My Avatar Story

[Raiden]

Hey.

I posted this in the intro thread for my intro, and I decided to post it here when I realized it would probably get more views; I'm not trying to spam, I just wanted to share it with more people.

Here goes:

So, about four months ago, I decided I wanted to go see a movie. It was raining, I was stressed out, and I felt like getting away from everything for a few hours.

When I arrived at the movie theater, I wasn't sure what movie I wanted to see. I like science fiction, and I remembered that "Avatar", which had been in theaters for months, was about to leave theaters. My friends said it was pretty good and it had gotten good reviews from critics and moviegoers, so I decided to see it. As I purchased my ticket and walked inside I noticed several posters for the movie; deep blue faces with rich yellow eyes and white star-like freckles stared back at me. Somehow, I found them strangely attractive.

The first few minutes of the movie rolled by as I sat in my seat. As the scene with the mining pit went by I became angry; I am an avid naturalist, and I have witnessed the destruction of several of my favorite natural places by the metallic greed of large corporations. I watched on, not noticing that I had already been hooked on the plot.

By the end of the movie, I was spellbound. "Am I still on Earth, in a movie theater? Damn, I am....." I thought to myself as I left. I couldn't believe it, and I somehow felt very sad about it as I walked out onto the dirty asphault, surrounded by the sounds of departing cars and looming, dreary buildings.

The movie, needless to say, was absolutely fantastic. It was very unexpected. Not once until then had a movie made me feel this way, and it was the only movie that had ever made me cry; something even the most intense dramas/tragedies had been unable to do.

I spent the next six hours or so thinking deeply about the movie while going about my daily tasks. I am a biology/environmental sciences student, so the movie appealed to me greatly in a natural way, but no matter which aspect of the movie I thought about, my thoughts always wound up being about the Na'vi. I soon swept the thoughts from my mind as I sat down to do some homework that night before going to bed.

Then the dreams started.

I was in my bathroom, shirtless, and I was washing my face, having just shaved it. It was dead silent. I was going about my business, when I suddenly got very close to the mirror, and for some reason began to focus intently on my right eye. As I looked at it, it began to change. It got bigger; at least three times as big as normal, and it took on an almost animalistic look. Then my iris began to expand, and the color changed; it went from my slate blue/green to a green, then green-yellow, and finally settled on a rich yellow, with just a hint of green. I was freaking out in front of the mirror, but I couldn't move; no matter how much I willed myself to step back from the mirror, my feet would not budge, and I could not move my face or my upper body away from the mirror. Finally, the change completed, and I began to step away from the mirror, but then the dream faded into darkness, and I woke up.

I went back to sleep, and I forgot about the dream until between classes the next day. When I remembered it, shivers went down my spine as I suddenly understood what the dream was about. I was a little weirded out; why was dreaming about that?  

I decided I was going to take a break from thinking about Avatar for a while to avoid any more strange dreams.

It didn't work. Not by a longshot.

The next dream was perhaps the most vivid and palpable dream I had ever had. I woke up lying in what felt like a pile of wet dirt and leaves. I could hear hushed whispers all around me. I tried to open my eyes, but the sun was shining in them, and I couldn't see. I finally regained my vision, and I realized that I was lying face-down in leaf litter and dirt. I was somewhere in a huge forest, and there was a large deciduous tree in front of me. I sat up on my knees, and turned around to try and find the source of the disembodied voices. To my great surprise, I was surrounded by ten Na'vi, standing in a half circle. They were mumbling something and pointing at me . I turned back around as I tried to stand up, putting my hands on my knees to support myself. I fell back down on my knees as I came to the shocking discovery that my hands were bright blue. I moved them out of the way in panic and realized that my knees and legs were blue too, with light cobalt stripes. I stood up in a panic and turned around; somehow I stood at eye level with the Na'vi that now approached me. One of the Na'vi lent their hand to me and mumbled something at me. Before I could respond, everything faded and I woke up.

The next night, I had yet another dream. It was the same as the last, but it was longer. The other key difference was that I was able to see my entire body; My blue face was studded with tiny white freckles, and my eyes were the same color as they were in the first dream I had. Long ears rested behind my high cheekbones, and black hair adorned my head, replacing my messy brown hair and resting in thin locks around my face. I was very tall, and a tail protruded from behind me, the tip with a tiny tuft of hair at the end, like a paintbrush. The part that really stood out was the face; it was exactly like my face, but the nose was broader and catlike, and it wasn't human. This time, I got a good look at the other Na'vi; they were obviously all experienced hunters; they wore dozens of decorative bracelets and ornamental clothing was draped across the chests of the female hunters. This time, at the end of the the dream, the female Na'vi that lent her hand to me in the last dream grabbed my elbow and motioned for me to follow them deeper into the forest. I followed them, and the dream faded away and ended.

And it didn't stop there; A few nights later, I had another dream. I was walking through an area with many large roots hanging down and touching the ground. I soon realized that I was in the hometree of another clan. I was supposed to be finding someone to show me how to do something; what exactly, I can't remember, nor can I remember the name of the person I was looking for. I made my way through the small village, and I finally found the person I was looking for. She was a very beautiful female Na'vi; as I approache dher, I said "Uh, excuse me.....". She turned around to face me, and scowled when she realized who she was talking to. It was not a scowl of disgust; it was a the scowl of a person who wishes to test another person's abilites. That is the best way I can describe it. She began telling me something, but the dream faded away and I was unable to understand her.  

The dreams stopped for a while following this one. At first I felt uncomfortable about them, but by this point I loved them and eagerly awaited more. Of course, I also eagerly awaited the DVD release, and while counting down the days until it came out, I watched scenes from the movie on youtube and listened to the soundtrack.

So, after I got the DVD the dreams came back, in full force.

In the next one, I and another Avatar driver (in all of these I am an Avatar and I am very much aware of it) were exploring a swampy area of the jungle while searching for a tribe that lived there. We had to cross the swamp using floating plant remains, because the water was rather deep in most places. I also remember a feeling of forboding regarding what might be living in the murky water and whether it might think of us as it's afternoon snack. Eventually, we reached the village. These Na'vi didn't live in a hometree; rather, they lived on top of giant, floating plants that were shaped like water lilies. They were spread out over a lake-like area, and some of them were almost 100 feet across. They lived in huts made of reeds on top of these giant lilies. We visited them, and they were very nice to us. I remember eating with them and talking to them for a while, and then leaving with some things they gave us. In regards to what these things were, it is getting harder and harder to recall this particular dream, and I don't want to start making things up, so I'll just leave it at that. One thing that I started noticing though, is that after each of these dreams, I felt happy after I remembered it, like a wave of euphoria for a few minutes.

The remaining dreams are as follows; they are in order of occurrence:

1) Again, in the Avatar. The dream started with me walking through the middle of a Na'vi village with two Na'vi. This village was unique too, because it was at a very high altitude; I could see mountaintops and Iknimaya in the distance, and there were clouds floating in the distance and sticking to the sides of the plateau where this tribe lived. One thing about this dream that was very cool was that I was able to look around freely. I looked down at my body, and for some reason, I wasn't wearing human clothes anymore. I was wearing a plain loincloth, and I had various bracelets and things, as well as a bow and arrow. I soon realized that I walking through the village to meet the Olo'eyktan, and I eventually found her waiting at the front fo the village. She had facepaint sort of like the nameless leader of the Eastern sea clan from the movie, but it was black and was painted in sharp, angled lines under her eyes and across her cheeks. She was facing away from me, and another Na'vi got her attention. I can't remember what I was supposed to be doing there, I just remember that we were going somewhere in the mountains to do something important, and it was going to entail a challenging hike/climb up the mountains. She turned to us, and said something to the other two, and looked directly at me. Her face became a fierce scowl, as she inspected me visually. I returned her scowl with a fierce glare of determination. Finally, after she looked at me for another second or two, she seemed to approve of me, and we left for our destination. When the dream ended, I was very very happy. It took me some time to remember it the next day, and when I did, a wave of ectstasy washed over my mind, and I got the shivers.

2) This one was severly damaged by several other dreams that intersected with it and sort of screwed it up, but there is one key part that I remember.

Once again, in the Avatar, I was walking through a watery section of the forest. This time, it was night, and everything was aglow, of course. For some reason, I was following a very attractive Na'vi woman deeper into the forest. I was going somehwere with her for her to show me something. There was about three inches of water on the forest floor, and it ran over a bed of small pebbles, like a very wide, shallow stream. There were tiny bioluminescent plants on the forest floor, and they were making the water glow a little too. I finally asked in english "Where are we going?". She turned to me and came closer, and smiled childishly, saying "follow me" in heavily accented english. We kept walking, and then the dream sort of fell apart and transformed into a dream about something completely different.

3) The most recent one, this occurred just last night:

I was at the (new?) hometree that belonged to the Omaticaya. These was some sort of festive occasion that I had been invited to, and there was a party involved with it. Everybody was eating, dancing and having fun, and I could see many of the characters from the movie. I was mainly just mingling with the crowd and enjoying myself. One of the things I really remember well is how everything was glowing, including me, and how the huge bonfire shadows were playing on people's faces, and mixing with the yellow eyes and glowing freckles. I also remember looking at the sky and how strange it was to be looking at a gas giant instead of a tiny white crescent.

Unfortunately, this dream also got sort of garbled, but it was still really interesting.

Anyway, this brings me to the present. I am a member on most of the other Avatar message boards/sites, and so many people speak/goof around with the Na'vi language, and I have a nack for learning languages, so I wanted to try to pick this one up, even if it wasn't really spoken by a lot of people.

I also just like forums and posting in them, and this seems like a good one, so I wanted to join.

So yeah, Hi-er....Kaltxi.

And about the dream stuff....I really am not making it up. I know it would be easy to just hop onto  a forum and start posting that stuff, but I'm not posting it out of sensationalism or because I think I am special. I have very vivid, realistic dreams almost every night, and can often remember them when I wake up. Sometimes they are so lifelike that I wake up and I still think I am dreaming for a few seconds, or I will still see illusions or shapes from said dreams.

I don't usually talk about them, since some of them are personal and others are just too long/complex to tell, but people seem to be interested in Avatar dreams, so I decided to share them.

Thanks for reading my monstrous post.  

[Eyamsiyu]

First, may I say Kaltxì! Zola'u nìprrte!  You'll love it here, whether a normal Avatar fan or a true linguist.

I trust that you know your way around, but to point you in the right direction, there's definitely the "Learn Na'vi." section.  Then there's an even more awesome place: the Projects section.  Here, many people have developed many ways besides the mundane and ordinary to learn Na'vi.  Some of the best and most successful ones are Kaltxì Palulukan's Fun Activity Book and Tirea Aean's Project Ngaynume, but there are plenty of awesome things to check out there as well.

Next, if you ever need a break from learning, but still want to commune amongst us, there is the Spam section.  Believe me, there is some crazy s*** that happens there, and it's always for a laugh.

Lastly, I must say that I am really jealous of your ability to retain dreams well.  The only ever Na'vi dream I ever had was so f'd up that IDK how it managed to blend together like that.

Glad you're here, and may Eywa guide you through your journey to learning the words of the People.