What is it that defines reality? 

What is real and what is illusion?

Is it nothing more than what our five senses tell us is reality?

And if so, could an illusion be as real as reality?

Even to the point that you can not really know if this, what you are experiencing at this moment, is reality or simply an illusion created by someone else.

Think about that.

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It all started simply enough, we went to sleep. Now in most cases that wouldn't lead to trouble but in this situation it sure did.

The journalists with their inane tendency to attribute catchy names to any big incident named it “The Dream-Scape Phenomenon”. It was at first thought to be nothing but rantings and ravings of our society's mentally deluded individuals,  for after all, at first the incident happened primarily with our societies outcasts, drifters and the ones that tried to escape this life to one of pure fiction. But, after more and more people in different branches of society started experiencing it, it wasn't as easy to ignore.

Apparently what affected the chances of the phenomenon happening was “Desire”, desire for change that is, not being happy with your lot in life, wanting more, desiring adventure, danger, change, conflict, all the things that modern society and its obsession in “Keeping us safe” does not allow. Even the individuals that are apparently happy, are at times only displaying a mask over their true emotions. They want to fight, kill, and plunder; discover new things; risk their lives for a greater cause; but that is against our societies norms, therefore not to be done. At those times they find an outlet in things like fiction, martial arts, hunting, video-games, travel and all other things that have been created to satisfy the innate need for danger and discovery that a great part of the human race keeps locked up in the deepest recedes of their psyche.

So what if they could actually be in a place without all the limitations of the modern world, a place without all the technology that does nothing but retard the evolution of humans, a place that is more primal, more free than you could possibly hope for in this life. That is what the dream-scape is.

It is an escape.

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“Where am I”, Connor asked himself while looking around the clearing. He felt afraid and confused, after all it is not every day that you find yourself naked and alone in unfamiliar woods, especially when the last thing you remember is falling asleep reading a book . What do I mean by 'unfamiliar' you might ask? Well the woods in his area of the world are pine trees , these are regular old oak trees. As you might imagine this only made him more afraid as it meant that he was quite a ways from his home. While he looked around he became more and more confused, for besides the trees there where other equally obvious indicators of the distance that he was from his home. For one there was the temperature, sure it was chilly here but in his home it would be well bellow freezing at this time of the year, definitely not a time to be naked outdoors.

He didn't know where he was, what he was doing there or how it happened but he didn't really care as his fear was suddenly overwhelmed by anger. Anger at his situation, anger at whoever brought him here, anger at the world for allowing it to happen. His heart started hammering in his chest like it was trying to get out, the blood pumped through his veins spreading heat and wrath. His vision clouded by a red fog of pure unbridled emotion. He felt powerful, competent, worthy, as if he could destroy all those that dared to stand in his way and stand over their empty bodies.

Then it suddenly stopped, and he was surprised at himself. That was the first time he had felt an emotion so intensely. His personality was mellow almost to the point of being emotionless. He had never felt something like that before. That hot, pulsing anger that had him teetering at the edge of self control and absolute destruction of his surroundings. His heart-beat slowly calmed down and his vision returned to normal. Once he finally settled down he decided that probably nobody that he knew would find him here in this unfamiliar place, hell for all he knew he was dead and this was the afterlife. In other words all he had to rely on was himself and his skills.

When he examined his surroundings with clearer eyes and an unclouded mind he realized they weren't as empty as he originally thought. There where clear signs of an old foundation that had long outlasted the building that was built on it. And much to his happiness a metal trap-door in the middle of said foundation that could possibly lead to a temporary shelter from the elements, as there was signs of an impending storm approaching from the distance.

Obviously the first thing he did was try to open said trapdoor. But even though there was a ring in it to lift it up it wouldn't budge an inch from its closed position. He tried to lift it with all his might and it still didn't budge. After a while of trying to lift it he felt the unusual anger resurfacing from the depths of his mind. Feeling the power of the emotion, he again attempted to lift it and it came as easily as a feather from its recess in the foundation. He was surprised at himself,  just getting angry shouldn't make any difference in the weight that you can lift. He came to the conclusion that it must be one of those rare 'mind over matter' occurrences that are so often scoffed at by the general populace. Anyhow, the occurrence was filled in his mind for latter examination.

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Looking into the hole he only saw a ladder going down into blackness except for a small speck of light far down the hole. He decided to drop a small rock into the hole to see how deep it was. Calculating the amount time it took to hit the bottom, he estimated it to be 50 feet deep. Looking up he saw that the storm was approaching faster. Now you might think that getting wet was preferable over going down into a mysterious hole but then you would be forgetting that he was completely naked and that hypothermia was a very possible scenario for staying outside, so he obviously went down the hole into the unknown.

50 feet down he found his rock, unfortunately it wasn't the bottom of the shaft. The rock had landed on a ledge protruding from the wall of the shaft. He was undecided about whether to continue down or risk the wet and cold above, but decided that it couldn't be that much further down so continued climbing down the shaft.

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He didn't know how long he had been going down, but the shaft just continued on and on. He took occasional breaks on the ledges that protruded from the wall every 50 feet or so. The only thing that kept him from turning back was that the light that he had seen earlier as only a speck was slowly getting bigger as he got closer to it. He could only assume that it was the bottom of the shaft and so he kept on climbing down towards the light.

He had lost track of time so he did not know the exact amount of time it took him to reach the bottom of the shaft, but if he had to estimate he would say it took him somewhere along the lines of five hours. His arms felt like lead weights at his sides and he was panting from the exertion’s on his body. He felt extremely warm. The temperature had been steadily rising as he went down the shaft, and now that he had reached the bottom it was most definitely uncomfortable.

Upon reaching the bottom of the shaft he almost collapsed before he saw a much shorter tunnel stretching in front of him. He groaned inwardly at the thought of walking anymore, but he had a strong feeling that he should continue on. He wiped the sweat off his brow and plodded ahead.

Along the way he noticed a change in the material that the tunnel was made out of, it changed from being carved through solid rock to what looked to be one extremely thick wall. Once he reached the end of it he stud in a huge brightly light cavern that was the source of the light he saw from the top of the tunnel. It looked as if the walls themselves where glowing with a eerie green light that was refracted everywhere by the huge crystals that surrounded the room. After looking around for a minute, he noticed something interesting, in what he could only assume was the exact center of the cavern there was an altar an in the middle said altar there was........ a book.

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The book was a simple leather bound book. Not having any particularly distinguishing markings or symbols. It was covered in a thick layer of dust and looked to have been here a very long time. All in all, if you had found it in a bazaar you would have probably have just glanced at it.

But this was not a bazaar. This was an under-ground cavern, and the book was laying in the middle of a pedestal. This book practically screamed its importance and upon examining in closer It seemed to pulsate with an aura of age. The kind that you get from things like fossils and ancient ruins.

Connor felt all this, and he knew. The book was calling him to it, he could feel it. He started walking towards it with shambling steps, almost tripping every other one, until he finally reached the altar. He stretched his trembling hand out towards it. And finally....... touched it.

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He felt immense pain as his mind was almost ripped apart by a great influx of information. While only seeing occasional flashes of  the information that was brutally drilling itself into his mind, he felt as if he was living several lifetimes all at once. There was no conception of time for him, there was only the pain and the knowledge in him.

He wanted to let go of the book, but it was almost like his hand was glued to it, forcing him to absorb the knowledge of thousands of people. He couldn't have any conception of the time that passed, but to him it felt like many lifetimes had passed, when as suddenly as it started.......it stopped.

He immediately collapsed onto the ground in a heap, welcoming the warm embrace of mother earth upon his mentally and physically shocked body. Then to his immense relief unconsciousness finally overtook him.