Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

knew, the undermind had no distinct persona or agenda, like the Mater Mundi. It simply existed, the place that was not a place, where all minds came together; the great dreaming unconscious from which all human thought derived.
    Or perhaps it wasn't any of those things. Diana was only an explorer in these regions, and what she saw was filtered through her own conscious mind.
    She saw the collective unconscious as a great ocean. The sea of dreams. The waters we all swim in for nine months before we're born. The place we visit for dreams and ideas and inspiration. An ocean big as the world, greater than all the worlds. Diana had to be careful how she thought about it. Her mind was interpreting what was there in terms she could deal with. Allow her mind to drift beyond that, and she'd lose whatever control over the situation she had.
    She could become lost forever here, mislaid, swept away by unknown tides, her thoughts drifting forever as a screaming phantom in other people's dreams.
    This was a place with no maps, no boundaries, and no limitations. Here Be Tygers.
    She was standing on a small island, a rock-hard place of conscious intent and certainty. Waves lapped slowly against it, murmuring in many voices. She'd manifested in her old Jenny Psycho form, complete with spiked steel armor and a gun so huge she couldn't have lifted it in the waking world. The gun represented her power. She hoped she wouldn't have to use it.
    There were shadows and colors in the sky, streaming overhead like the nightmares
    rainbows might have. They were stray thoughts, coming and going in people's heads. Sometimes the colors became recognizable shapes and images, representing things that troubled or intrigued Humanity's thoughts. The rocky reefs of the Zeitgeist. Looking at them made Diana's head hurt, so instead she looked down into the tranquil waters surrounding her island. There were things there too; vast shapes moving slowly through the dream waters. The shared ideas, beliefs, and compulsions of human culture. People created them and spread them, and then they had power over people. Things are in the saddle and ride mankind, but we put the bit between our teeth.
    Humanity's collective unconscious. They called it the worldmind, before we went to the stars, and spread ourselves over so many worlds. You could go fishing in the sea of dreams, and pull out anything, anything at all. The collective unconscious is full of archetypes; perfect manifestations of cultural tropes or fascinations. The Wise Old Man, the Mystical Virgin, the King with a Wound That Will Not Heal. You could have interesting conversations with them, as long as you realized their words only made sense in the world of dreams and fancies.
    Their truths were too great for the waking world. And since this was the sea of dreams, there were bad things here too. Horrors of the kind that can only exist in nightmares. Everyone knows that there are Things in dreams that will get you unless you wake up first. And in the undermind there is no waking up. Those few, very few people, who have any knowledge of the undermind wonder if perhaps these Things are the natural predators of this place. Or are they rather just externalized manifestations of the psychic mind-set; self-loathing, depression, homicidal manias?
    Diana didn't know. She had visited the undermind just often enough to know it
    was larger and more complex than the conscious mind could deal with, except in very short doses. We could all shine like suns, but suns burn hot, and melt the wings of those who fly too close.
    Diana decided that her thoughts were starting to get out of hand, and clamped down hard. In the sea of dreams, even the vaguest of thoughts can have repercussions. She made herself concentrate, and looked around her for enemies.
    This was the human collective unconscious, but there were others who could come here too. As if in some strange way they belonged here. High up in the colorless sky hung a gray watchful presence. That was the rogue AIs of Shub. They had no subconscious, but sheer mental power gave them a window into the undermind, through which they watched and cogitated and failed to understand. Shub did not dream. There was a silvery moon overhead, that shone only faintly with its own light, and reflected in the waters. That was the Hadenman collective. They didn't understand the undermind either, but all their science had not been enough to stop them dreaming.
    Most baleful of all, there was