Temka Vegtamchik'a

Reading books.

Kalevala (Karelian-Finnish epic).
A poetic epic consisting of five dozen medieval runes, compiled a century and a half ago by Elias Lönnrot. The runes resemble Scandinavian visur — they are similarly unrhymed songs, rich in alliteration in the original (which, alas, cannot be preserved in translation), and the style is reminiscent of the "Poetic Edda." This is an ancient fairy tale, whose main characters are the sons of the wondrous land of Kalevala: the singer Väinämöinen, the smith Ilmarinen, and the warrior Lemminkäinen. The central theme is the struggle between the good land of Kaleva and the evil, cold Pohjola. Additionally, the runes include tales of the creation of the world and the origin of iron.

The Minds of Billy Milligan (Daniel Keyes)
A book that faithfully conveys real events, telling the story of a unique case in the history of psychiatry — about a man who possessed twenty-four personalities. Within one body coexisted a Yugoslav revolutionary, a lesbian, a deaf-mute boy, a swindler, a British aristocrat, and other personalities, each with their own quirks, traits, behaviors, talents, and speech accents. It leaves an indelible impression.

The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)
A science fiction novel, consisting of a series of short story-episodes about the exploration, conquest, colonization, and fate of the red planet. Once again, I am convinced that Bradbury is one of the best science fiction writers.

Several novellas from the "Labyrinths of Echo" series, from "The Debut in Echo" to "The Shadow of Gugimagon" inclusive (Max Frei)
Short fantasy novellas about a detective living in another world. It brings to mind similarities to Hašek or Pratchett — just as easy to read, just as uplifting.

Mort (Terry Pratchett)
The 6th book I've read about Discworld. Needs no comment.

Seeing dreams.

There were many dreams, as there were many impressions. Alas, I didn't remember some things immediately, and forgot others later, but I'll still try to share at least what remains.

1
During Tuska, I had many dreams in one night... but I forgot almost everything within the first minute of being awake. Annoying.

2
In Sweden. I've never seen so many different episodes in one night.
First dream. That's where it all began; I remember it better than the rest. Me and some number of people I know around me (I think from HeroesWorld there was Lizard and someone else). We are walking along an asphalt road winding across a huge asphalt area, with forests and cottages along its edges.
It was absolutely necessary for us to summon Cthulhu. We began chanting a mantra... and, after a while, there was a strong underground tremor. And I found myself in Cthulhu's body, although my own body continued walking with the crowd. I (as Cthulhu) was not far from that square, a few kilometers away, where the forest turned into a swamp. It turned out that I-Cthulhu remembered nothing. I swam across a marshy lake in some direction and came across a house standing on an island in the middle of the lake. The house greeted me, and, despite my surprise, I returned the greeting. The house asked if I was surprised to see a talking house, and upon receiving an affirmative answer, stated that there was nothing surprising about it. Then the house told me that I was the ancient god Cthulhu, and that I had so little memory because only one of those who summoned me had read Lovecraft, and only he knew the correct pronunciation of the name Cthulhu. And I-Cthulhu began to remember... and woke up.

The mantra was very similar to the composition by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society - Oh Cthulhu; for a better understanding of the dream, it's recommended to listen to it, it's on VK. By the way, it uses one of the pronunciations of the deity's name close to the correct one.

I went back to sleep; this time there were episodes transitioning into one another.
I, along with my fiancée (o_O), arrived at her parents' place; in the dream, I was older than I am now. Four people lived in the house: her parents and two sisters, but when we arrived, no one was home yet. They came when we were unpacking our suitcases and headed to another part of the house, where their family kept a store. Seeing me, the father frowned and suggested we take a ride. We drove around the city in his truck. He spent a long time telling me "the facts of life"; I just nodded and agreed. His last phrase was "A dream is the engine of life." Then he dropped me off on a street far from the house in an unfamiliar city. In my thoughts, I replied to him, "A dream can destroy a life."
After a while, I was walking with two guys; one was silent the whole way, and the other talked to me, constantly adding "Bro." Along the way, we bought a whole bag of amphetamines by weight from a street dealer. Ahead was a building under construction, cordoned off by the military, and right around the cordoned-off area sat drug addicts using marijuana and cocaine in plain view of the soldiers, who didn't react at all. My companion said, "This country is rotten to the core, bro. They won't even check what we're carrying." He handed the bag to one of the soldiers, asking him to pass it to the other side. Then both of my companions took handfuls of "snow" to their faces and ran to the right, along the fence. I ran after them but tripped and fell. From fear, I couldn't get up but just lay there, curled into a ball. SWAT guys were running after us, but they fell in the same spot I did. Soon I discovered the reason for their fall: it turned out I had crawled under a wooden plank, and my leg was barely protruding. I heard muffled curses... *blackout* I came to. The pre-sunset time that had dragged on through all previous episodes had given way to twilight, and the partly cloudy weather had been replaced by rain. The plank above me was lifted, and I was still lying there — I was very scared and cold. Some person, apparently a doctor, shone a flashlight in my eyes, examined me, and announced that I hadn't taken any drugs, it was just fright... *blackout again* I came to. Suddenly I realized I was trapped in the body of a seven-year-old boy. I'm in a five-story private house, on the top floor. Panic seizes me; I run around the floors for a couple of minutes, not watching where I'm going. A couple of floors below, I meet a robot vacuum cleaner; it addresses me in English, and I suddenly realize I don't know the language at all. And I wake up again.

I go to sleep for the third time. And again I see dreams; this time the episodes are barely connected to each other.
In the first episode, my father and I are inspecting our new nightclub, which will open its doors to its first visitors that day. I only remember it in broad strokes.
Then I was playing some computer game: graphics from Warcraft III, view like in an RPG from behind the character, controlling one character at first. Several other people were playing with me, they were on my side, we could communicate by voice: either Teamspeak, or we were in the same room. We were killing mobs that left bonuses in the form of strawberries (this is already from arcade games). The first wave was successfully repelled; I went off somewhere far away, where I nearly died. I had to urgently return to base. Then I was told that at the base I could hire troops, and was advised to take archers (exactly like the archers from Heroes of Might and Magic V), since I was an archer myself, and they would be more effective under my command.
A narrow, ancient street. On both sides stand steam locomotives, but in a stricter design, in blue and white. People are sitting inside them. In front of the locomotives sit a girl and stand a guy: the girl is playing a tam-tam and singing, and the guy is playing a green electric guitar. The song was completely gone from my head upon waking.
In the fourth episode, I myself was playing an electric guitar, which had two dozen strings arranged vertically, in place of the frets. Nevertheless, the guitar played no worse than an ordinary one.
The fifth episode returned me to the nightclub, but this time during the first party. My old friend and I are standing in a corner talking. The music playing is terrible, by the way. Then we go out to the people; at the bar counter stands a group of young people watching us. We approach them. I already know the guys; I shake their hands. Then my friend introduces me to the girls one by one. The last girl turns out to be very short (only a little later did I realize she was sitting on the floor). I introduce myself to her, we hug. And then she suggests I, sorry, kiss her anus. I'm bewildered, and those around me look at me expectantly. At this point, I finally wake up and remember everything I saw. I rush to write it down.

3
I dreamed of another drawing. So, I already owe myself four drawings from dreams. Fortunately, they are very well etched in my memory, too psychedelic.

4
At home, the day before going to sleep, I played the board game Shogun and the computer game Shogun 2: Total War, which influenced the theme of the dream.
I found myself in a spacious room where, besides me, there were two other people — my mentor, and a student like me. They stood five meters away from me, exchanged a few phrases, and the student left. I approached the mentor (who looked like David Carradine, the actor who played Bill in Tarantino's films); he smiled at me. During meditation, he taught me to turn into a butterfly and, in that form, sent me to the imperial palace for a coronation. I flew there and landed on a windowsill, next to other butterflies, among which were several other students. Together we watched the coronation, and towards the end, it was time for an ancient custom — one of the butterflies that had flown to the coronation had to die and be placed under glass. The mentor, who was present at the ceremony in human form, insisted very much that I should be the one dried, but another butterfly, an orange-green one, was chosen.
The mentor took me from the window, restored my human form, and we went down together to the palace basement. There we entered some room where there was a lot of clothing, changed, and went out into the catacombs beneath the palace. We wandered through them for a while and met another student who was waiting for us. He was dressed like a ninja. The mentor turned on a machine that threw shurikens, and the student began to dodge them, standing still five meters from the machine. One of the shurikens slightly grazed his neck. Gradually, he began to move from side to side, and then completely ran away... and the machine started shooting at me. I ran after him, the machine chased us; we ran from it for a long time... and I woke up.

Mastering the whistle.

At this point, I can more or less play four tunes. Also, I figured out a short excerpt from one famous song by notes. Recording attached; the first to guess gets +10 to BD. No one has guessed yet.

Volchik, I won't give any more BD, as there's a daily limit.