A very weird dream, occurring between being awakened by our daughter once and stopped when she woke us a little later. I, a faithful male companion, and my family (mother, brothers, sisters, father) are in our fortified home in a small village in somewhere. My father is some kind of noble who is also a scientist, but the villagers fear and hate him. Sort of a Baron Frankenstein setting. The villagers attack the house, wanting to destroy it and us. We fight them off, although it is close. I feel they are unjustified, ignorant fools, and have a continual feeling of "Why won't they leave us alone?" There is one person in particular who is attacking us who is very dangerous, and we fear him as well as very much wanting to destroy him, although I don't recall exactly who he is, and he may even be something of a supernatural being. My companion and I flee the house. I think my father (not my real-life father, of course, not my real-life family) wants us away before the next attack. There is a relatively peaceful interlude in which my companion and myself act as if we were Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, and we assemble a model train set on a grassy hillside and play with it. A rather modern, plastic set. But then somehow we know the enemy is following, and we end up being in my father's other laboratory out in the woods. This is a stone fortified building with a tower, etc. -- more good Baron von Frankenstein type settings. We were supposed to go here. Then we hear kids from the village coming, and must do something to keep them from getting the keys which are in the locks of the outer doors, on rings. I then think about (rather than actually experience) leaping out into the night, knocking down the boys, and snatching away the keys. We quickly lock the doors, for now soldiers from the village (or at least armed villagers) are coming, as well as the feared enemy person, who is particularly fearful to us boys. There is a lot of action I don't recall about running around inside the place, defending it, while the soldiers are trying to break down the door. Somehow a tall, black-haired girl whom I love has been inside with us, a sort of princess. Somehow she gets killed by having her head cut off with a broadsword, and I don't know whether it was the attackers who did it, or whether I myself had to slay my love to protect her from something worse. Anyway, I'm quite upset over it. We finally realize we can't defend the place much longer and must flee. Somehow a body has been burnt on one of the lab tables, but if the villagers know about it, they will be sure to kill my family. It is a body of one of the attackers, one of them, I guess. So we get another body, the cadaver of some tramp, from a closet and put it on the table ... my father, the Baron, apparently kept bodies around for his experiments. Then my companion points out in alarm that we can't leave the head of my beloved princess around because that will really infuriate the villagers when they break in, as she was such an important person. So he finds some kind of headpiece or crown for it, then I throw the head in the furnace to completely destroy it, weeping as I do so at this act. In the next scene the villagers break into the lab and find it empty, and the back doors open onto the night. My companion and I have fled. Many of the villagers are women, carrying swords, and very bloodthirsty. We are lying in the foggy night in some bushes just in back of the lab. A huge search goes on, with villagers almost stumbling over us, but we remain undiscovered. One comes so close he will discover us, so I cut him down with my sword and change clothes with him so we can slip away unrecognized. We slip away from the soldiers and thru the dark woods. Finally we leap over a "stream" of flowing, glowing, colored mist (I forget the color) and run up the stairs of a magical tower, another of my father's strongholds. We run up the circular stairs to the very top where the roof is solid over us, and there seems to be no way out. The place is well lighted inside, although I don't recall any lights. We flee rapidly up to the top, because the enemy, the supernatural one, is following us. As we flee up the stairs, we have become glowing mists ourselves - I a red one, and my companion a yellow one. Behind us the enemy being, now a green mist, is coming up the stairs. In the last scene before being awakened by our daughter coming back into the room, I am leaning over the rail, sword in hand, waiting to attack the green mist, fearful, yet triumphant that I will finally have a chance to destroy this dreadful enemy. I was also lamenting to my companion as we went up the stairs that all my love and goodness had changed to hate and revenge, that I was a doomed and driven man. What a place to be awakened at! This was a vivid dream in which I felt strong emotions. The only element I can trace to day residue off-hand is hearing Barbara sing "The Brown Girl and Fair Eleanor" on tape at lunch yesterday, in which the b___ cuts off the brown girl's and Eleanor's heads, although he loves them both. I was completely the Baron's son (about 15, I guess) in this dream, not myself at all, which is unusual. In some ways it's as if this were someone else's dream from another time. Inspired by talking about ESP and Bridy Murphy with Leslie LeCron last night?