Chapter 3-London

She saw a coin, an ancient-looking hand covered in dirt, the engravings worn and the head so stained from time. She held it in her left hand, staring at the mud that was dirtying her skin. Flipping it over and over. so close to her face that the coin had the aroma of musty blood and rustiness. She turned to her right palm and in the midst of the seizing was a new cloverleaf, fresh and beautiful.

And as far as Catherine could remember, according to Irish tradition, those who found a four-leaf growth were destined for good luck, as each petal in the clover symbolizes good omens for faith, hope, love, and luck for the finder.

A perfect sphere of clique dew crowned the leaf, reflecting a picture of Catherine's face: grated and peaceful, yet the sadness was recognizable. When she flipped back the coin, the form of the mysterious man had freed himself and journeyed over to the cloverleaf, stirring the growth of a powerful root and even blurring the edges. She couldn't tell up from down. Her vision was blurry. And she felt dizzy. Her heart was beating faster and she was not sure if she was breathing at all.

The misery was unbearable, growing and strengthening. Again, that sentiment, the dream of her pain. --and a scream was torn from her chest. A moment of silence followed.

Everyone on the bus was looking at her like she had grown a horn. Uncomfortable, she looks down and puts on her glasses.

Alone and unhappy, all she wanted was to get rid of that dream, the dream that somehow invaded her lonely nights. Giving her pain and heartache But this time there was a slight difference. The man who freed himself and traveled over the leaf has a deal with A face she knew. A face that earns her a shiver and she hopes that she has never met him! Oh, God!! Why him? Why not Henry Cavil? Or Ryan Gosling? She could use some hard sugar in her so-boring-life. She dreamt.

She assumed all her daydreams were just like those that everyone on the planet had. Yet, Catherine's dream was different. Her daydreams weren't rainbows and bursts of sunshine, but her dreams became her reality. She was more alive in the Land of Nod than in the current world.

But, if dreams are films, do they have producers, script-writers, directors, and all the other crew members required to make one? Catherine asked that, and somehow her mom would then explain to her that her dreams were non-lucid, that they were often bizarre and incoherent. And just a simple thought. Nothing out of the ordinary.

And her mother assumed that most of them were forgotten when she awoke. That was what she often broached. Unbeknownst to her, Catherine could recall every single dream she had since forever. Catherine's dream characteristics could even clash with those of a film.

Yet, her dreams were like the creation of a cinematic movie; it was a purposeful activity. She could show an overall scene which was something like: to give the movie-goer an exciting, emotional, disturbing, or satisfying experience, and they might want to ask if she could ascribe a similar purpose to her dreams. Yes. She could! That was why she called it the Land of Nod.

At first, she could not recall her dreams from the last dream cycle, the one before waking, but in the long run, when the dreams had developed into the most chaotic and odd, she could now recall them altogether. Yet, at an early age, she did not have any solid theories about dreaming, so it was particularly easy for her to have an open mind. She believes that there were many possibilities (some stranger than others) of what was happening in the state of her consciousness and why was she dreaming of some peculiar places she'd never been before? She had many memorable dreams, some even paranormally odd, as it was very difficult to categorize them or what they meant. However, some of her dreams were simply tests of her character in different scenarios, and she awakened asking herself, "Is that really what I would have done?"

In the end, she would candidly assert that it was a gift. It was like messages sent in parables. That she has to interpret it. She has to seek the meaning behind every dream until she realizes somebody much more powerful was sending it.

She knew that there was the possibility that her dreams were constructed by a dream-maker (if there were any). She bet she was the dream maker or maybe part of her was the dream maker, as Catherine often seems to have an alternative interpretation of her non-lucid dreams than lucid because somehow it intensifies as her experience goes beyond human perspective.