my plasma cutter was gone. The holster was still there, but the cutter was gone. My day was just going perfect. It looked like it was probably a slasher type and it hadn't noticed me yet. I slowly started back up the stairs. Walking sideways so my toes wouldn't accidentally kick against the back of the steps. Inching my way back up into the light. I was really, really hoping that it wouldn't randomly turn my way while I was still in plain view. Luckily it didn't. I knew the slasher would probably be attracted to the light and eventually find it's way upstairs. I got upstairs and could hear the commotion of people again. The group had moved into the second locker room and were clearing them out. Now it was probably guaranteed that the slasher would come upstairs, lured by the noise.
I immediately dashed for the commander guy in the other room to tell him there was a slasher coming up the stairs and then headed back to some guy sitting on a box right beside the door to the antechamber. He didn't look military, but he did have a plasma cutter.
“There'sanecromorphcomingupthestairsgimmeyourplasmacutter!” I splurted and held out my hand.
He looked at me confused and surprised “What? No-”
“Give me... your fucking.... PLASMA CUTTER!” I yelled. He looked at me wide eyed and slowly handed me his cutter without saying a word or taking his eyes off of me.
I think I told one of the guards that I had a plan to go into the room and attack the slasher and they were to back me up only if they needed to. If we could keep it's attention away from the massive group of people behind the doors that would be best. In hindsight I guess it's not surprising that there were no objections to the plan. “Wait, you wanna go into a room alone with a necromorph, close the door behind you, and kill it yourself? That sounds like a great plan! Yeah, don't worry man, we'll totally be here to back you up if anything goes wrong. Promise.”
I looked through the door and the slasher was up the stairs, currently staring at the bulletin board. I fumbled slightly with the cutter making sure I knew where all the controls were. The head rotation was a convenient thumb button on the left side. I pushed it a few times cathartically. I formulated a plan of how I was going to kill the slasher. I went in front of the door and stood on my left foot, bracing my right lightly against the push bar, aiming the plasma cutter at the necromorph. Pushing the rotation button a couple more times for good luck then leaving it in the vertical position. Psyched myself up, then shoved the door open. The necromorph heard and immediately and awkwardly spun around as I cross stepped to my left, trying to move as smoothly as possible. I waited till it stopped rotating before unloading into one of it's left blade shoulder. Continuing to walk to my left and shooting, taking it off in around three or four hits, moving to the other shoulder, taking it off in another few hits. Then pushing the rotate button and taking off either its leg or its head, I don't quite remember which.
It collapsed in a pool of blood. In the games it was customary to repeatedly stomp on a dead necromorph's head, but fuck that.
I thought for sure I shot it's head off when I first wrote this part, but now in editing I'm not so sure. I know for sure I shot the left arm first and that I shot the right arm later, but I don't know if the order went arm-arm-head/leg or arm-head/leg-arm. I only remember it falling into the blood and me remembering how normally you'd go stomp it's head. But in my memory it looks like the head might've still been attached, meaning I took out an arm to stun it and then it's leg to limit it's mobility before taking out the other arm maybe.
Also in hindsight it's
Also in hindsight it's
I went back into the locker area and offered to give the guy his cutter back but he declined, saying I could have it. I went to the store again and bought two more upgrade nodes and went back to the upgrade table to fumble my way through putting them in again. I stored the new plasma cutter in my inventory and went back to the store. It gave me the same unauthorized access error. I thought something was suspicious and checked my inventory, the plasma cutter was gone. I realized the store was detecting the cutter in my rigs inventory, seeing that I didn't have the proper CEC licence or clearance or whatever to have that piece of equipment, and then removing it from my inventory. I was furious, the random dude I got this from was probably an employee and could grab another one for free. But here I am defenseless again.
I walked up to the commander who was still sitting on the pile of boxes swinging his feet lazily
“Do you happen to have a spare gun that I could use? The store keeps stealing my plasma cutter, something about not being authorized or some bullshit.”
It took me forever to figure out how to write the parts with the store because I couldn't remember the exact sequence I did everything in. I know that I had my plasma cuter at the beginning and that I was able to buy nodes and then add those nodes to my gun. And I know that I got the unauthorized access error before I left for the stairs. I know that the reason why the store took my cutters was because it knew they were there and that I didn't have proper clearance to have them. I'm pretty sure I remember there being something about 'registering' equipment in my rig's buffer so that the store knew what items to offer me. I'm pretty sure that I registered it, which allowed it to be automatically dematerialized and replaced with something else if I picked it out of the inventory. And by registering it it was detected by the store and then dematerialized and stolen. It may seem odd that I spent so much effort trying to remember/figure this out. Under normal circumstances I could just say “oh it's standard dream randomness” but full transitions are radically different. One of their defining features is that they are not random.
“Yeah just a second I'll see what I can find.” he said and looked around for a moment without getting up, finding a pistol in a holster on a belt. “Do not go to the store with this. If you need more ammo come back here.” he said sternly, “Just a second let me see if I can find some for you.” He glanced from side to side before saying he couldn't find anything, I couldn't help but think it was kinda lazy but what was I gonna do? I undid the belt and started putting it on.
People might be thinking “Why would he just hand over a gun to some random dude who isn't even supposed to be there? What did this guy mean when he said they did all that stuff so 'you' wouldn't have to be here?” Truth be told I was originally going to redact those bits because I didn't want to deal with the inevitable questions about it. But there's no way to properly redact it without leaving even bigger holes. There are several likely/possible reasons why this happened which I knew about at the time, none of which I really want to discuss and none of which I have any evidence for even if I did.
“This isn't like your plasma cutter, it's going to take a couple more rounds to bring them down.” he said
when I had it all set up on my right hip I started walking away towards the shuttle bay door.
“Oh... and death is real here. If you die there's nothing we can do for you.” he shouted a little, just to make sure I heard. I figured that was the case since this was a full transition and all but it just made me feel extra warm and fuzzy inside to hear someone else confirm it for me. Knowing I could die here and maybe never return to my physical body and no one would know what happened. It would probably be listed as some random, mysterious and unexplainable death of an otherwise healthy 24 year old male that would be quickly forgotten. I didn't really like my physical body or the life it had but it was probably better than what could happen to me here.
I walked past a square pit that I assumed was for a cargo lift. Four heavy rails set into the walls, one for each corner of the platform I assumed. Thick black and yellow diagonally striped warning paint on the ground, and no safety rails. I kept moving towards a small metal automatic door. There was a strange 2 meter long quadrilateral window to its left showing a totally empty metal room. I pushed the button on the right and the door slid open to open. Inside there was absolutely nothing there. Just a big, oh, 7 by 25 meter room. To the right was a solid wall, to the left was a long stretch of floor leading to an opening. Everything was metal, the floors were covered in big 1 meter square metal plates, the walls and ceiling were much the same. The ceiling tapered in height, lowest by the door where I was and tallest at the end of the room. Lined with bar lights every few meters creating a more or less even lighting across the entire area. Although it did get noticeably darker near the opening. Out the opening it looked like I could see stars and a part of another large metal structure. At the time I believed this room was a shuttle bay even though I could breath and see space at the same time. In most dreams this wouldn't be a contradiction but the physics in full transitions were usually pretty solid. I didn't have an explanation for why I could breathe, I had no helmet after all.
In hindsight I believe I may have just been on a planet at night seeing the night sky. There was really no reason to assume it was a shuttle bay, the two spires I saw in the distance could've easily just been planetside buildings.
Didn't really matter though because as soon as the door closed behind me a loud klaxon screeched and red lights started flashing. A loud clunk told me the door had just locked behind me.
“Fucking... bullshit” I cursed. I watched through the window as three slashers ran around the corner from the hallway opposite the cargo elevator towards the group of civilians. I watched the commander's eyes go wide before finally jumping off his boxes. There was a clunk behind me. I looked to see a slasher crawling up the ramp in the distance. I pulled the pistol before a second slasher dropped from the roof much closer to me. If I'm perfectly honest most of this part is just a blur. Likely from the stress and adrenaline. I know that I started shooting at the closer slasher and was annoyed at how difficult it was to hit the limbs in the same spot twice because they were moving and twitching all over the place and that the game made it seem effortless by comparison. I'm pretty sure I compensated for this by using something I call “reflex time.” I took note that I liked the pistol better than the plasma cutter in some ways, it was incredibly light and had practically no recoil even compared to the low recoil of a cutter. And came loaded with 75 rounds of what appeared to be plasma.
A third slasher dropped from the roof between the second and first one, I think one of them was dead by this point already. Luckily none of them had decided to sprint at me. I was very conscious of how close I was to the walls behind and beside me, trying to not back away unless I had to lest I have no where to evade to. When there was only one slasher left I was almost out of space between me and the walls and it was within 5 meters of me when I managed to cut one of its legs off. It continued crawling forward and I kept shooting at it's arms. At one point it stopped and tensed and I just barely realized in time what it was doing as I leapt backwards. It lunged at me, clearing aiming for my waist to pull me down. But my leap made it fall short and land on my left shin instead. It's jawless mouth stuck into the rubber of my boot. I could feel parts where its side teeth had penetrated the rubber and were lightly embedded in my skin. I was freaking out, had nowhere left to go, but was trying to remain as mentally controlled as possible while firing the weak, narrow rounds into it's bladed arm. It was probably a safer bet than an emotional breakdown.
It started propping itself up, making it's teeth twist and jab me in other parts of my shin. I could feel what I assumed was it's saliva seeping through the boot onto my leg, and little squishy pressures as the muscles in its mouth randomly twitched. I was looking for good targets that could get it off me as quickly as possible. The tiny rounds couldn't cut through it's limbs fast enough and I had to fire in a pattern to get anything done. Kinda like those carnival games where you have to shoot out the red star from a piece of paper with a bb gun. Except the star was a repurposed bicep and I didn't know how many rounds I had left. I looked for anything thinner that I could take out in the next couple seconds and saw that it's “elbow” was incredibly thin. I emptied rounds into it, hitting just above the elbow, until it broke off. I grabbed the severed blade limb yelled something angrily at the necromorph as I stabbed through the back of its neck, trying to angle the blade to be as careful as I could not to stab my own foot. Twisting my hips and sheering it's head off of the rest of its body. The slasher went limp.
During this whole thing I remember glancing through the window every once in awhile to make sure I knew if I was in danger of anything bashing it's way through because everyone was dead or something. Instead I remember seeing the commander guy shooting grenades or something at the slashers. I couldn't tell if he was using the secondary fire on the assault rifle or if he was using an actual grenade launcher. Either way I was pretty impressed at how well he was doing despite my earlier impressions of him because normally it doesn't turn out that way. I remember hearing and feeling the explosion from the grenades as they rattled the window until one of them must've landed too close and shattered it inwards which let in the overly loud sounds of gunfire and everything else. At some point there was a bit of crossfire that might've hit the second last slasher in my room. I remember there was commotion outside after the gunfire stopped and everyone sounded like they ran off in the direction of the bulletin board area. But I was too busy trying to get the last one off my shin to see or pay too much attention to any of it.
I was panting, adrenaline still freely flowing. The slashers head was still attached to my boot. It's teeth were holding it in place. I grabbed the sides of the head and ripped it off, pulling chunks of the boot with it revealing that my shin had several minor cuts and gouges from where the teeth pierced deep enough to get me. I wondered for a moment if it would be possible for a zombie virus to transfer through a dream into the real world via the Kruger Effect like other injuries and was happy that necromorphs did not reproduce like zombies.
I took note of my situation. I checked the ammo for my pistol. I don't know the exact number but I think it was in the 40 - 50 round range. I knew that my prospects for re-arming were pretty slim, one look outside the window confirmed that pretty definitively. I didn't know what had happened but everyone was gone, no corpses, no other necromorphs waiting to climb through the window. But there was rubble and smoke everywhere. I knew they had been fighting and I doubted three slashers could take the entire group. I assumed the rubble had come from the commander guys grenade launcher. With no prospect to get more ammo for my pistol and the stores eating my plasma cutters every time I accessed them I needed some other option. I looked at the slasher blade. I noted that it had managed to cut through the metal floor plate when I severed the slashers head. The plating was just a cheap sheet metal which helped explain why it was so echoey to walk on, but still. The blade was made of a deformed human forearm and hand. The wrist was completely fused with the blade exploding out of where the palm would have been. There was a small coating of flesh around the base of the blade, similar to gum tissue. The blade was slightly curved with the sharp edge on the inside. The forearm was quite thin, made almost entirely out of solid bone and appearing to serve no other purpose than a structural base for the blade. Giving it the structural strength to be plunged into skulls or other dense materials. With a Kinesis module I'd be able to shoot this at other slashers, but I didn't have one of those. I was reminded of a previous lucid dream where I'd taken advantage of a kinesis module's safety features designed to prevent someone from blowing off their own fingers to turn it into a limb severing palm strike. The equivalent of holding back the guard on a nail gun so you can shoot with it. It was one of those tricks that left me wondering if it would really work in real life.
But holding it the way I was, it kinda looked like a sword. I was willing to bet it'd work just as well as one too after a few modifications. There was still the severed chunk of limb hanging off the elbow. In hindsight it might've made a good tassel but it was clumsy and added extra weight.
I started trying to twist it off with my hands but it was extremely difficult I anchored the blade between my feet and legs and twisted with my whole torso, the tendons and cartilage made gross cracking and ripping noises but still didn't twist off completely. I swore at it for being so hard to rip off. I was very tempted to shoot it off with the pistol but I didn't want to waste what little ammo I had on something like that. As I worked I noticed how eerily quiet it was. I'd been listening intently the entire time for any sign of movement, anything that might be another threat, but there was nothing. No necromorphs and no humans. It felt so strange considering the three corpses I shared the room with, the broken glass on the floor and the other signs of a recent fight. It felt almost like it hadn't happened at all. It felt kind of peaceful, like I wasn't really doing what I was doing. I wasn't actually crafting a mutated human limb into a weapon, I didn't actually kill three slashers and escape with minor injuries. Death isn't actually real here. Well... to be fair... that one I didn't know either way. For all I knew if I died here I'd just wake up and all of this would just be a bad dream. But I'd nearly died in the real world from things that by all rights should just be in my head a few times now and I wasn't taking any chances.
Eventually I managed to get it free. I held up the blade an tested it's weighting. It really did feel like a sword now. I noticed the remains of fingers at the point where the blade exploded out from the disfigured palm. I shook it a few times and saw the fingers flop around. “Yeah that's going to get annoying really quick” I said and started trying to twist the fingers off. They felt weird, they were squishy and springy. Like whatever it was that made bones hard had been sucked out of the fingers. I assume to be redistributed to more important areas, like the blade.
I continued twisting fingers for a minute but they weren't even budging. Their smaller size made them impossible to grip properly let along torque hard enough to rip through the skin or anything else. I was about to bite one before remembering what it was. “Fuck it!” I pulled out the pistol and shot them off one at a time in frustration. One finger annoyingly requiring two shots because I aimed wrong with the first. 6 rounds I could never get back just so I wouldn't have to get annoyed at distended fingers flopping around while chopping space zombies apart for my own survival.
But now I had a sword, The sharpened inner edge of the soft curve relegated it to a chopping weapon with pretty much no ability to slash which was just fine with me. The only way to kill necromorphs is to cause massive blood loss. The fastest way to do that is cutting off their limbs. A heavy chopping blade is exactly what the doctor ordered.
I wanted to hold the blade in my right hand but the pistol was holstered on my right hip. I felt like I'd wasted so much time already trimming my sword and didn't want to literally get caught with my pants down switching the belt around. So I held the sword in my left and went to the door. I felt the all too familiar stress headache as I pushed the button to open the door. “This is going to be another long-ass fucking day isn't it?” I sighed as the door slid open. I felt the familiar pain of the stress headache I always get when I'm in these situations. Along with a little dizziness and disorientation from the adrenaline or something.
The whole place was a wreck. The locker area was filled with rubble and there appeared to be a small fire burning in the distance. I probably thought about searching the area for any ammo or supplies but I didn't get that far. The large open hallway to my left had similar rubble piles. But there was a dude standing there against the wall, he didn't look like much, but he did have a plasma cutter.
“What is that?” The guy said in a shaky, fear riddled voice. I assumed he was talking about my sword.
“Like it? Yeah, now I just need a sheath for it.”
|||
“Why do you have that? Come on throw that away!” The guy talked over me in his panicky, squeaky voice.
It didn't occur to me that I just said that to someone who might've watched a bunch of people get impaled and dragged away screaming in the last few minutes or days. Nor did I think about what getting a sheath might entail at the time. To be fair I really wouldn't've cared even if I did. Sarcasm is my coping mechanism to keep from going totally insane. I felt really, really mellow. I think I was a little high on endorphins or something.
I can't remember if I tried asking him anything else. If I did it would've been something like “So where'd everyone go? Anyone else still alive?”
But suddenly the guy points at the roof above me and shrieks “WATCH OUT!”
By this point I really should've learned that looking up was a vital survival skill. I saw a slasher falling from a hole in the ceiling a good 5 to 7 meters off the ground. It landed right in front of me and lunged straight for my face with it's left blade. I turned on reflex time and was glad that I had been holding my sword in my left hand. I swung the sword back and around trying to build up as much momentum as I could in such a tight space while moving diagonally to the right into what I now know is a Bo stance. Doing what my kung fu studio would probably call a 'partial breakaway into right bo.' Reflex time gave me lots of time to watch and see if my evade was fast enough to avoid getting stabbed in the face. I remember thinking to myself “For something called a 'slasher' they sure do seem to like stabbing a lot.”
I really hate that I'm using kung fu stances to describe what I did but since taking kung fu that just how I think now. I really don't know how to describe it any other way without taking up a whole page to explain all the foot positioning. Experiences like this make me realize in hindsight how much kung fu I had been using without ever realizing it. I probably contributed a lot to the knowledge I display in classes
It's blade sailed safely over my left shoulder. I bought my sword into it's 'shoulder' with as much force as I'd managed to build with both hands. Left over right or right over left I don't remember. Probably left over right.
This whole “not getting stabbed in the face” evasion is the thing I always think back to in Kung Fu classes to remind myself of why making sure you do really deep Bo stances is so important.
The blade hit close to the fleshy hilt, only went in a little less than half way. The slasher was still mid air with it's leap with a lot of momentum left to spend. I brought my left leg forward behind my right into a cross step and what would likely be called a right Open-X stance in kung fu now, carving the curve of my blade down and around it's shoulder, trying to do as much damage as I could. I curved the blade around until it was horizontal then ripped back hard as far as my joints and tendons would go, maybe sliding my right foot out to add extra torque to the pull, I don't remember for sure. Ending with the blade at ear height with the sharp side facing upwards and the tip pointing at the slasher. Completely sheering off its arm except for a small flap of skin on the top of the shoulder which did little to keep the rest attached.
The slasher lands out of its failed lunge, still in reflex time I see an opening for it's right arm. I twirl the sword once to build up momentum them step forward in a large arcing golf swing and lop it off entirely. I cross step in front of myself, twirl the blade overhead, and bring it down on the back of the slashers hunched neck. Dropping low in my stance, allowing gravity to pull my body and add its entire weight to the force. The head comes clean off. Blood is gushing everywhere and the slasher is still standing upright as if unphased
Are you seriously going to keep going? I wonder. Then its knees go limp and it collapses into the pool of blood. Nope? Okay good.
I always assume that there's going to be some people that think that I'm trying to act cool by talking about combative stuff because in the past that's what happened so I always dread talking about it. I try to go into as much detail as possible of every little movement I do for the sake of accuracy and honesty so people can get the clearest possible picture of what happened. Please don't make a pissing match out of it. If people have been paying attention, they'll know the experience wasn't exactly pleasant for me.
I come down from my instinctive shock, exiting reflex time. I couldn't believe I'd won. I took on a necromorph in melee and actually won. Something I thought was probably impossible. “Wow good thing I was in my spirit body or I'd be dead.” I laugh to the civilian who was still freaked out.
Either I don't remember what the guy said next or I never heard it in the first place because I was kinda talking over him. But he was confused about what I'd just said about my spirit body, and I continued,
“Half blind and whose only experience is writing essays? No fucking way.”
“Spirit-? What are you talking about? You're right here!” the guy exasperated.
I paused and rested the blunt part of my sword on my right shoulder. Well.... that's an interesting response I thought to myself. The implications were a little scary, does that mean this is actually a physically real place?
This right here was probably the very first evidence I ever got that full transitions might be alternate realities/dimensions. Although the best evidence did not come from this FTD. Even so it may mean that somewhere out there the story of Dead Space, or at least something very much like it, is real. And isn't that just the most heart warming thing you could possibly imagine?
“What!?” The guy squeaked in annoyance. I hadn't realized I'd been staring at him the whole time.
“Nevermind.” I put the sword down and walked up to him. I know I asked him some questions but I don't remember the wording or too many specifics. Where did everyone go, Something about his plasma cutter or if he could use it, something along those lines. I tried brokering a deal with him to work together “Look our chances of survival are pretty slim, but if we stick together we might have more of a chance. But if you run off and get yourself in trouble, I'm abandoning you. If you're willing to work together I might help get you out of here alive.” Far from the exact words I used but the message was pretty much the same.
“MIGHT!?” The guy protested, insulted.
“Look man, no promises.” I really had no time or patience for whiny, panicky civilians who couldn't take care of themselves and couldn't understand basic concepts like how there's no guarantees in life let alone in a situation like this. Or that I am not some angel who's going to sacrifice himself to save some pathetic piece of shit who's only skill is crying in a corner. I gave up on trying to save everyone an incredibly long time ago. Some peoples lives are simply more valuable than others.
We start walking towards the door at the far end of the room. There's a exposed slasher blade peeking out from underneath a large pile of rubble. Just as wee get close the thing explodes into life, throwing dust and bits of rock everywhere. The civilian starts screaming. I thought it was just a severed limb. I can't see anything in the dust and I know that necromorphs can see nerve impulses. I pop in and out of reflex time but every time I do my headache gets worse. I can tell my brain is fatiguing from using reflex time so much in such a short amount of time. But I don't have any other counter to this threat right now. I pop in and out, trying to conserve my mental stamina, trying to see any hint of pink of the slasher through the dust. Eventually I do, it walks right up to me, gurgles a scream and stabs at me with it's left blade. I stay in reflex time and push it hard for a few moments. Lining up the flat part of my blade to intercept the point of it's. A feat of precision impossible without reflex time. It's tip digs into my blade and I hold it there. Telling my subconscious to 'gyroscope' and keep the slasher blade from slipping out of mine. The guy behind me is still screaming and the slasher is screaming in my face as well. I'm still popping in and out of reflex time wondering if the guy is getting attacked behind me and then realizing he's just freaking out. The slasher stabs at me with it's other blade and I force reflex time again to catch it as well. I have a splitting headache as my subconscious tells me it's struggling to balance both of the blades on top of all the compounding fatigue from reflex time.
“Shoot it! What the fuck do you think I'm holding it for!?” I yell at the useless civilian behind me. But he didn't shoot it, he just continued to scream. It's not like he had a bad shot or anything. From his constant screaming I could tell that he was slightly behind me and to my right on top of a pile of rubble. I could actually see him in the corner of my eye a bit too. He had a perfect shot at the thing's left arm or it's neck if he had really good aim. And since I was holding it in place for him it's not like he had to deal with the jiggly arm bullshit I had to when I got locked in with three of them. And he has a plasma cutter, which was both more powerful and easier to aim than my pistol. He has literally nothing to complain about.
I can feel the tip of the left blade digging a divit into the base of my sword. I was pretty lucky that the slasher was dumb enough to try shoving its way though solid bone rather than letting go and grabbing me with it's little T-rex hands or stabbing again. But it was only a matter of time before it figured that out too. But if it digs much deeper it could seriously compromise the swords integrity and maybe snap it, and if I lose this sword I'm fucked. I can't defend myself against necromorphs with just the pistol and it's quickly diminishing, irreplaceable ammo.
I decide we'll both be long dead by the time someone like Screamy McGee gets his shit together and decides to be useful and defend himself. I growl and push both the slasher blades up and lunging forward underneath them and ramming my right shoulder hard into it's chest with as much body weight as I could put behind it. I turned on reflex time again, waiting to feel an involuntary muscle spasm so I could get an idea of how fast slasher reflexes are. I keep waiting, and waiting, still shoving forward in slow motion with my right shoulder. It passes the point where I thought it'd tighten and I keep waiting. Then to my surprise it passes the point of average human reflex time. I keep waiting, Eventually the muscles tighten. I never expected it's reflexes to be so incredibly slow. That knowledge added another tool to my survival toolkit.
I start swinging my left leg forward and wait until the distance was right to strike the slashers hands. I step down and twist my entire body to the right as I swing, adding everything I could to the torque. The curved tip completely severing all of the fingers on its right hand, some on it's left, and mangling the rest. Removing its ability to grab anyone ever again. The sword swings so hard it wrenches my right shoulder a little painfully as it stops behind me. The sheer amount of overkill was a shameful waste of momentum. It made me wonder if I had enough force to cut it in half if I'd aimed for the waist instead. But I probably didn't.
Although this section might read as if the slasher was standing there for a whole minute trying to shove it's way through the sword before I countered... it was actually 2 seconds. Maybe 3 at the most. In total it was probably around 6-9 seconds from when it first stabbed with it's left to when I shouldered it. In hindsight it was probably too little time to expect a reaction from the civilian I was just trying to write down everything I remember thinking and feeling at the time and that takes up a lot of page space making it feel like more time passed than actually passed.
It continues to stumble backwards and skids to a stop, keeping it's balance, as I exit reflex time. I face my right side to it. I raise my sword over my head and wait just until it lunges it's left blade at my face. I hop backwards, dodging the blade entirely, while swinging the sword low , cutting off it's foot at the 'ankle.' I pop back into reflex time, grab my gun with my right hand and spin step forward to bring myself in line with the necromorph as it find outs it no longer has a left foot to land on and starts falling. I aim just below it's right blade elbow and wait until it falls into the sights of the pistol. I fire, move the gun down a bit, wait, fire again. I repeat a few more times and the arm comes off just before the slasher hits the ground. I switch to the left arm and cut it off while the slasher is prone, and probably stunned, on the ground.
I am not happy with my situation. I had to use up even more ammo because head of the screamsters union over there was too scared to use any of his. I start heading back towards the door. “I think I prefer when they're CGI” I sigh sarcastically. Wasn't really anything I could do about it.
“What are you talking about!?” The guy says, confused and angry.
“Just... nevermind.” I sigh again.
When I open the door the dream shifts. It's no longer a full transition and there's no necromorphs. Its not really worth writing here but the short version is I have a sword duel with some other guy, complete with some magic. Don't remember who won though.
When I eventually woke up I did have some cuts and light bruises on my left shin. But it was so light that I decided it wasn't a confirmed Kruger Effect.
WHAT I LEARNED:
Although this experience may seem like a lot all on it's own, it's true value didn't shine until the next night.
The next night I started slipping into another Dead Space dream and I was like “NOOOOOPPPPPEEE!!!” and just plain refused to have one. I instead focused on a spirit that I wanted to have a shared dream with and the sheer amount of emotion made it happen. It was my very first correlation between powerful, focused emotions and desired outcomes. The very first instance that demonstrated that you could induce a specific shared dream. Up until that point shared dreams and even some projections seemed random and based largely on things that happened outside of your control. But that first correlation demonstrated that it was possible to control them. It led to a number of advances in my training. The ability to astral project into someone elses future dream, the ability to poltergeist, the ability to game master someone elses dream, the ability to break dream/projection lockdowns, better detection of hijacked projections/dreams, more advanced counter sealing techniques, and so on.
None of which would've been developed if it weren't for this experience. Sure maybe some other experience would've happened instead but don't see how I could've learned what I did without it being something as intense as this. Lots of people would probably never want to experience something like this, seeing it as horrific and nightmarish. It certainly was that. But I've learned more from these sorts of experiences than any other. You don't really learn anything unless you're pushed beyond your limits and forced to deal with it. Until eventually things like this don't seem like any big deal to you, you just do whatever you need to do to make it.
I have a lot of stories like this that I can share, they're the most valuable experiences I've ever had. If nothing else they're exciting. Believe it or not if I don't have one for a long time, like a few months, I actually start getting bored and I start hoping for a good life and death fight like this even though I generally hate them with a passion while they're happening. Generally that triggers some new thing to happen that pushes my training forward by a big leap again.
NOTES:
The 'spirit body' is what I call the body I often but do not always have in astral projections, dreams, shared dreams and full transitions. In short, the spirit body acts as if it is just as real and just as physical as my physical body. Complete with it's own physical and mental traits and abilities. Where “I” am just a pilot switching between two robots. What “I” can do is entirely dependent on the specs of the machine I happen to be in at the time.
According to various spirits who claim to be past life friends, the spirit body is “my” body. As in, the body they know/knew me as. Whereas my physical body is just a rental unique to this incarnation.
The Spirit looks entirely different from my physical body having a different skeletal frame, height, hair and eye colour among everything else. Also unlike my physical body the spirit body has no degenerate vision problems and has what I assume to be 20/20 vision. However since I don't have a reference for what normal vision looks like from my physical body's perspective the spirit body's vision could be better or worse than normal. In addition the spirit body has an entirely different set of muscle memory than the physical including thought processes and emotional reactions. Namely the spirit body has far more combat knowledge than my physical body has ever or likely will ever have. It's knowledge has proven accurate when tested in a kung fu studio both in terms of specific techniques and general theory. However the spirit body is far better at performing techniques. From the perspective of my physical body it does not feel like I don't know what I'm doing, just that I'm rusty on a skill that used to be second nature. Although this is more due to having direct past life memory than anything else. The techniques themselves work and have demonstrated that they aren't just me fantasizing about being awesome while not knowing how anything actually works. I've routinely pulled techniques from my spirit body and applied them in kung fu classes. albeit more clumsily than they would've been if the spirit was doing it. Its like the spirit body has it's own neural pathways that are just better refined for those techniques than my physical body's. All I can do with my physical body is develop the techniques faster because I already know how they should go.
The theoretical knowledge has proven its worth time and time again.
It also has a much higher capacity for magic than my physical body even compared to dreams/projections/etc where I have access to magic while in my physical body. In contrast when in my physical body in dreams, remote viewing, et al, I generally have the same vision problems I have in real life and although my ability with magic far exceeds what I am capable of in real life, namely because things actually work at all in dreams, my skill and power is absolute crap compared to the spirit. In addition to that, despite having instances of full vision due to the spirit body I am physically incapable of imagining or remembering what things look like in the same clarity that I experienced them. I believe this is due to atrophication of the vision center of my physical body's brain due to the degradation of my photoreceptors. In other words, there's nothing to actually process parts of the images, so I just don't see them.
The differences between physical and spirit body's have lessened over time due to a campaign I went on to try merging them together. Although a physical merge has never even come close to happening there is now far more overlap in the mentalities of the two body's than there was at the time of this experience. Unfortunately this resulted in the spirit body getting dumber and slower and my physical body getter a little smarter while still being otherwise useless.
According to various spirits who claim to be past life friends, the spirit body is “my” body. As in, the body they know/knew me as. Whereas my physical body is just a rental unique to this incarnation.
The Spirit looks entirely different from my physical body having a different skeletal frame, height, hair and eye colour among everything else. Also unlike my physical body the spirit body has no degenerate vision problems and has what I assume to be 20/20 vision. However since I don't have a reference for what normal vision looks like from my physical body's perspective the spirit body's vision could be better or worse than normal. In addition the spirit body has an entirely different set of muscle memory than the physical including thought processes and emotional reactions. Namely the spirit body has far more combat knowledge than my physical body has ever or likely will ever have. It's knowledge has proven accurate when tested in a kung fu studio both in terms of specific techniques and general theory. However the spirit body is far better at performing techniques. From the perspective of my physical body it does not feel like I don't know what I'm doing, just that I'm rusty on a skill that used to be second nature. Although this is more due to having direct past life memory than anything else. The techniques themselves work and have demonstrated that they aren't just me fantasizing about being awesome while not knowing how anything actually works. I've routinely pulled techniques from my spirit body and applied them in kung fu classes. albeit more clumsily than they would've been if the spirit was doing it. Its like the spirit body has it's own neural pathways that are just better refined for those techniques than my physical body's. All I can do with my physical body is develop the techniques faster because I already know how they should go.
The theoretical knowledge has proven its worth time and time again.
It also has a much higher capacity for magic than my physical body even compared to dreams/projections/etc where I have access to magic while in my physical body. In contrast when in my physical body in dreams, remote viewing, et al, I generally have the same vision problems I have in real life and although my ability with magic far exceeds what I am capable of in real life, namely because things actually work at all in dreams, my skill and power is absolute crap compared to the spirit. In addition to that, despite having instances of full vision due to the spirit body I am physically incapable of imagining or remembering what things look like in the same clarity that I experienced them. I believe this is due to atrophication of the vision center of my physical body's brain due to the degradation of my photoreceptors. In other words, there's nothing to actually process parts of the images, so I just don't see them.
The differences between physical and spirit body's have lessened over time due to a campaign I went on to try merging them together. Although a physical merge has never even come close to happening there is now far more overlap in the mentalities of the two body's than there was at the time of this experience. Unfortunately this resulted in the spirit body getting dumber and slower and my physical body getter a little smarter while still being otherwise useless.
Full transitions are a major step above a lucid dream. A lucid dream is any dream where you know that you're dreaming. Lucid dreams often have the same visual and tactile distortion that normal dreams have as well as some randomness. Also lucid dreams have a 'tethered' feeling to them. Something that I learned how to pull on when I was a kid to wake myself up out of a dream that I didn't like.
Full transitions on the other hand have none of this. Their clarity is equal to that of waking life. So much so that sometimes when I enter FT from a lucid dream I sometimes start to wonder if I was ever dreaming at all. Even when I know for a fact that I am dreaming and that I was just in a lucid dream less than a minute ago. The feeling of an FTD is so 'normal' that I end up doubting it anyways. FTD's have no tether, making it impossible to wake yourself up from one through normal means. FTD's have incredibly solid, consistent physics and object permanence on par with waking life. Including fluid dynamics. Unlike lucid dreams, you can enter FT through meditation without being asleep. Because of this I have a theory that FTD's are, at least some of the time, actually transporting me into separate physical realities or planes. I.E OOBE's. This is partially why it is referred to as a “full transition”
The other part of the reason comes from experiences with the Kruger Effect which you can read about later on.
Full transitions on the other hand have none of this. Their clarity is equal to that of waking life. So much so that sometimes when I enter FT from a lucid dream I sometimes start to wonder if I was ever dreaming at all. Even when I know for a fact that I am dreaming and that I was just in a lucid dream less than a minute ago. The feeling of an FTD is so 'normal' that I end up doubting it anyways. FTD's have no tether, making it impossible to wake yourself up from one through normal means. FTD's have incredibly solid, consistent physics and object permanence on par with waking life. Including fluid dynamics. Unlike lucid dreams, you can enter FT through meditation without being asleep. Because of this I have a theory that FTD's are, at least some of the time, actually transporting me into separate physical realities or planes. I.E OOBE's. This is partially why it is referred to as a “full transition”
The other part of the reason comes from experiences with the Kruger Effect which you can read about later on.
A real ability that I physically developed around 2005 – 2006 when I was still doing Taekwondo. Although never to this degree. Time is perceptually stretched so that everything, including you, appear to be moving in slow motion. Time in reflex time is measured in perceptual seconds, how long it feels like you are in it, which gives you your current compression level. Throughout this FTD from what I can tell I floated between 4X and 12X. Meaning that 1 real second would 'last' 4 to 12 seconds depending how hard I was pushing it. Reflex time allows for feats of accuracy and finesse that would otherwise be impossible. The name is shamelessly stolen from the F.E.A.R series of video games. If you play them or watch a playthrough of them, you'll know why.
It involves consciously overwriting your body's default knee-jerk responses. Substituting specific stimuli and specific responses to that stimuli. Knee-jerk responses are processed through the spinal cord, not the brain, and are much faster than standard reflexes because of it. When I was originally developing it I noticed that when I'd get myself into the state where I was 'waiting' for the programmed stimulus everything would sometimes seem like it slowed down, and my general reflexes got faster but not by the same degree as for the specific stimulus. I used to test myself on humanbenchmark.com way back then and I'd average about 236ms and 128ms reaction speed for visual stimulus without and with reflex time respectively. This comes at the cost of immense, compounding mental fatigue. I assume what's happening is the brain, spinal cord, or both are overclocking themselves while shutting down non essential processes. My physical reflex time could only ever be held for a couple perceptual seconds at a time. The harder I pushed it, the less perceptual time it would last. Curious aspects of it were that I'd seem to lose my sense of sound or it would at least be dulled while in reflex time. The higher the compression, the less I would hear.
This ability was itself partially based off of things in “the story”that has since been claimed by spirits to be my past where an equivalent ability was developed and later greatly enhanced with magic. The explanation given was that you could naturally push it to around 30X for less than a perceptual second but then you'd hit an electrochemical wall where the brain physically couldn't process any faster. And even getting to that 30X mark required you to do stuff like grab random neurons and conscript them into processing some of the data for you which was said to be part of the reason for losing hearing, emotional processing and the like. Even if those neurons weren't very good at doing that sort of processing it was all about squeezing as much compression and duration as possible out of the moment. After that energy could be added to eliminate resistance in the system, making processing much faster and less stressful. Beyond that you could directly connect start and end points with energy and ignore all the connecting neurons in between. Beyond that you could offload all processing to the energy and just “push buttons” to make your body move. Capable of compressing perceptual time upwards of 70X normal when magic was involved. Literally fast enough to watch a bullet flying through the air. Although it didn't do anything to help you be fast enough to dodge it. In extreme cases time would outright appear to stop, which was great when you needed time to think and plan.
It involves consciously overwriting your body's default knee-jerk responses. Substituting specific stimuli and specific responses to that stimuli. Knee-jerk responses are processed through the spinal cord, not the brain, and are much faster than standard reflexes because of it. When I was originally developing it I noticed that when I'd get myself into the state where I was 'waiting' for the programmed stimulus everything would sometimes seem like it slowed down, and my general reflexes got faster but not by the same degree as for the specific stimulus. I used to test myself on humanbenchmark.com way back then and I'd average about 236ms and 128ms reaction speed for visual stimulus without and with reflex time respectively. This comes at the cost of immense, compounding mental fatigue. I assume what's happening is the brain, spinal cord, or both are overclocking themselves while shutting down non essential processes. My physical reflex time could only ever be held for a couple perceptual seconds at a time. The harder I pushed it, the less perceptual time it would last. Curious aspects of it were that I'd seem to lose my sense of sound or it would at least be dulled while in reflex time. The higher the compression, the less I would hear.
This ability was itself partially based off of things in “the story”that has since been claimed by spirits to be my past where an equivalent ability was developed and later greatly enhanced with magic. The explanation given was that you could naturally push it to around 30X for less than a perceptual second but then you'd hit an electrochemical wall where the brain physically couldn't process any faster. And even getting to that 30X mark required you to do stuff like grab random neurons and conscript them into processing some of the data for you which was said to be part of the reason for losing hearing, emotional processing and the like. Even if those neurons weren't very good at doing that sort of processing it was all about squeezing as much compression and duration as possible out of the moment. After that energy could be added to eliminate resistance in the system, making processing much faster and less stressful. Beyond that you could directly connect start and end points with energy and ignore all the connecting neurons in between. Beyond that you could offload all processing to the energy and just “push buttons” to make your body move. Capable of compressing perceptual time upwards of 70X normal when magic was involved. Literally fast enough to watch a bullet flying through the air. Although it didn't do anything to help you be fast enough to dodge it. In extreme cases time would outright appear to stop, which was great when you needed time to think and plan.
The ability for things on one plane of existence to physically affect things on another plane of existence. Derives it's name from Freddy Kruger from “Nightmare on Elm Street” fame. Anyone familiar with that should have an idea what I'm talking about. First encountered in April 2010.
Personally experienced primarily from injuries sustained from combat while astral projecting.
Strength of effects are affected by the depth of the projection. The deeper you are, the more powerful the effects are on your physical body. Theoretically if someone was fully transitioned effects to the physical body would be 1:1
There are two known types of Kruger Effect:
Type A: Direct physical effects. These are known to include bruises, cuts, burns, nosebleeds, bleeding into the mouth, loose teeth, headaches, nausea, inflammation and general joint and muscle pain from strain and fatigue.
Damage to the physical body has so far been at a far lower ratio to damage to the spirit body although all injuries that occur to the physical body are exact replicas of the ones that happened to the spirit in terms of location and type. Damage occurs simultaneously to both the spirit and physical body except in cases where Duelling Fields are employed. In those cases damage occurs when the field is collapsed.
I believe it's possible that birthmarks on suspected reincarnated people that are said to come from violent deaths are Type A Kruger Effects.
Type B: Damage to the energy networks of the physical body. I believe some people refer to this as the “subtle body” but I'm not sure if it's the same as what I talk about. Chunks are taken out of the body's energy at the points of injury. Known effects are pain, fatigue, paralysis and numbness of injured point, loss of circulation, and sudden immune system shock. Typically all Type B injuries feel uniquely “tingly” or “scratchy” similar to what ghost ectoplasm feels like. When injured, the body absorbs energy from the environment which heals or fills in the injury over time, reducing symptoms. The more severe the injury, the more of a pressure difference there is, the faster and more tangible the absorption at that point. Type B effects are arguably more severe than the Type A I've encountered thus far and have more potential to actually kill someone through paralysis of heart or lungs.
It is my belief that Type B effects are sometimes used by spirits or people who know how to perform them via projection specifically because they can kill someone physically without leaving a mark on the body. Allowing for plausible deniability and the common belief that the person died of natural causes even if the death appears strange. It is also my belief that this and similar abilities are part of the reason why PSI research is suppressed and culturally demonized. Possibly the same way the term “conspiracy theory” was popularized initially to dismiss critics of the Warren Commission and then used to mock and shut down anyone and any argument that questioned any status quo narrative. This ability's greatest strength currently is that almost no one knows or believes it can even exist and thus no one has any defense against it or ability to accurately forensically investigate cases where it may have been used.
Because who in their right mind investigates crazy woo-woo stuff let alone develops defenses against them, right?
Personally experienced primarily from injuries sustained from combat while astral projecting.
Strength of effects are affected by the depth of the projection. The deeper you are, the more powerful the effects are on your physical body. Theoretically if someone was fully transitioned effects to the physical body would be 1:1
There are two known types of Kruger Effect:
Type A: Direct physical effects. These are known to include bruises, cuts, burns, nosebleeds, bleeding into the mouth, loose teeth, headaches, nausea, inflammation and general joint and muscle pain from strain and fatigue.
Damage to the physical body has so far been at a far lower ratio to damage to the spirit body although all injuries that occur to the physical body are exact replicas of the ones that happened to the spirit in terms of location and type. Damage occurs simultaneously to both the spirit and physical body except in cases where Duelling Fields are employed. In those cases damage occurs when the field is collapsed.
I believe it's possible that birthmarks on suspected reincarnated people that are said to come from violent deaths are Type A Kruger Effects.
Type B: Damage to the energy networks of the physical body. I believe some people refer to this as the “subtle body” but I'm not sure if it's the same as what I talk about. Chunks are taken out of the body's energy at the points of injury. Known effects are pain, fatigue, paralysis and numbness of injured point, loss of circulation, and sudden immune system shock. Typically all Type B injuries feel uniquely “tingly” or “scratchy” similar to what ghost ectoplasm feels like. When injured, the body absorbs energy from the environment which heals or fills in the injury over time, reducing symptoms. The more severe the injury, the more of a pressure difference there is, the faster and more tangible the absorption at that point. Type B effects are arguably more severe than the Type A I've encountered thus far and have more potential to actually kill someone through paralysis of heart or lungs.
It is my belief that Type B effects are sometimes used by spirits or people who know how to perform them via projection specifically because they can kill someone physically without leaving a mark on the body. Allowing for plausible deniability and the common belief that the person died of natural causes even if the death appears strange. It is also my belief that this and similar abilities are part of the reason why PSI research is suppressed and culturally demonized. Possibly the same way the term “conspiracy theory” was popularized initially to dismiss critics of the Warren Commission and then used to mock and shut down anyone and any argument that questioned any status quo narrative. This ability's greatest strength currently is that almost no one knows or believes it can even exist and thus no one has any defense against it or ability to accurately forensically investigate cases where it may have been used.
Because who in their right mind investigates crazy woo-woo stuff let alone develops defenses against them, right?
Experiences like this, both in my current life and in the alleged past, are why I think people who believe in objective morality, prostrate themselves before gods and governments, think there's a universal meaning or value to life, et al, are narcissistic, over-sensitive cowards with no self respect. The only accurate depiction of reality is that the strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must, and there's no reason for any of it.
I used to be someone who cared about people and thought all life was precious and equal and I used to play it as a numbers game. The more people who were alive, safe, and happy, the better. I used to think that evil existed at the tops of the pyramids of power just like everyone else and that if you could only remove that evil then you could fix everything. But after awhile of trying to protect everyone and failing I started to notice a pattern between peoples worldviews, freak out levels, and what they generally did with their lives. The ones who believed in gods, governments, good and evil, life purposes, etc, did the worst and accomplished the least. In general I found that these people think everything is always someone elses job and someone elses fault. Outsourcing their whole life to something else.
They don't say it explicitly, nor do they think that that's what they believe, but it becomes more obvious the more you're around them. Especially when things aren't going their way. They've outsourced most or all of their life to someone or something else and then got it in their head that they should get rewarded for it.
I suppose it's no wonder these people are always the most in need of saving and the least willing to do it themselves, they're basically domesticated animals. Expecting life to be fair because you're fair is like expecting a lion not to eat you because you didn't eat it and crying about it just makes you easier to swallow.
Oh sure sometimes they'd start off great. Faith, purpose and morality driving them forward, until reality inevitably bitchslaps them. Some went through positive transformations and became stronger people and others just got more pathetic. I lost far more lives and happiness, including my own, from trying to save these people than any other reason. I used to beat myself up for it, now I'm smarter. Some people are just not worth helping. Ironically they're the ones who cry out for help the loudest and point fingers at the problem the hardest. As much as I believe everyone has infinite potential, as much as I do still care and would rather everyone be happy, as much as I think literally anything is possible, it gets to a point where you either have it or you don't. These days those who don't get left to suffer what they must so everyone else can try to do what they can.
I used to be someone who cared about people and thought all life was precious and equal and I used to play it as a numbers game. The more people who were alive, safe, and happy, the better. I used to think that evil existed at the tops of the pyramids of power just like everyone else and that if you could only remove that evil then you could fix everything. But after awhile of trying to protect everyone and failing I started to notice a pattern between peoples worldviews, freak out levels, and what they generally did with their lives. The ones who believed in gods, governments, good and evil, life purposes, etc, did the worst and accomplished the least. In general I found that these people think everything is always someone elses job and someone elses fault. Outsourcing their whole life to something else.
They don't say it explicitly, nor do they think that that's what they believe, but it becomes more obvious the more you're around them. Especially when things aren't going their way. They've outsourced most or all of their life to someone or something else and then got it in their head that they should get rewarded for it.
I suppose it's no wonder these people are always the most in need of saving and the least willing to do it themselves, they're basically domesticated animals. Expecting life to be fair because you're fair is like expecting a lion not to eat you because you didn't eat it and crying about it just makes you easier to swallow.
Oh sure sometimes they'd start off great. Faith, purpose and morality driving them forward, until reality inevitably bitchslaps them. Some went through positive transformations and became stronger people and others just got more pathetic. I lost far more lives and happiness, including my own, from trying to save these people than any other reason. I used to beat myself up for it, now I'm smarter. Some people are just not worth helping. Ironically they're the ones who cry out for help the loudest and point fingers at the problem the hardest. As much as I believe everyone has infinite potential, as much as I do still care and would rather everyone be happy, as much as I think literally anything is possible, it gets to a point where you either have it or you don't. These days those who don't get left to suffer what they must so everyone else can try to do what they can.
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