Wherein I inhabit not one, but multiple, paintings.

Prologue: I went over to Nick's house the day before I dreamt the following and saw some of his new paintings, and they ended up becoming my dream world that night.  The three paintings that influenced the dream are included below.  To see the entire Reclaiming series, visit Nick's website.

Grows Back Stronger by Nick Baxter

I was in a world with no atmosphere, like the painting above (like all the paintings in this series, as a matter of fact), where all the stars and galaxies were clear and bright because nothing stood between the planet and the universe.  I was standing in front of a gigantic cactus, whose lowest lobe was partially dead and smoldering like an ember.  The rest of the lobes were green and living, but much higher above my head, so I didn't really look at them much.  The smoldering one was about ten feet tall and about eight feet wide.  It was so beautiful that I couldn't stop staring at its glowing heart, and I kept getting closer to it to soak in the warmth.  Avi was standing behind me and a little to my left, so I turned back to him and said, "It's so beautiful I wish I could hug it!  Too bad I can't!"

"Oh, but you can," he replied, and walked up and hugged the cactus.  As he hugged around the edge of the cactus, the orange glow of the cactus' heart spread to Avi's skin, and soon he was glowing as brilliantly and translucently as the cactus was.  With a surge of excitement, I spread my arms across the broad front of the cactus and pressed my body as close to it as possible.  My right cheek was pressed against it, so I was looking at my left arm, and I watched as first my hand, then my arm, then my whole body also began to glow.  I wasn't burning, only filled with a feeling of warmth and joy.  As I backed away, this wisp of light stretched between the cactus and me, eventually wafting up and dissipating.  I started moving my arms around, watching with delight as the glow traced my movements through the air like the lines of light that sparklers leave behind in a photo.

Avi and I started running around, waving our arms around and watching the shapes of light we were leaving behind.

Equilibrium by Nick Baxter
This painting wasn't in my dream; in fact, Nick painted it after I had this dream.  However, the orange wispy-glowy situation coming off the sun in this painting looks very much like the orange wispy-glowy situation coming off our arms in my dream.  Way to conjure up my dream image post hoc, Baxter.  You're creepy/psychic/awesome.

Eventually the glow faded out of our skin and we were normal again.  Then I noticed, off to our left, a gigantic supercell cloud that was glowing blue from the inside (bearing in mind that behind it was still the galaxy of stars rather than a sky; yes, I realize that defies the laws of this world's physics, but not my dream world's physics, apparently).

We started running up a low, broad hill at full speed towards the cloud, and as we ran I told Avi, "Oh! That's the cloud that Natalie and I wanted to take a picture of a few days ago!  Too bad we didn't have a camera!"  Of course, Avi replied, "I have a camera," and started taking pictures of the cloud as we ran (dream physics, remember: you can totally run and take perfect photos simultaneously in my world).

As we crossed the hill's apex and started running down the other side, I followed the cloud with my eyes down to its origin, and discovered that it was actually coming out of an ibex's skull.

The Hunter by Nick Baxter

We started running towards the skull, but the closer we got, the bigger it got, and soon I realized it was actually massive--the size of a large hill.  When we arrived at its base, we started walking up it.  Avi was walking much faster than I and got pretty far ahead, but I was busy avoiding all the skull suture lines.  I said, "I don't want to step on a crack or I'll break my mother's back!," but then I started laughing self-consciously: "I can't believe I'm 32 and still doing that!"  Avi just shrugged and said, "Better safe than sorry."

When we got up to the right horn, we started climbing it like a rock wall.  Pretty soon, however, it got broader, flatter, and less steep, and suddenly we were on a hiking trail at Maroon Bells.

Maroon Bells, CO

We were surrounded by aspens, and I realized that all the leaves were heart-shaped, like the leaf in this painting:

What Love Is by Nick Baxter

We were in a forest of silver bark and gold and orange heart-shaped leaves.  It was beautiful beyond description, and we just walked in stunned silence for what felt like a long time (but, obvs, it was a dream, so prolly just a few seconds).  Finally, I had to pee, so I walked off the trail into the woods looking for a place to go.  I woke up, realizing that I actually did have to pee.  Stupid bladder, waking me up from the most beautiful dream I've had in a really long time!