Dreams, we all have them. Whether we can recall them or not, dreams are a gateway to the realm of creativity and nightmares. As someone who's meddled and have been in and out of the cycle of practicing lucid dreaming, my dreams aren't always as easy to understand. Let alone, easy to always control. Whether or not if I could control them, subconsciously my dream self could always distinguish the fine line between a dream and reality. However lately I've been having these weird dreams lately, and I thought I should, further along, explain to you all, my dreams and disasters (several drawings included of what I could remember).

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Eyes opened, as my brown sun widen with its black core and circled towards the center of the white abyss. I woke up to the being in the center of an oddly colored room. Yellow colored floor tiles, orange and red walls, each color rotating in sequence to the number of walls of the room. The room is a bit damp and crowded, filled with familiar faces from high school and several of my peers.

"Jay!" someone shouted.

I looked towards the sound and saw my friend Ari as she made her way towards me as her curly brown hair bounced its way through her right shoulder. She smiled and asked what we were doing there, and I couldn't recall the reason why either. We walked towards a group of my friends I could recall from the busy crowd and made ourselves known. Soon enough, we could hear police sirens and horns from outside of the facility. "I wonder what's going on? I can't see with these damn people in the way." I thought to myself, and I tried to make my way through the crowd and towards the door. Through the door, I was able to spot out at least 3 police cars, but no police in sight. However, I kept hearing the sounds of the sirens in a distorted fashion, almost eerie. With the little gumption and curiosity that I've had, I've pushed through the doors and ran outside.

It was madness, rioting in the streets and people running rampant. It looked as if a purge was going on, as police officers had no power in them to take control of the mess. The skies filled with heavy smoke almost shortening the breaths in our lungs. I checked my surroundings and held on to my friends, and I realized something. I'm in downtown Newark, and for some reason, I don't recall ever making my way to downtown. That's when I started noticing red flags of catching myself dreaming. "This has to be a prank, it must be. A citywide prank? No that's giving the city too much credit. What's going on?" I kept thinking to myself, this whole scenario felt off.

I kept with the crowd and tried to figure out clues as to what exactly was going on but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. And that's when hoards of people started to rushing into my directions, screaming and crying, running from something. Taking a look through the crowd, I lost my friends in the process and notice what the people were running from. People were becoming almost zombie-like, as their skins turned grey and their eyes became clear, like that of blind people. It was frightening, watching their skins become mutilated on its own- watching them scratch and peel away at their own skin. Felt as if people were uncomfortable in their own skin. They screeched from the pain and ran through the streets in collective groups and some alone in a spread out fashion.

Drawing of the zombie peopleBy Jay Evans

I was terrified but I couldn't exactly move, but I heard a voice call out to me. From the screams and shouting I couldn't quite make out who's voice it was as my ears were slightly deafened. Looking in a panic I tried to make out who's voice I was hearing until I felt a tug on my sleeve.

"Jay we have to go! We're not safe here! Stop standing around let's go!"

It was Ari, she was just as scared as I was as she grabbed my arm and pulled me, leading me into a much open street.

Running into the open street, I could feel my palms sweat and my heart race a bit. The sky's smoke began to clear up a bit, creating a foggy scene. We kept running until our lungs could no longer withstand the weight of our own shoulders.

"I'm too beat for this, what about you?" I ask panting in between words.

"Me too. We should keep going," she responded.

Nodding in agreement, we kept walking. But through the fog, we spotted several of the zombie people. Walking separately but in our direction, limping every step as they scratched their own faces in irritation. We panicked and tried to find exits to make a run for it. With mere luck, we found a nearby alleyway and ran into that direction, nearly tripping our steps in hesitation.

Walking into the alleyway, something felt very off. And not a "I haven't slept in 2 days and I'm kinda sloppy at everything I do now", kinda off. The overall mood felt- different… Walking into the alleyway, we noticed glowing lights leading towards the middle of the alley. As if a little kid was told to design their very own Christmas tree, and that tree is half of a sketchy alley. Seriously it was kinda weird, almost like a Christmas Circus took a shit in here and forgot to wipe its own aesthetic. We had to stop and look at the alleyway and give ourselves a look towards each other and think, "Should we keep going?" Ari looked at me and said, "Maybe we should check where the lights lead. It could be safe, and maybe we could wait till this all blows over."

I agreed and we followed the lights. Leading to a small alleyway on the left side of the alley. The alley was colorful and full of light, illuminating a sign labeled "Magic Funhouse." Right below was an oddly stripped door, as it had a diagonal stripe pattern, pattering in blue and pink colors. Part of me knew this wasn't good, but I looked at it and said, "Screw it, what can go wrong now?" We tried to open the door but it wouldn't budge, like that stiff brick in a game of Jenga. We tried to fidget and push but no luck. That's when we felt a figure hover over us and whispered…

"That's not how you get inside."

The floor opened up, and we were pushed into the hole! Screaming and yelling through the fall, we fell into a slide leading into an oddly bizarre room. After picking ourselves up, we looked around and a slight feeling of deja vu came across me. As I explored the room, the furniture was oddly huge, like that scene in Alice in Wonderland when Alice drank the potion that made her small and all the furniture was huge. With the colors of the room bringing a brighter appeal to the room, circling from blue, purple and yellow. It was almost blinding, creating a hassle to even walk around for our eyes haven't adjusted to it. And from behind came the voice, it was a beautiful woman in clown makeup and a doctor's robe. Her hair was blue in spiked pigtails, and her smile was kinda eerie.

"Where are we? And who are you?" I asked, obviously asking the important questions.

"This is Magic Funhouse. You wanted to go inside did you not?" she responded.

"Yeah, obviously but why did you push us in?"

"Well, how else would you make your way inside?"

"Jay we gotta go." Ari poorly whispered.

"Oh no you're not heading out, you're now apart of my experimentation and you can leave once we're done."

"What's the experiment?" Ari asked, the woman didn't answer, and pulled us to regular size seats and sat us down.

"Um hello? What's the experiment?!" I yelled.

"Just sit and relax, it's completely harmless." as she stated that the chairs latched onto us and kept us prisoner. "This is an experiment to test your sexual tendencies under hallucinogens and other potent drugs."

"I'm sorry but that's really freaking stupid. I'm not taking any drugs nor am I going to have sex with anyone. Let me go!" Ari yelled.

The woman just laughed and grinned. She shook her head in disagreement and walked right up to her. Pinching her cheeks and pulling out a syringe, I panicked watching her pull Ari's sleeves up getting ready to find a vein. The poor girl could only scream in horror as the clown giggled and swabbed her arms. I had to do something, so I yelled.

"STOP PLEASE! Let her go! I'll take the drugs, I'll do the experiment! Drug me and I'll do what you ask! Just please don't hurt her."

The clown laughed, hysterically smiling as she made her way towards me latching onto my left arm. She grabbed my arm and pulled its sleeve. Teasing my arm sensually, I was irritated and demanded she go right into it. And she did, finding my vein she injected me with the syringe and my body became cold.

Meanwhile, in the real world, my phone started to ring, and I could faintly hear my ringtone of Careless Whisper by George Michael. Within the dream, the sound was distorted and created a horrific tone once the drug was injected into my veins.

Jay & The Clown Woman by Jay Evans

All I could feel were pins and needles into my hands and bones. My head felt almost too big for my own neck, while I became slightly drowsy. The woman took out a stethoscope to hear the sound of my heart, I could barely recall her doing so as my eyes couldn't keep themselves open. All I could do was hear the music and the sounds of Ari screaming for me to wake up. Suddenly, I closed my eyes and the sounds faded away.

Opening my eyes again, I awoke where I once started. The yellow colored floor tiles, orange, and red walls, each color rotating in sequence to the number of walls of the room. I felt off, but this time my vision was a bit blurred and I couldn't stop scratching my face. Pieces of my skin were peeling off. I felt as if my bones on my fingers couldn't fit within my own skin as I kept fidgeting. I tried to ignore the irritation, but I notice myself rotating in sequence through the same dream. Again, and again, the memories of deja vu became rampant across my mind as my body became more mutilated in each round. We were following into the same dream over and over again. This was causing myself whiplash every moment I woke again the room with the orange and red walls. My skin becoming grey every second, I knew something was wrong. It wasn't until the tenth time I relived this dream I was fully able to come into questioning myself. I tried to do a reality check and noticed that I've been dreaming this entire time, but I couldn't wake up. My body decided to move on its own, almost like an oddly reverse sleep paralysis. My mind tried to fight back as my real body tried to fidget and push the limits of being restrained as my dream body kept deteriorating. I could roughly hear my ringtone again and again but it was still distorted, almost like it's been played on a crappy record player. Finally making progress, I was able to move my body and come to a full wake.

Once I managed to wake up, I could still hear the sound of my ringtone in my head. Being the logical solution, I checked my phone… but it turns out no one called.

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Check out the next inclusion into the series: Dreams and Disasters: The Ramen Bowl

Names in these stories have been altered to protect the identity of those mentioned.