Sunday, May 3, 2009

Dream Log 5/3/2009

The dream begins with a couple of guys pushing down big metal rails down what appear to be a single-line train track. This occurs on one of the largest roads in my hometown. It's as old-fashioned as it sounds. Except there are also cars going down this particular street, so I'm having a dream which is anachronistic in its own world.

At one point, what seems to be some sort of 1800s police car: it looks like an old-fashioned firetruck, with blinking lights, including a circle of lamps which flash in sequence. They're not red and blue; however, I can't tell what color they are, because inside the dream, it's sepia-toned black-and-white.

The rail-runners finally get to the bottom of the hill, where they talk with other rail-runners. There are hundreds of boxes with other rails and building parts... and flashlights. Several of the men (some are boys) have come to the conclusion that some of them will die down there, because they'll be building something underground. Let's jump back for a second, some company, apparently in the late 1800s, has built a DIY underground building that comes in hundreds of boxes. It turns out they're making a jail.

He's were it gets weird. Without jumping forward in time, we arrive at the "underground" jail, which is already built, and accessible by car. In the car are my mom, my brother, his girlfriend, and I.

We approach the front, where there is an entrance and an exit door. For some reason we're trying to be crafty. My companions attempt to go in the exit all stealthy-like. I wait outside because I have spotted the guard, an imposing-looking woman. I make it seem like my family has just made a silly mistake and she lets me in. I fear the worst, but it turns out they are waiting for me, having also manipulated the guards.

As we tour the place, we talk about our expert emotional manipulation. Just assume for the rest of this recap, we're some sort of genius thieves or secret agents.

We pass by a black family, which is only notable because they're talking street and I was about to say a phrase that suburban, middle-class society has adopted as their own.

Moving along, we finally make it to our destination: the bathrooms. All the inmates are having their bathroom break. Kermit the Frog is being coerced into doing #2. He's been specially fed for it. The reason is, is they want to fish out his droppings. I didn't know why until some inmate screamed out, "I ain't eating some frog's s***." So, Muppet frog turd are yummy apparently. Fruit-flavored is the dream's excuse. (I am not making this up.)

Anyway, this is where it gets really weird. The cast has morphed (as it often does in my dreams) to the cast of TNT's television series Leverage, about a group of expert thieves. (Hey, that sounds familiar!) Anyway, through some action that does not translate to logic or reality, they set up a massive pencil-and-paper game, which when solved creates a maze which explains how to escape from the jail. The jailers, after the board is nearly finished, panic.

Now, this brings up the point that one of my group was smart enough to create a game on the fly which would produce a map disguised as a simple children's workbook maze.

Anyway, the dream internally retcons the point of the map to lead not to the free world, but to the pantry, where all the inmates have an orgy of gluttony and eat months worth of food.

At this point in the dream, it's now a documentary instead of a narrative. Apparently the inmates just waited around (hibernating?) until another shipment came in, at which point they again participated in an orgy of gluttony. It's explained as if we've screwed with their eating schedules.

And the dream ends without much of a conclusion.

There was then a small minifilm following the feature presentation. My new kitten, Chloe, was playing around in my TV chest, fighting off some bug. Turns out it was a wasp. Who proceeding to grow as large as she and sting her in the tail. The wasp then came after me, and I squished him in my hands, and I got stung, after remembering that, unlike bees, wasps regenerate stingers and don't die. I check for the stinger, hoping to pull it out, but I can't find it, but I still feel the pain.

About the time my brain gets around to replaying the first dream (as it's apt to do), I wake up and there's still a pinprick feeling on my hand where the dream wasp stung me. I haven't found any reason for it. Just a phantom prick I suppose.

And by "phantom prick" I mean an unexplained glitch in one's nervous system causing an unexplained pain (analogous to "phantom limb"), and not a jerky ghost. Jerky as in mean-tempered and not dried meat.

Anyway, I read online that eating certain foods may make you dream better. Here's what I had:

Bacardi and coke
A crescent roll
Yogurt
Leftover Peach Kuchen (a German cobbler dish)

Let me not that this is not my normal dinner; I had an early supper with my dad, who I picked up at the airport, so I just snacked before bed. Perhaps this is the way to go.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Dream Log 2/27/2009

This dream is about a girl. We'll just call her the Girl. After the dream, I was able to deduce who the Girl was from hints in the dream. She turned out to be the youngest daughter of some family friends of mine. Though, in the dream, it didn't quite matter.

Anyway, the Girl was about 10. Or she was mid-twenties. It depends on what part of the story. She began seeming 10. She had run away from her parents to the junkyard. Apparently in this dream world, that's where you ran away to, instead of the circus. So, she shows up at the junkyard and finds a small society of other kids.

She's told to find a place to sleep. She chooses a set of bunk beds, taking the bottom bunk so she can use to the top one as a roof. (It should be noted that I did the same thing once in college. Upon getting a set of bunk beds in a private room, I converted it into a makeshift canopy bed.)

Once she settles in, her fiance from the old life arrive to tried to get her back. Here's where she doesn't seem 10 anymore but mid-twenties.

Anyway, that plot is quickly dropped, and we move into the part where the Girl is now part of the leadership of the junkyard nation. It's entirely too executive, with the Girl having a distinct "Secretary of the..." role instead of something more tribal, as you'd expect from a group of a few dozen people of ambiguous age.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Dream Log 2/15/2009

I'm in my apartment when my high school Spanish teacher, her class of 12-year-old Spanish students, and one of my old math professors show up at my door. They come in and need to use my space for a while.

I've got college Spanish class that day at 11:35. (Even though this is my current apartment, not my college dorm apartment.) It turns out my old math professor (I forgot who she's supposed to represent) led my Spanish teacher here.

Anyway, I call a friend in Spanish and ask for them to take notes for me, since housing a bunch of Spanish students while simultaneously reviewing the notes should exempt me from the absence. In seems like a much more brilliance feat of logic to realize this in dream world.

For some reason, they all stuff into my tiny bathroom to do something. It turns out this thing is making tee-shirts. This is a class project. I admire the shirts, because the decoration they did are much more elaborate that when I did the same project. I used paint markers to write funny statements on a white tee. These kids have dyed the shirts and put on professional plastic so that little fish with float in liquid on the front. (I did no such T-shirt project in Spanish, though we did do some art projects.) They are using my bed to dry their work.

Since both my bathroom and bedroom are in use, I walk into my living room. I start catching glimpses of people in mirrors. (This is strange; I have a mirror in my bathroom, and one in my room that my mom got me for Christmas because I didn't buy one for my dresser.) Anyway, at first I think I'm seeing through the ajar bathroom door by queer coincidence. It's then that I realize, for months, I've failed to notice that there are staircases surrounding my living room, leading to other apartments, and that people can see into my apartment over the railing wall. It seems that this is the first time they're noticing this, too. People start crowding to look at me, and I them, and we have this nice moment saying hi, as if this defective architecture is a good thing. (My apartment, of course, does not have staircases surrounding it where people can look in; I'm on the top floor, as if the ridiculosity of this dream apartment needed to be explained.)

Oh, and then I'm called by a cobbler. He's calling me to let me know that according to his records, I had my dress shoes cleaned and repaired several months ago, and he's had them waiting in the back room all this time, and he noticed this when he was going over his year-end records (Dream Me realizes that it's February already) and if I'll please come get them. The cobbler is a very crotchety, old guy, probably representing some other crotchety old dude I know. I explain to him I'm not in the area (so I'm transplacing my current apartment to my college town, much like I've transplaced myself there), but I'll have my parents pick it up. (In reality, my current apartment is very close to my parents' hometown.)

So, fun dream.

Dream Log 2/6/2009

It was such a mundane dream I’m pretty embarrassed that I even bothered to post it.

The setting of the dream was my parents’ house, even though it looked like my apartment.

I find my brother working on the computer. He’s trying to create new partitions on our computer’s disk drive. This is odd for several reasons.

1) My brother would not know a disk drive partition if it hit him on the head. Granted, because it’s a purely virtual entity, composed of electrons, he probably wouldn’t feel it.
2) After waking up, it took me, someone with an IT background, to recall what was going on in real life.

Anyway, I start to help him, including transferring the files on a partition I accidentally made when I was younger trying to save a file. This is also preposterous, because it’s exceedingly difficult to make a partition without trying. Anyway, I moved a couple of files, including one for my mom (who showed up at some point). There were a couple of files from when I was fifteen having to do with the “Diamond Bonders,” which was a fan fiction idea I was throwing around in high school, and a couple of files that exposed my crush on a girl named Anna.

There was a brief conversation with my mom about where to store the files.

This kind of stuff happens in my life all the time: helping my brother with the computer, discussing computer issues with my mom, etc. So, in other words, the first time I get to bed on time in weeks and I dream about real life. What a crock. Having strange and/or unusual dreams is the reason I don’t take hallucinogenic drugs.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Dream Log 1/31/2009

The dream begins with a kindergarten teacher explaining an art project: decorate a sheet of paper that’s going to be a candy wrapper: the kind with a round hard candy in the middle that’s twisted on either side and looks like a bow-tie.

When I get to my school amalgam* (a cross between my junior high and my high school), a small line of students are at the front desk, announcing dangerous landmarks to add to this computerized map displayed on drop-down screens encircling the front office area. A girl, no idea who is she or why she’s even talking to me, starts talking about riding in a hot air balloon with her friends, without an operator. This is clearly meant to be some sort of metaphor for high school kids joy-riding or something. I decide to report this illegal hot air balloon launch site. There are three receptionists in this school front desk that looks more like a mall information desk. Anyway, I misinterpret the flow dynamics and as two of the receptionists go on break, I’m forced to get behind a group of students. Now, had this dream gone longer, this group would have become important secondary characters, because they were sent over by Affirmative Action Casting Co., and the leader of this group was a slightly overweight African-American male with a take-charge attitude and a strong sense of right and wrong.

So, I report the balloon site to the remaining receptionist. He’s a tall, lean Caucasian man who had this dream gone longer, would have become a tertiary part. He may have been gay, but maybe not. It really doesn’t matter since he’s a background character.

Anyone, the sweet kindergarten teacher arrives at a school that’s meant to be either a junior high or a high school, ready to give her students the candy wrapper art project. She’s carrying the little plastic bins with her students’ names on them. Some of the students haven’t finished. Oh, I guess at this point I’m late for class. And so is she. Maybe it’s yesterday’s project. Er, dream logic.

So, we head over. The classroom is devoid of students when we arrive. I’m slightly suspicious; she acts like nothing’s wrong as she begins to admire the large candy wrappers that have already been designed. She talks at length about this one candy wrapper that looks like a famous candy wrapper with stripes of color, only giving a new color scheme from the original. Again, I’m probably about 17 in this dream, and my classmates around 11, and the teacher definitely a kindergarten teacher. Er, dream logic.

So a giant monster attacks. Or something. This part of the dream is blurry. But whatever happened in this forgotten portion of the dream must have been fantastic, because this is the next thing I remember:

Superman has successfully wrapped two enemies (monsters?) in the giant candy wrapper, aided by two bulls. Okay, I probably became Superman, which does happen a lot in my dreams (both seamlessly becoming a new character and becoming Superman in particular). I may have been aided by Supergirl. And the teacher disappeared. Maybe she became Supergirl. I don’t think so though. Then there’s the two talking bulls. They’re green or something. (Paul Bunyan’s bull’s cousins, I guess.) And whenever Superman/me wraps up the enemies in the giant candy wrapper, which is now about ten feet long, the bulls are able to headbutt it and have the enemies come falling out the end, piƱata-style. They then jump onto the candy and bounce away. It’s like in kids’ shows when the kids jump on a book or something and bouncing, trampoline-like, into Magical Wonderland. Except in this case, the bulls bounce across town to the fairground. Superman/me goes there too and unbeknownst to any of us, we’re about to be joined on our next adventure by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who are talking on walkie-talkies with Splinter, who is at the Turtle Home Base meditating.

The dream doesn’t go any further than that. But this is actually the type of dream I’ve been wanting for a while. The kind that makes me want to partake in illicit hallucinogenic drugs.

*This is the school amalgam from a previous dream. While I didn’t explore it like in my other dream, this is a labyrinthine school involving four or five stories connected by wide, open-air staircases. The bottom floor is underground, with rows of classrooms. It is quite easy and quite fun to get lost in a place like this.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Dream Log 06/17/2008

It began like the Halloween 2007 Episode of CSI: NY that I watched last night: a blunt-force trauma guy wandering around a crowded street with a bunch of guys in zombie costumes. How this relates to the rest of the dream I don’t recall.

I forget what happens in between.

Then there’s the part where I’m at Ashley’s house. Again, decidedly unromantic. We’re racing around to house to make Cheryl and her new boyfriend comfortable. I don’t know if one of them is sick or something. It involves a lot of running around the kitchen and creative uses for the utensils we find there. At one point, I come to the realization that the fact I’m step-siblings with Ashley gets me over my crush. I don’t know how that works (now or in the dream). Cheryl’s boyfriend is not Dad, but apparently it’s some guy with some sort of familial or symbolically familial relationship with me, though the latter wouldn’t lend much credence to seeing Ashley as my step-sister. There’s some laying on the bed that I can’t remember much about.

There’s a strange transition because all of a sudden it’s me who’s close to death or something. Strangely, I don’t recall any feelings of fear or accepting the afterlife. It’s more about this little community finding me to be some kind of inspiration. I’m either physically incapable or superhumanly capable.

The part I most clearly remember is this: I’m giving free range of this church in the middle of a sermon. The pastor is a very stuffy, dogmatic guy who looks like Rev. Graham. I start bouncing below this large balcony that the pastor is preaching from. I keep grabbing onto the railing, causing the ends of the balcony to collapse. One side I destroy, then I go for the other. Everything has super significance. When I tear down everything on the left side of the balcony I just leap up and use my head to break a hole in the floor. The pastor, who was trying to aid or stop me, gets hurt and points to the bookcase behind the former wall, allowing me to climb up.

What I find up there, my quest, was the sound system, which I play loudly, only finding music. It had fallen into disuse. This is apparently symbolic of free speech against a tyrannical pastor. Later, a parishioner who was a friend of mine, as taken a lecture into the aisles and now regularly interrogates senators and other people, to get to the truth in some kind of town meeting setting. I try telling him that it was a whim that got me to that point, but I keep getting interrupted.

Dream Log 06/13/2008

Okay, it begins with me in some town. I forget why, but I’m racing around, trying to save people. It’s like I’m part of some hero group and these are civilians I’m saving. It’s almost video game-like. I grab one girl then another. For some reason now they’re naked. (It turned into a bit of a naughty dream.) I carry both in my arms to the home base or something. All the while, I’m fondling the girls, who are sort of unconscious. When they awake, I continue apologizing, claiming what I’m doing is an accident when it’s on purpose. The girls (the top one is cuter than the second) either believe me or don’t care.

I drop them off at a room in the base. It’s actually just a large bedroom with several bunkbeds, arranged not bunker style but like it’s an actual house. They’re a lot of young women in there in various states of undress. I am impressed with my ability to carry two women and admire myself on the way to the bedroom.

I got to the headquarters bedroom of the base, where I discover that Voldemort has kicked out the rest of the team. I struggle with him for a while, but finally realize my omnipotence and just smack him.

I then realize it’s time for some minor voyeurism so I find the attic space door and crawl in. There’s no wood, just insulation, so I get a rug and some shoes. After a lot of trying to figure out how to pull this off, I do get in, a powerless Voldemort on the bed taunting me. I do get in and find the window area to the bedroom. By now, all the girls are dressed for bed. I peek in through a square cutout of the door. I’m being too noisy and the girls try to peek in but I hide. But since one door of the opening is completely open, I pop up to say hi.

After a little bit, there’s an argument on the floor. A boy (the room’s not exclusive anymore) is playing a coin game with this other girl. He says he has enough “diarrhea” meaning quarters, but Mom comes in to argue the rules of the game.

In the background, Scott is playing some kind of G/T initiation game. I realize since he’s a freshman in college, he hasn’t been in G/T for four years. (Longer in the real world.) It involves blindfolds and Santa Claus and other ridiculousness.