the backdrop for this dream was very hard to describe. also, events of the waking morning have conspired to fade this out considerably. anyhow I guess it was standard modern fantasy - there was a war of magic going on behind the modern world that most people were unaware of. I was on one side...

there were three of us that I knew of, and the person we counted on most was sick? anyhow, to face what was going to happen, I had to become a paladin. the guy explaining this to me explained; being a paladin is not, actually, a question of faith, holiness, etc. it was a question of having an ability already, something to do with your own electric field, and drinking this little vial to activate or amplify it. the vial was about the size of a 4" test tube. we were having this discussion in a dark room in a building, lit by various electronics. it takes about a night, he said, for it to activate.

so I took the vial, and slept on a cot. I had fevers and dreams, but I don't remember the dream-in-a-dream. I woke up, and found it was not just a cakewalk, I had to learn to use my brain differently. I also found as a side effect, the digital time display on the control panels sort of shorted out and flickered the number 1.

anyhow we then went to some coastal town - the west coast - where there was some event like a festival or fair or something. we parked in a lot that was in a garage, but had an uneven dirt floor. sort of like they build the brick around it but never bothered with a foundation. the other side was dragons - red dragons? and we encountered some and there was a lot of posturing. it wasn't clear if they did or did know now I had taken the elixir to be a paladin.

what was clear, what it was too much to handle on my own. the guy who had been providing me guidance was gone; was he doing something else? sick? dead? not clear in the dream - and I had to get another one of us to take the elixir.

the previous scene almost repeated, but it was me explaining about how all it takes was a little bottle. and it wasn't clear at all it would work becuase how can we know the electric field or whatever is right? but she took it, despite the doubts. time passed, it was starting to get dark. we were sitting in a surveillance van and suddenly the digital time display shorted out and flickered the number 1.

that's the story part of the dream. what hovers on the edge of my memory is how I was using-my-brain differently. I had to think in unusual sections of it...? if that makes any sense.