I dreamed I was on some noble mission--I cannot remember what--I was dressed almost knightly, with a cape, armor, gauntlets, etc. I cannot remember too much far back to the beginning of the dream, but my memory picks up here:

I am with a lady who is wearing a white dress that would have doubled as undergarment and sleepwear some several centuries ago, perhaps the Middle Ages. She is quite beautiful, with long, deep brown wavy hair, fair skin, and green or hazel eyes. She has a very delicate face, a posterchild for beauty. Despite that I am myself in this dream, I wonder if I am supposed to be playing a man, for I feel a little more masculine, but I cannot tell. We run into a large room--some room part of a castle perhaps?--and there is a large and very, very deep pool. This is not really a man-made pool: it was there already, and the castle was built around it to include it in one of its rooms. The lady and I rush in--I think that she and I are in some kind of relationship--we are looking for something, both of us hastily talking back and forth about it. We have to find a sword, a sword imbued with an awesome power; it is here, somewhere in this pool. But so are hundreds and hundreds of years worth of other swords, for this pool was once a battle ground were many soldiers fought and fell. How will we know which sword is the one? She says that somehow we will just know.

We both dive into the water, and swimming around I touch sword after sword searching, examining each, still wondering what will tell me that I have found the one. I really can't explain how this pool was once a battleground, for it is very deep, but does not seem very wide, and there are columns upon columns of rock into which armor and shields and swords were caught and held tight, the rock growing around them, engulfing them, until they become part of the underwater sculpture. But it is intensely beautiful still.

The lady screams with excitement: she has found it. The swords is glowing, almost purple. I push her aside and grip it, gently tugging it free. I can feel the power in it, I know that it is the right one. It is not a longsword, but much closer to being a broadsword, or a knight's sword. The base of the blade at the hilt looks to be about 3" wide, and the hilt is made of an artistic combination of marble and silver, also itself quite sturdy and thick. This double-edged sword feels like it could serve as both one and two-handed, depending on the circumstances. It feels lighter than it looks, but only because it empowers the one who holds it.

There is also a ring, a thick, ornamented band made of silver and gold: this, too, is gravely important and must necessarily be worn by the bearer of the sword. The lady lodges it free from the rock right next to where the sword was, and draws my attention to it. I reach out to take it from her, but she tosses it in the air and laughs, and I watch it land in the water and rapidly sink. I look at her very angrily and ask her, What the hell did you do that for? What is your problem? And I throw the sword at her so that I can swim after the ring.

I catch it and come back to the surface. I reach out toward the lady to take back the sword, but she points it at me in confrontation, and she is not laughing anymore. What are you doing? She explains to me that basically she is not on my side in all of this--whatever "this" is--and she is taking the sword, for it will be handed to "the enemy"--whatever that is. I remember actually feeling my heart being crushed at this, as I was in love with her. She climbs out of the water, still pointing the sword at me, and I slowly climb out, too. But then she tells me that all of this will happen again, this whole scene, and I will remember, and that I should remember, because I am supposed to get the sword, it will just happen that way, it can't happen any other way. She tells me to remember what has happened here and now, and most of all, to remember not to trust her. And then she is gone.

The next moment, it is happening again, all of it. But this time, as we rush into the room, as I look at her, I hate her, for her betrayal. She is telling me all of the things about the sword that she did before, but I am not listening; I am concentrating on getting to it first, since I know exactly where it is. Looking at her, I just want to strangle her, put out the light of her beauty.

There is also one other difference in this scene: there are other people present, and they are swimming about the pool as if they are only there to have fun.

I immediately dive into the water and head for the sword. Just as before, it is glowing a faint purple, I tug it free, and then the ring. But the ring slips from my hand and falls, sinking in the water quickly to the bottom. And it sinks exactly as it did before, I can remember the way it turned and spun and caught the light on its way down, and it all happens exactly as it did before, when she tossed it in. This time I do not let go of the sword, and I swim, rather clumsily, after the ring. I do catch it, and immediately put it on. It is quite large, for a man, and even though I am still not sure if I am a man or woman in this dream, my hands are still small, like they really are, and I can only fit the ring on my thumb.

I climb out of the water and head towards the door to leave. I look at her face: at first she wears a look of excitement for me, but I throw her an angry look, and her face changes, and she knows I know. But she can't do anything, can't say anything, because of the other people present. She starts after me, but I bolt out. And my feeling of anger feels like a warrior's anger, a man's anger, despite that I cannot honestly say that I really know what either of those feel like, but it feels that way in this dream.

I am trying to get away from her, somehow, I need to leave. But suddenly I have the overwhelming urge to pee, and I can't possibly hold it any longer! I find a bathroom, and I think to myself that she wouldn't even think to look for me there anyway. I hide the sword on the soap and shampoo rack hanging in the shower. So I go, and now I know I am a woman now! But it does feel different, too, I feel different, not like I did before. Before I felt noble and determined and strong, and now I feel fear and anxiety. On top of that, I realize this bathroom is quite contemporary, and I must not be in the Middle Ages anymore, but back "home". Before I can finish I look towards the door and I see it is slightly opened, and I can see her hair and part of her face beginning to slide in. I make some kind of noise in fear and she pushes open the door. I beg her to stop, to please change her mind about this, that she doesn't know what she is doing, that she is damning us all for her decision. I keep begging her. But she does not flinch and only heads straight toward the shower to retrieve the sword. I keep begging her, and every ounce of strength and masculinity that I felt before is long gone. In fact, I am pretty sure I am no longer wearing the knightly garb I was before.

And then suddenly, the lady changes, becomes a completely different person, someone from the current time. She looks of Korean background, but completely American. She is wearing a dark pink, short sleeved shirt, a demin jacket, low waisted, tight khakis and some platform sandles. Her makeup and hair are also done up in current style. She tells me something similar to what she said before, that all of this will happen again, because I am still meant to have the sword, it will not be any other way, I am supposed to have the sword. And that I must remember again, everything that has happened, and to continue not to trust her. She says she is sorry, but this, too, must be this way, and then she leaves.

Unfortunately this dream does not continue. Instead it shifts into another dream, with no connection at all to this one. Except for one thing: I am remembering this dream while having this next one, and I can't get it out of my mind, and I keep wanting to leave this new scene to go back to retrieve my sword. Of course, I am not thinking of either dream as dreams, but as something real, despite that in the back of my mind I have that awareness that I always have in dreams, that it is just a dream, no matter how much I'd like it to be real, or how much it feels real.