The Rules of Dreams

I’ve learned throughout my life that there are specific things that you should never do in your dreams. I’ve learned how to control my surroundings in a dream state, how to remember dreams, but the thing I will never forget was how I created a demon. It was simple to do, and completely accidental, but for those of you wondering how to do it, it is quite simple. All you have to do is break the three rules.

Rule number 1: NEVER tell anyone in a dream that they are in your dream.

Rule number 2: DO NOT try to prove it to them.

And finally, Rule number 3: NEVER leave a conversation unfinished before you wake up.

Step 1: Wait for Halloween. It doesn’t need to be Halloween, just a day seen by many as evil—Halloween is just the most obvious time to do this. I have tried doing this on other days of the year, but none of them worked as well as the day I made Dereck.

Step 2: Fall asleep and enter a lucid dream.

Step 3: Break the 3 rules of dreaming.

If you want to increase the chances of breaking Rule 3, set loud alarms throughout the night to suddenly wake you up.

Of course, I only needed one timer to turn my life into hell.

I won’t tell you about my life before; I would much rather tell you what had happened.

It was Halloween night, and I had gotten home from my long, boring office job. I didn’t even think of getting out of my work clothes; I simply set a timer for 8:00 pm to wake me up to pass candy out to trick-or-treaters.

And then, I passed out and slowly started to dream.

I was in a city, walking next to a man in his twenties, maybe his early thirties. He had black buzz-cut hair, and squinty eyes that were covered by thick-rimmed glasses. He had a bit of stubble around his face, and he was looking at me as if he was waiting to say something. I knew his name immediately: Derek.

Stressed and bored, I decided to mess around with the man.

“You know this is a dream, right?” I asked Dereck.

He looked at me, confused.

“What?”

I responded, looking at the confusion in his face.

“This is a dream. This is MY dream.”

Dereck looked shocked, but skeptical.

“Prove it,” he said, and then the chaos ensued.

I ripped off my thumb only for it to pop back onto my hand. I turned sewer grates into paper, and grabbed cars off the road while they were driving, holding them up to Dereck like they were little toys.

Dereck just stared, eyes widened.

“What the f—”

He never finished.

Instead, my alarm blared, waking me up in a second. But for whatever reason, I could only think about Dereck. It almost felt like he was watching me, seeing through my eyes, gripping onto my mind. It was weird, unnatural, but it felt normal at the moment, if not a little weird.

Over the next year, I kept seeing Dereck everywhere I go.

I saw him in the crowds when I slept, staring at me. I saw him walking by on the street, I could see his face, grinning, in my mind.

It was only until the next Halloween when he approached me.

I had gone to bed, passing out much faster than I usually did, and immediately sunk into the nightmare.

I was in the city again, only everything was scorched, burning, or destroyed. Dereck stood a few feet away, grinning. Slowly he got closer, revealing his now disfigured and scarred face. The skin on his lips was torn away into a large, gaping smile, and his nose was gone. His eyes were surrounded by scars and gashes, leaving him permanently looking surprised. One of his arms was worn away to muscle and bone, and his other hand was covered in gashes and cuts. I tried to move, my legs shaking, but I couldn’t. Dereck spoke as he got closer, his voice almost impossible to understand.

“Do you remember me?” he asked. It sounded like he was talking underwater, his voice gargled and changed.

“Do you remember my name? My existence? Do you recognize what you’ve done?”

“What?” I managed to ask, the word coming out of my mouth like burning hot metal.

“I was trapped in your head, trapped watching you live the life you prevented me from living. You stopped me from living a life of peace and ignorance.

You let me fester in your mind, rotting day after day.

I was trapped, for so long I was trapped, but now…”

He whispered in my ear; I could feel his hot breath and speckles of blood splash onto my cheek.

“Now, my friend.

It’s my turn to wake up.”

My eyes snapped open. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think. I could only look around. I was trapped in sleep paralysis. But the worst part was how I could still see him. He was just outside the door, taking a step as he counted down.

“10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… NOW!”

He reached towards me as he said “now,” his voice loud enough to hurt my ears. I immediately rose into the air. I screamed in pain as my arms and legs twisted unnaturally, cracking and popping as I passed out, my eyes filled with darkness.

Was I dead? Was I murdered by something in my head? How?

My thoughts were interrupted by that dreadful voice.

“WAKE. UP.”

And with that, I was in the emergency room. I told my story to doctors and nurses, but nobody believed me. The doctors locked me in a padded room for years without a wheelchair, unable to move or do anything by myself.

The worst part is, throughout those years, I saw Dereck much more clearly, taunting me the entire time, especially on Halloween.

The mind is a powerful thing, but it should never be able to make another.

But remember.

Just because it shouldn’t does not ever mean that it can’t.