Transcendent Sophism

A short day dream after a long time.

2010-10-25T16:02:00.003-06:00

I dreamt that an acquaintance won 50 million dollars and I asked him if I could be his secretary. All I wanted was a reasonable wage so I could pay off some debt and an hour each day to read web comics at my desk without guilt. I started dressing more professionally, was more relaxed and ended up living a long happy life. Can you tell what is in my brain lately?

Hugs to all of you.

Strawberry Lizard

2010-01-27T14:32:00.002-07:00

I had gone to California to visit TUO and R:tAG and they had a different house. Their fridge was more like a weird chimney food storage system. You could open up the fridge and that was normal, but then you could open up the wall behind the fridge and there was a whole stockpile of other food in it. It was sort of like a cold room built in to the wall.

TUO had a lizard. A really small salamander and it lived in the same terrarium that she used to have for her huge lizard. She pulled out the lizard to show me and let me play with it, and while I was looking at it, it started to turn red. Then it started developing little yellow pocks all over it in a very even pattern. It looked sort of like a strawberry, so I said so.

"Yes," TUO said. "I decided I wanted it to look like a strawberry so that's all I feed it. It took a while, but now it looks pretty cool."

This seemed pretty reasonable.

Other random weirdness: I think they might have been living in a basement suite because all of the windows were really high up on the wall.

Wicked Hotdog?

2009-09-20T11:49:00.001-06:00

I had a dream last night that I can't even begin to understand. I was auditioning for an acting part. I don't know what it was. All I know is that I was dressed up as a giant hot-dog and told to sing Chris Isaac's "Wicked Game". I sang it beautifully, and made it to the final three. The other two contestants were women and between auditions we took advantage of the coed showers with a tape deck playing "Wicked Game". That was all well and good. :)

We all got a little nervous when the director decided that he wanted to have a five year old dress up as a mustard bottle and "mustard us" while we were lying on our backs singing. We decided to try the audition on our backs -- without the mustard -- and then hit the showers again once we had all run through the song. My dream ended there.

I'm glad it did end. I'm not sure I ever want to wake up because I'm vomiting.

I have no idea what this dream means. None. Normally my dreams have some reflection of the previous day or things I'm thinking about. Not so last night. Oh, and the women, child, and director were all strangers to me. Bizarre, yes?

Figure only in the Dream

2009-09-10T13:15:00.002-06:00

I had guests in for an event and I gave up my room to stay at my mother's house. I'm not sure if that is the reason, or if it was talking about the remodelling with another friend I invited to stay there, but I dreamt of my father. It was a beautiful thing to feel close to him even if it was only while I slept.

I've never really felt the beauty of dreaming about lost loved ones before. Most often I find myself feeling an abiding sorrow and anguish over my loss. I'm not saying that this hasn't been a hard thing to feel but it has also been a beautiful thing.

I'm not sure that I believe that lost loved ones try to communicate with us in our dreams, but I do trust that they will be with us always -- in one form or another.

I dream of color and it burns....

2009-04-16T18:26:00.002-06:00

I am walking down a country lane when a blob of blue goop smucks up onto the gravel and bobs at me ... as I continue past it unsure of what to make of such a sight, it launches at my arm, makes a weird sucking noise on my skin, and my arm starts to turn blue and heavy and the color begins to bleed up into my torso... and before I can flail or react (because the sensation of being forced to absorb this weird substance BURNS), similar blobs of yellow, pink, green, and orange come smacking up the lane from different directions out of the woods and bushes and from behind a rock and they all launch themselves at me too. I woke up with a start, seeing all of the colors pushing and pulling at one another in front of my eyes like a war of color. Weird.

Flossing...?

2009-04-02T11:18:00.003-06:00

I had a dream last night about flossing my teeth. Apparently I need to focus more flossing to the back of my mouth. That was the whole of it. Just flossing. What an inane dream.

The boy I never had

2009-03-29T15:56:00.002-06:00

I had a dream last night that has left me rather sad.

I was in a house and my Uncle and Aunt from the States were up visiting. My uncle was playing with a boy barely old enough to walk. The boy was toddling around the house and my Uncle was engaging him. As I came into the house, someone commented to me that I had a very charming son and that I must be proud. I was overcome by surprise because I didn't realize that I had a son. As soon as I picked him up, though, I knew that he was mine. There was a great series of activities with the two of us and sometimes my Uncle. As the dream progressed my Uncle became more and more aggressive about the boy's attention. Finally I realized that my Uncle was trying to steal away the boy's affection from me. I tried to fight back to keep my son. Somewhere around there is when the dream ended.

I miss my son. I know it's crazy but I have this feeling of loss. I've always thought that I'd be happy with children if I found the right woman. I still think that. I also used to think that I'd be happy if I never had any children. Now I'm thinking that while I might be happy, I might not be as happy as if I were to have a child. And before anyone says anything, no, I'm not going to get anyone with child just for the sake of it. That would be dumb.

Then again, it's all a dream. Dreams may mirror parts of reality, the conscious, and the subconscious, but they are none of those things. I know this. I also know that I'm sad today.

I had a dream last night

2009-03-26T10:53:00.002-06:00

I had another one of my amazingly convoluted dreams last night. It's been a while and so it was a welcome change of pace. I don't remember all of it but it was in three parts.

The first section had me as an incredibly powerful superhero who was, along with many other superheroes, part of a reality television show. Turns out that I was also a concert pianist -- self taught!

The second section switched to the dark streets and alleys were I was able to observe the power struggles of a local neighbourhood and the gangs/groups therein. It was fairly mundane except that sunglasses determined status in the groups. Then I got a twist as it turns out that one of the guys found out he had the ability to get more power by dissolving his family in water and then drinking them. He was in the process of hunting them down (to store them all in water and drink them all in a single sitting and thus rocket to the heights of power unopposed) when I realized that my tongue piercing was broken and I was in danger of swallowing the jewelry. I high-tailed it to the local grocery store/piercing show to get it fixed. Twice. Apparently I had a very agile and strong tongue which did not like to be pierced.

The final section of my dream was me cuddling with a woman. Awesome, yes? No. Turns out that mid-way through cuddling she tells me she is moving back to the city but she's engaged. I found this very strange as I hadn't seen the woman in question in many years, so why the cozy if not to... well, you know.

Now, some of this I can explain, like the part about my piercing coming apart repeatedly. I did just remove all the metal from my body. The other stuff though.... I've never played piano in my life and while it'd be nice to know how, it's not a driving goal of mine. The woman is a real woman whom I haven't seen or heard from in years. I've barely thought about her in years. I don't get it.

Being Venus is pretty cold business.

2009-03-23T12:44:00.004-06:00

I dreamt that I was Venus in the famous painting "Birth of Venus" by Botticelli. The Zephyrs are forcing me towards the shore with the powers of wind, but it is so much colder than the picture shows. Spiritual passion, I as Venus am discovering, is not warm enough for my tastes. My body is covered in goosebumps and the serene expression is pasted on in an effort not to lose my dignity in front of the human eye that paints me. And on the shore where the gaze comes from is a huge awkward class of second year painting students, who are trying to get over their fear of seeing this event as their prof yells at them not to avoid drawing my breasts (New artists to life drawing often accidentally avoid such things until the very end and then their creations look ghastly with "stuck on" breasts or genitals. Sort of like someone pinned the tail on the donkey; very unlikely to look "right".).
The goddess of seasons isn't so much offering me the flowered cloak as she is holding it away from me with a sour expression on her face. Her expression and body language say, "YOu BITCH! I was the hot chick around here and now I'm going to have to share with you AND all of my sisters." I woke up this morning with my blanket on the floor shivering cold. I am still peeved at the Horae for being such a cunt.

He Gave me The Sun and the Moon

2008-12-03T10:49:00.002-07:00

It was an eclipse. I was in the fields of Riding Mountain. The Moon loomed large in the sky and drifted over to the Sun and sat down right on top of it. The sky was dark for about four seconds and it felt like night in the middle of the day. Then he lifted his arms up, took the eclipse out of the sky and rotated it so that the sun was shining on the world again. When he took the two circles apart -- the sun circle and the moon circle -- there was an outline of a wolf between the two of them. Then he put the sun back in the sky.

Thanks, Herbert. Weird, socially awkward, childhood neighbour. Not sure why you were in my dreams, but it was amazing.

Grass

2008-10-06T13:48:00.004-06:00

In the dream, I am walking barefoot through short green grass, kicking fall leaves and lifting them up on my toes. Somehow I have not looked up and when I do I realize that the grass is only short in a small circle, perhaps the size of a car length, and then it rises up around me gradually into the distance, like I am in a low wave of a sea of grass. But the grass is still and unmoving. And as I look closer, I can see that each blade of grass is not growing green; it has been carefully mended and weaved to look almost real. Each blade is attached with wires and strings and yarn to the earth below it. A steady wind is blowing and the leaves in all the autumn colours are falling from somewhere I cannot see. Their movement exaggerates the fact that the grass is not movable. My mind tells me I should be concerned, but instead I feel peace and quiet and sleep. I fall asleep in the circle I have made for myself with my bare feet, curled up like a cat. And as I sleep I can see myself sleeping and I can see the leaves falling on me and my little island. I woke up this morning feeling like the sun was warm on my face and arms when it wasn't. It was incredibly vivid.

Soul Searching

2008-09-08T12:19:00.002-06:00

Last night I had a first in my dreams. I'm a dreamer who frequently will be able to identify my friends and acquaintances in my dreams. It's easy because they appear as they do physically. Okay, they might not have a face, but otherwise they look like what I'm used to seeing. Last night I saw a friend's soul. There is no other explanation.

The main part of the dream was about a stranger in a too tight black dress, tomato trees, and her trying to find work. I was trying to help in the mad dash down 8th Street. It was, in the end, a failure. I don't remember the details though.

The important bit was the goddess who walked past me on 8th Street. She was stop-and-stare gorgeous (everyone did so), self-assured, and every bit in possession of herself. In real life this friend of mine has some self-doubt, depression (who doesn't in this day and age), and wouldn't consider herself to be a supreme beauty - at least not a conventional beauty. Even though the body was different, I knew her immediately. There was also an impression of her totem animal in her movements and bearing. (Well, the animal she, and apparently I, consider to be her totem.) She struck me as being very regal and perhaps more than a little bit dangerous.

I hope more souls stop by my dreams to visit. It was an interesting experience and one I'd like to repeat to see if this is a matter of how I view their souls or how they do.

Saxons vs. the Normans

2008-07-22T13:08:00.002-06:00

The dream is set in an ancient Anglo Saxon village near the sea. I am one of them, a woman whose husband is now the man who killed my previous husband in battle, and taken - with my son - as chattel. But they are a warlike tribe, and some Normans have come to talk peace with them - or so we thought. A few stop to talk to us women, one (who looked like Iain Stevens-Guile, but in a tunic and breeches) even attempting to teach us a few words of French. In my dream, I barely understand him.

As I and another woman are watching the children play by the ocean, we see the ships come in, more than we ever imagined, and the Normans are soon at the door. The children are taken before we can get to them - including my son, who was almost at the age of becoming a warrior - and I and the other woman run to find a place to hide, finding some large driftwood with an opening as the battle begins.

I'm not overly fond of my warrior husband, as I barely yet know him at this point, but I am very concerned for my son, and we quake in our hiding place. Two Normans come by, laughing a bit at our meager attempts to hide, and help us place branches around ourselves for better cover.

The battle rages on, and another Norman (who looks remarkably like Nathan Fillion) comes by, and I ask him, 'Please, will you take me away', but he doesn't understand, so I ask again in halting, terrible French, "Prend-moi devant?" but he understands me, and nods.

And I wake up in tears.

Anxiety Dreams

2008-07-07T10:01:00.001-06:00

So this is what happens when you dream your fears exactly:

So I dreamt last night that I went to DC to see Ashwath; I couldn't find him at first, for days I just wandered around, until I found him. Jody actually came with me at that time; she told me that he'd completely run out of money, he'd spent it all. And when we found him, he was pretending like he'd been hurt, like he didn't know I was there that whole time, but even in my dream I knew that wasn't true. And I got angry and started asking him all the hard questions - although I asked Jody to go just then, so he could answer.

And he did. He said that he had spent everything, that he'd lied about school the whole time, that he had no job, that he just hid in his apartment when he was supposed to be working or at school. And then I asked him why, why he'd lied, was it just to keep from having to move to live with me (and I was crying and shaking with fury at this point), and he said that it was, and then I started running, and trying to pack up all my stuff, and I couldn't find anything, and I wanted to call Jody to come get me, because I wasn't going to spend another moment in that place, except I couldn't find my purse or my phone.

And somehow, in my dream, I fell asleep, even though all I wanted to do was leave, and in my dreams of dreams, Ashwath pushed me down an elevator shaft to try to kill me for the insurance money, and I realized he really did want to kill me, and I woke up and tried to leave, but I still couldn't find my stuff, until Jody's husband Scott showed up to take me back to their place.

And then I woke up for real.

Housemate

2008-06-11T08:46:00.002-06:00

There's a girl at work who drives me a little bit bonkers. She's pretty young, and very much into herself and talks about her life in detail that I don't particularly want to hear.

Last night she was my roommate.

I believe this is karma because I had a bit of a fit in the car on the way home, complaining about her. This is my punishment, and it is a harsh one.

The basement suite we lived in was a cross between the crap house on Temperance and the first house I lived in here in the city. There were other people living in the basement, in other suites and we had to be careful about when we did laundry and when we used the backyard, and all that sort of thing. It's been about ten years since I lived in the original S'toon house, and when I lived there, I put up a hammock and slept in the backyard sometimes. In those ten years, nobody had taken down the crappy hammock, and the tree had grown about another 12 feet. So there was this disgusting grey mess of ropes hanging really high in the back yard. I wanted to borrow a ladder from somebody to get high enough to cut them down, but I couldn't find one. Generally, I was trying to figure out how to make the least amount of annoyance to our neighbours and housemates. That was my job in the dream.

The co-worker, though, seemed completely incapable of understanding the concept of several suites in one house, a shared backyard, and shared laundry. I was trying to be kind and understanding, but every time she came up to talk with me, she had a really stupid question about when it was okay to play her music or what to do with a neighbour's laundry, etc. So, the dream consisted of me speechifying in a deliberately restrained and calm tone, while I performed extra house maintenance and tried to avoid all of the people that lived in this conundrum of a basement.

2008-05-23T01:21:00.002-06:00

I am sitting at my uncle's old table in his old kitchen beside the wood stove with a familiar container in front of me. It is the dip pail from the farm, dented and aluminium and about the size of a small pot. We used it to scoop out drinking water from a thermos pail. Uncle Jack would walk down the lane each morning and bring back a heavy pail of well water covered in cheese cloth. As a kid, I would follow him there and back. I remember all of this in the greatest detail that my mind can conjure both as I sit there in the dream and as I watch myself sitting there. I remember fishing a daddy long legs out of the dip once. I remember the smell of the wood stove burning and the uneven heat of it touches the viewer me as it warms the room I sit it. It is half full. If adults besides my Uncle were not watching, we would drink right from the dip, like one might from the garden hose. The memory of the metal taste of the pail on my lips rolls over me. I remember how it seemed like magic that the water stayed cool all day even on the hottest days of summer - the same temperature as the moment it came from the well. I would drink so much water just for the fun of the game of hide and drink. My oldest brother often got in trouble for leaning over the larger pail and letting water that had touched his mouth or even been in his mouth fall into the reservoir. I sit at the table dwelling on that thought, getting more and more disturbed at the idea of his mouth having been on my water. The viewer me watches but does not experience this change. I imagine him touching my water with his tongue and lips and I feel cold. The image reinscribes the simple vivid memories of the positive with new emotion. The viewer me remains without this new rewritten image and pities the me that is sitting in the chair.

I cannot sleep now.

Obama's Not My Cousin

2008-05-16T10:06:00.002-06:00

My mom took me to my great-grandmother's grave and talked to me about how her biography had inspired her and changed the way she saw the world. When she handed me a copy of the book -- from the bookshelf beside the grave marker -- I leafed through it and discovered that Barack Obama had edited the book because he had a personal interest in her. As I read on, I found out the he was also her great-grandson, and this is why he wanted to be a part in this biography.

I, of course, was thrilled. But when I started questioning mom about why we didn't know about this, and how we could be related to him without knowing it, I discovered that there were a few minor discrepancies: My great-grandmother did have the same name as the person in the biography. They both had died on the same day. My great-grandmother, though was born one day before Obama's was. My mom had been mistaken. My great-grandmother did not have a biography written about her.

And, Obama's not my cousin, twice removed, or otherwise.

2008-05-14T14:21:00.004-06:00

I'm climbing. All around me are dazed stars and lights and little creatures flying or crawling. At first it is pleasant. I am climbing a fantastical tree and it is beautiful. And I keep climbing. There is this building sensation that I am about to reach the top and see around me. . . and then I am back at the start. By the third repeat, the tree is not beautiful. It is the same but I am not interested in the beauty or the light. I have no idea how many times I climbed that tree. I hate that tree.

Me? A drug dealer?

2008-05-14T08:05:00.000-06:00

Last night I slept horribly. I had the most disjointed dreams. There was no rhyme or reason to the scene changes. This is unusual for me as my scene changes are usually flawless. That's right, flawless. I do remember bits and pieces though.

At one point I was followed by a couple of friends and someone more sinister. We were moving through this store/indoor market type of place and the lighting was strange. It seemed to be both dim and well lit at the same time. Finally my friends caught up to me in a store selling odds and ends at clearance values. *They* didn't know how to get out of the room, but I did. All you had to do was by four of their discount dvds. I remember that Terminator was one of mine. At that point the shadowy follower I picked up exited through a door that while I could see, didn't know how to open. And really, even if I was able to open it, why would I want to go to the Renaissance Fair behind it?

As I stood up from my videos I found myself in the bathroom of a strange house with toothbrush and toothpaste in hand. I am analyzing it intently because I know that the RCMP are building a case for me being a drug dealer based on the presence of illicit substances found on my toothbrushes. I think cocaine was the major culprit. I, of course, am confused seeing as how the only thing that I use my toothbrush for is brushing my teeth. Yet, at the same time that I think this I notice that my toothpaste glitters oddly. Suddenly I'm flashing through different bathrooms in the city to look at the toothpaste in them and while all of the bathrooms are mine as I write this I know that I don't recognize any of them. During this bathroom montage the RCMP have still been searching for me and have at this point decided that I am a major drug dealer. Based on the toothbrushes.

The rest of the night both before and after is lost. The only other thing I remember is that at no point in my dreams last night did people speak to me. Either I was reading minds or they were sending thoughts. Perhaps both. It was an oddly silent dream.

Weekend Madness

2008-05-05T11:07:00.000-06:00

I had some seriously twacked out dreams this weekend.

Friday night: I went to DC to discuss the separation with Ashwath. We had the whole fight, I told him everything of how I felt, he argued, I ended up in tears... and then he tells me he's been seeing someone else anyways. Some blonde chick. Then I woke up.

Saturday night: I was getting ready for Deb's brunch (I had a sudden inspiration that I should bring champagne & orange juice), when Mike Lang shows up with all the food he's going to make for the brunch. I protest feebly that the brunch is at Deb's, but he says he'll just bring it there after it's made. Then a stream of people starts entering, including (but not limited to) Jamie Farr, Alan Alda (surprisingly shorter than I thought he'd be), one of the Golden Girls, possibly some members of WKRP, and even a marching band. I was very touched. But I never did get to Deb's for the brunch.

Sunday night: I was a school teacher, along with a few others, who were challenged by our principal to make a real difference in the lives of at least one of our students. So we each tried to find one. There was a little blonde girl who just wanted to be loved, and we found her a better foster home. There was a black girl (late teens) with bright blonde hair who wanted to be a super star, and we got her an audition somewhere. There was a young boy who just wanted to play baseball, and a little boy who needed an operation. I was in tears for most of the latter part of the dream. I remember the principal coming back to give us a review of how we'd done, only the kids were still there, and I had to get them out before they realized they were just part of our teacher review, and the little girl patting my face as I picked her up to take her outside and saying 'Don't cry'.

Nails of Death

2008-04-30T23:28:00.004-06:00

I dreamt that I was at my father's funeral. I was quite please that I had remembered to cut my fingernails so as to increase my presentability. It was a small relief amidst things of pain. Then I rotated my hands to see that I'd forgotten to cut my thumbnails. As I realized this my mother looked over and gave me a disapproving look. I was embarrassed and tucked them under my fingers. At I listened to the pastor at the pulpit I thought to myself: I could kill people with thumbnails like these.

Then I woke up to find that while I had indeed cut my fingernails, my thumbnails were also clipped as well; I had not had killing nails at the funeral.

AJ

Dreaming of Dreams

2008-02-25T21:07:00.001-07:00

Last night my dreams were represented in my dream as a bubbling black fluid that was filling the area over which I floated. Some things were partially in said liquid, and somethings were floating/flying as I was. Every thing had preternatural qualities and many had supernatural ones as well. In my dream the bubbly fluid solidified. Just like that and even the liquid that trapped the air and made the bubbles - including those above the surface of the massed blackness.

What does it mean when dreaming goes into stasis in your dream? I remember knowing that the inky wet beneath me was my dreams, so perhaps I was partially aware. I don't know. I do know that I am somewhat bothered by this symbolism. At the same time it was and is a beautiful still shot in my mind's eye.

May your dreams forever be mercurial and full of wonder.

Nightmares do weird things to me.

2008-02-06T22:31:00.000-07:00

I was having problems sleeping last night, despite being tired enough to go to bed at least an hour before I'd otherwise have considered it. It was one of those nights where the thoughts in your head lead you into dreams. In this case, it led into a nightmare. I was being attacked by a man who was bigger than I was. I was lucky enough to turn the tables on him but he continued to struggle and it was a fight that I wouldn't be able to win, only hold at a draw. It was at that point that I decided to wake up.

I went and grabbed a glass of water and walked around a bit. I knew that sleep would be a while in coming now for sure. I did go to bed in a few minutes though as I was cold and blankets are warm. No sooner had I started to drift off than I heard this insistent noise. I realized it was the phone.

I don't know about you but phone calls at night make me think the worst. As it was I was already in a bad mental state but I rushed out of bed to answer the phone that had been ringing for far too long already. I figured that anyone who let it ring that long really needed to get a hold of me. Prepared to receive the news that I had to start driving to a grandparent's funeral the next morning, I answered the phone. It was a wrong number. A somewhat rude wrong number.

At that point I went to the living room, put in a Babylon 5 tape that I had out and watched two episodes until I was too out of it to do anything but sleep. The couch and a under my blanket are not nearly so cozy as the bed and blanket, but I was really in no state to sleep at that point. This morning I woke up with a nasty headache that wouldn't go away. Today was a bad day.

I think that I could have usually handled the phone call but with the nightmare it was just too much. I don't often have nightmares, but when I do they definitely throw me off kilter.

AJ

Blurred with late recall

2008-01-12T15:55:00.000-07:00

My dreams have been a blur of images lately. I know that there are themes running through the individual nights but I'm unable to remember them in the morning. Sometimes I'll be doing something during the day and bits and pieces will come to me.

I remember a scene from the other night. In between commercials where the spokesperson was Alf, and which coincided with my coughing fits, I was in a space epic. The type of dream that reminds you of Dune. There were massive ships, aliens, foreign planets, and the stars. I had just landed my spacecraft on an agrarian world and was summoned for a meeting that I wasn't looking forward too. Nevertheless, I left my avian alien second in command in charge and exited the spacecraft into a field of golden wheat. It was a field that stretched as far as the eyes could see to the right of a winding dirt road. The heads of the wheat swayed gently in the wind. As I started to walk down the road to a massive ship kilometres away, I was met by an oncoming captain returning to his ship. I stopped to talk and asked him how he avoided her [the commander of the large ship's] wrath. He said that there was no avoiding it except to weather it. At the mention of weather, the winds picked up speed and the skies began to darken. I turned around and moved toward my ship. I sensed her [the commander's] ire and muttered "I'm just going back to grab a sweater". The winds didn't subside, nor did they increase in intensity. As I turned I saw that the field of wheat was a golden yellow offset by a sky a deep grey-blue. It reminded me of a prairie storm at harvest and while it was comforting I could also sense the danger in it. I went up the ramp into my ship and then returned to the road. As I walked down the road I saw that the sky over her ship was tinged with storm clouds of red and pink. This was no reflected sun either, but rather the clouds were themselves those colours and ominously so.

While writing this I remembered another snippet from another night. Again it was in space. We were flying around in these triangular ships. Sometimes we were being chased and sometimes we were hunting. I think that it began with us a a part of a larger fleet. We were searching for a ship and its pilot. After the fleet left a zone we decided to stay behind and search it. Sure enough we got lucky and boarded it. There was some sort of confrontation with the female pilot, and I know we let her live. Apparently she was in the moral right and so we changed sides and joined the ranks of pursued. I know that we engaged in some trickery and in sort sabotage, but the details elude me.

In another dream I was yet again in space. This time we were taken to a space station that was the size of a small moon. It was in the middle of nowhere, but there was a space battle raging around it. I was taken on board it to help defend it, but little did we know that there were already invaders on board. It was a form of mind control that made our people into theirs. I don't remember how it was resolved, nor do I know if I was taken over, forcing me to switch sides.

In another I was being pursued into a small neighbourhood. Once there I was shown the trees and convinced how safe it was. Just outside the community the violence could be seen. Next I was searching for a place to live, in said neighbourhood, with a faceless housemate. We looked at different places, many of which were too small, one of which didn't have walls dividing the suites but rather curtains. It made the places seem large until you were told what the area of your suite actually was. Amazingly it made the top two. Housing was scarce. The other one was a narrow place with separate suites, although doors did connect them. The kitchen was a large square, and in the end I took it. I'm not sure what happened to the housemate. There was something about rock and roll, electric guitars, neon lights, and easygoing neighbours with whom conversations were picked up like old friends, but I don't know where it all fit in.

The last one I remember was a dream of suspicion and espionage. In it I was an addition to a group that all knew one another. I was the odd man out. Some of them were shapechangers, and there were chases, chains, and snow. And blood. If wasn't unsettling though, merely the way things were; it's a harsh world. Somehow the chase led to a submarine yard and we had to stop a rouge member of the group from escaping in the submarines and using their weapons in his ire. I know that we won by outsmarting him but as with all else, the details are blurred.

I'm curious to see what bizarre happenings next fill my sleep.

I Am The Champion

2007-12-21T09:50:00.001-07:00

Our high school football team was notoriously bad. They rarely won a game; they never made it into any finals of anything. Last night, however, I dreamed that due to my incredible talent I was on the football team. There were about seven girls on the team, actually, and we held that shit together, yo. We turned that crappy football team into a winners. I was on Special Teams, and I have no idea what I was actually playing. I don't think I was the kicker, and I don't remember any actual games. I just remember being accredited with lots of awards for helping make our team a winning one.

Flying

2007-12-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

I had another dream about flying. This one was better than most. Usually I have to run with the wind and get scooped up. In this dream all that I had to do was to lean into the wind and it picked me up. I was flying all over North America, effortlessly. I was visiting a variety of people, some of whom I knew and others I met as I landed. It was a very relaxing dream. The best part was that the air left me so supported that my fear of falling didn't decide to rear its head.

Usher is my Boyfriend

2007-12-07T16:36:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I was dating Usher in my dreams last night. Although I got distracted by Shelly in her dorm room (that's another story, and one which won't be told in this venue) as I was on my way to meet him at the airport, where he was whisking me off to warmer climes in first-class.

Dave dropped me off at the airport, and was going to come, but Usher obviously hadn't set aside a ticket for him, so he had to stand in line. And the girl at the counter was quite rude about me having my purse and my passport (I do actually keep my passport in my purse, which I conveniently remembered in the dream).

There were all sorts of R&B and hip-hop luminaries on the plane, although the only one I recognized was Snoop Dog. And the flight attendant brought me a drink composed of vodka and asparagus. Inside the plane itself, it looked more like a Herc than a private jet, with wide open spaces and then comfy chairs set at random intervals around the room.

An old friend of mine was on the plane as well, and when I went to introduce him to Usher, Usher was now also someone else, who was also an old friend of mine.

All I have to say is: vodka and asparagus? Really?

The Bay of Saskatoon

2007-12-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

I dreamt last night I was visiting Saskatoon; for the most part, it was a tiny little place, looking more like Holden than Saskatoon - flat prairie land, just a few cris-crossing streets and wide open spaces, dusted white with snow, the houses small and plain.

But on the edge of town, somehow, Alan lived in a large houseboat by a tiny marina off a giant river (or bay, or ocean), and there was a tremendous storm as we (I don't know who 'we' was, just me and someone else - maybe Suzi or Rilla? or both in one?) neared it - all the other boats were being tossed and thrown about on the water, and one even left its moorings and was washed out to sea and disappeared. At first I thought it was Alan's home, but it wasn't - his was more safely set across the marina, nestled further from the stormy waves.

I don't remember the rest.

I have a lot of dreams, but unless I grasp at them desperately before waking, I rarely keep them long.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

2007-12-06T08:54:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I have a dream in which I either get to play the character of Buffy, or I'm myself interacting with the characters of Buffy. There was a particularly delicious dream involving Angel and myself once. Last night I dreamed that I was Buffy and I was being stalked by a group of four people who wanted to kidnap the slayer and exploit her special powers.

The first time they tried to capture me/Buffy they injected me with some sort of knock-out tranquilizer. Relying on my natural fortitude, I hoped that I could get it out of my system if I just could avoid the kidnappers for long enough. So, I started running through this muddy construction zone past all of these warehouses. As I ran, I could feel the poison creeping its way through my veins, and with my blood now moving faster because of my exercise, I realized that this might not have been the wisest course of action. I momentarily thought about jumping into a hole to hide my own body, but with a glance over my shoulder, I could see one of them still in hot pursuit. My body would be found too quickly. Instead, I willed myself into running more, and the longer I went, the clearer my head became. The tranquilizers were wearing off, and my momentary weakness made me angry.

So, as daylight broke, I reversed my strategy and instead of running away from them, I rounded about and started to herd them into one of the nearby warehouses. Part of me recognized that they were being a little bit too cooperative about being chased into one single location, and I prepared myself for a trap. Once I had them all in the same building, they huddled together, looking defiantly at me. A knife appears in my hand and I begin questioning. I figure out the ring leader amongst the four of them, and start directing my questioning directly to him, and I emphasize my seriousness by cutting his pants and shirt. I never break skin, I just demonstrate that I could.

As I'm slicing the back of his shirt, a small piece of fluff lands on my hand, and it instantly goes numb. The fluff, I recognize, is a very poisonous and dangerous spider, and I'm certain to lose consciousness in a matter of moments. The kidnappers all exchange knowing glances and they start debating who's vehicle I'll be transported in. I come down with a sudden case of Stockholm Syndrome, and become totally reliant on the ringleader whom I was intimidating only a few moments before. As they toss me into the back of his truck, I pass out.

That's all I can remember, but I'm interested in this weird pattern I'm having of my dreams ending when I fall asleep. Wouldn't you think my dreams would end when I woke up? It's like I have this completely other life going on in my head when I'm not looking.

Wiped across the bed like peanut butter on toast.

2007-11-27T17:11:00.000-07:00

So, I don't know what I've been dreaming, but I have. I go to bed and can't fall asleep until suddenly I do. Then I get into a pseudo-lucid dreaming state before I wake up that combines reality and dreaming in many different ways. When I finally wake up I feel like I've been trampled and then spread out to slowly melt away. It's a level of feeling drained that I don't like. Last night I used plastic bags to cut off all light into my room; perhaps the escape from moonlight will help.

When the Mundane Intrudes

2007-11-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

I had a nice series of fractured dreams last night. I don't even remember what they were about, except that in one of them I remembered that I had buns in my car trunk and needed to go get them. When I woke up this morning and remembered that part of the dream it reminded me that I did indeed have buns in my trunk as well as some leftover chicken. Good thing this is the time of the year to count the outside as an extra refrigerator.

The thing is, I was kinda outraged at the mundane nature of that part of my dream. How dare my dreams act to remind me of things that I would have otherwise forgotten! They are supposed to be strange and somewhat disturbing with jumps from scene to scene that only would make sense in a dream.

I think I'll count this one as an anomaly and rely on the next few to make up for it. {grin}

Troublesome

2007-11-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

I was part of a vast battle between god and the devil. I was fighting on god's side, and each of them had a champion. god had a beautiful angel with long wispy wings. The devil had a figure who looked much like the traditional image of death: long cloak, skeletal, seemingly floating. It was unclear who, but either the devil or its champion had a sword embedded in its side. I knew that if it was withdrawn it would become a powerful weapon for the forces of evil.

The battlefield was vast, infinite. At its centre was a couch. It was green and velvety and filled with straw. It was created so that there was a couch facing out from both sides of the back, so that it was two couches with one centre structure. god lay on one side, face down and seemingly comatose. The devil lay on the other, he was asleep, but faking it.

The two champions fought close to the couch, and I was there as part witness, part soldier. The angelic champion, in the heat of melee, forced the demonic champion back onto the couch, onto the side on which the devil was waiting. The devils eyes opened, and it seized the opportunity to withdraw the sword from the side -- or the demonic champion pulled the sword from the side of the devil. The limbs were blurred together and transparent at times.

I screamed, "NO! STOP!" but the angelic champion only realized its folly too late. The devil rose from the couch and joined the battle. I ran to wake up god. I couldn't touch him. I sat on the bridge/back of the couch and looked at him and looked at him, and my mind tried to reach out to him in a prayer-like way. I couldn't comprehend it, but he was unwilling to join. He was unwilling to respond. He remained in his coma, while his champion was so clearly at a disadvantage.

I cried.

Dream Montage

2007-11-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

Only fragments:

I met Data and Riker from Star Trek: TNG. Riker introduced Data and said that he would deliver an important message. Data said, "Kids. Make sure you don't eat the copper you find on the ground. It looks like this," and he picked up a piece of shiny red ore. I was so excited that I actually got to meet Data that I ran up to him and hugged him and whispered, "You've always been my favorite character." At this point, Brent Spiner couldn't hold character anymore and started laughing. I just kept hugging him.

I was in my childhood best friend's house. There was no furniture. I got the feeling that someone was either moving in or moving out. The walls were only drywall. There was a twin house next door. The neighbours were drunk and loud.

There were folding chairs set up in a beautiful grassy area. I knew that I was in the Riding Mountains. Somebody had everything set up for a wedding. The sun was shining. The paths were lined with wood shavings. It smelled of pine.

I don't know how these were connected.

It's the Bad Ones that Stick

2007-11-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

The worst dreams I have are the ones when I can't tell whether I'm awake or not. In high school these dreams were always about me getting out of bed, getting ready, and going to the cafeteria for breakfast: When the alarm clock goes off, confusion reigns supreme. As I've gotten older, the dreams of waking up and doing things continues, but it gets weirder and weirder.

This morning, I woke up because there was a small demonic dog sitting on the windowsill in my bedroom. Unlike other dreams in which I see something demonic, I could find my voice. I told it, "Leave. Now." And it did. The fact that I could speak made it seem completely normal and real. I usually can't make noises when I'm confronted by something weird in my dreams. It still looked really bizarre. You know how in Garfield comics, Garfield has disproportionate eyes that take up its whole head? This "dog" had those. The cats didn't seem bothered by it, and he didn't seem to be doing anything at all. He was just sitting on my very small windowsill beside the window, looking at me with his weird-ass eyes. So, after it disappears, I decide that it's probably not a good idea to go back to sleep, and I practically drag myself out of bed and towards the bathroom. The office door is open, and I notice a mop bucket in the middle of the room, and everything looks very clean. I go inside to check it out, and I see that everything that was mine in the office is gone. Everything. My desk, my computer, my shelves, my papers. Nothing that I have put in this room has remained.

I start to get scared, but I'm still really really tired. I stumble my way to the basement to see if Kaz has moved my things down there while he cleaned the room. The basement also has been cleaned out. All of Kaz's things are there, but none of my things are there. I don't even go all the way downstairs, I just look at everything from halfway down the stairwell. The exhaustion sets in completely and I can feel myself starting to pass out, so I start pulling myself up the stairs from the basement. I run through the main floor, and pull myself up the stairs to the top floor. By the time I make it back to the bedroom, my eyes are clouding over like they do when I get dizzy sometimes, and I drop onto the bed, askew. I immediately fall asleep, very confused about the state of my health and my home.

As I sleep, I can feel a shift. My body is in the center of the bed instead of crooked and sprawled across it. I recognize that I have been sleeping the whole time, and that I didn't get up to find my belongings gone. This grants me peace of mind and I'm able to rest properly for a little while again.

I Hate My Neighbour

2007-11-05T19:22:00.000-07:00

You might think this post belongs on my usual blog, but nope, I had nightmares about my neighbour last night. I know I was partially awake when I was dreaming. I had a hard time sleeping last night. I actually went to bed and got up again a couple hours later to watch TV before heading back to bed. This had to do with the monstrous winds that were causing my whirly gig thingie to squeak absurdly loudly and constantly.

It was a series of dreams where my neighbour was just getting angrier and angrier. I once even got out of bed to see if my dream was true, that my neighbour had come outside his house at 3 in the morning. His wife was there backing him up and getting angry herself. I didn't know what to do. I kept explaining the situation every way that I could and it never worked. I thought of lying to him and that felt awful after the stink I made about me being so honest. I thought about lots of different ways of lying to him so I didn't feel like a fool. Finally, I tried telling him the truth that I hadn't actually considered fixing it until Cheruby moved in and couldn't sleep because of it. And even then it wasn't a big deal. And then when my neighbour mentioned it the first time, I realized it was a big deal and asked my dad, who was mucking about on the roof anyway, to see if he could find anything wrong. And dad forgot. And then we noticed he forgot when it got colder and the squeaking came back. And then my neighbour asked about it again. Cheruby even braved the attic which I felt pathetic and ashamed about not being able to do. And finally, dad is going to fix it tomorrow. I had conversations with my neighbour, and sometimes his wife, all night and every time, they were so angry with me that I just couldn't do anything but cry some more even though I was trying not to. I don't even know what their reaction was to my telling them the truth. I finally got some rest I think.

I got about 4 hours sleep last night and contemplated going outside in my housecoat to apologize to my neighbour when I heard him leave his house to go to work this morning.

Books, candy, and science, what more could I ask for?

2007-11-01T13:22:00.000-06:00

I had this great dream last night. It started with me walking into a bookstore and starting to work behind the counter. I was the third of three staff and the store was insanely busy. Both the guy and girl behind the counter with me were my age, but they had much, much more experience than I did. It was cool though because they helped me out by handling the major difficulties.

My first customer was a gentleman who needed help interpreting his book. He opened it and needed me to tell him if his answer/way of interpreting the material was correct. I looked down at it and found this weird merger of Mensa questions in the form of poetry and prose. I read through it and tried to think of the answers on the fly. I told him that I didn't know what the correct answer was, or if there even was one. He was happy for my help and buried his nose in the book.

While he was distracted I looked over to find my coworkers and manager hunched over a table going over an answer key, learning the correct responses in a secretive manner. I didn't have time to focus on that, as the gentleman needed help finding coasters. I was able to take him over to where we had coasters scattered amongst the books. He was perfectly happy to have paper coasters, but I wasn't convinced that those would serve him well. I knew that tile was out of the question as he had to travel to Asia (yet he hadn't told me that). (I think it might have been the way he was dressed and what he was carrying but I can't be sure.) I found him an assortment of plastic coasters which were mismatched but with which he was happy. He took them toward the front and I moved behind the counter to help him. As he got to the front he found that of the five he was getting, three were missing. I searched the store and found where they had settled on a counter. I moved to the front of the store to find a machine dispensing his change (similar to Safeway). Apparently he had fed in a bill to pay for his purchase and the machine had spit out his change. He was confused as to whether or not the change was for the correct amount, but in the end everything was okay.

I was called over by the manager. She was insistent that I place a bid. I was terrible disoriented. Place a bid on what? The other guys came and encouraged me to place a bid as well. He, however, was helpful enough to show me to the table of candy that we were bidding on. The table was big enough to seat eight comfortably and was loaded with boxes of candy. Apparently this was the candy that they had to get rid of to make room for the new stock coming in. I followed the two to the back of the candy store where the changerooms were, and as the manager slipped into a stall I asked the guy what the high bid was. Apparently it was the managers at $49.73. He and the other girl had both been bid out.

I didn't really want to pay that much for candy, but I had the idea to strike a deal with the guy. we'd go into the bid together. The manager stepped out of the stall and said "fine! $50.00". In the end the guys teamed up and we each contributed $26.00. The manager let us have it, but I got the feeling that she didn't mind but was rather happy that I had been included and made part of the team. We all went to the table where the candy was and the two of us started to divvy up the pile by way of grabbing madly. In the end we were each happy with what we got, although I'm not sure how the Kleenex got there. I do remember that I grabbed Kit-Kats and Toffeefee (sp?) for other people. Apparently even in my dreams I am allergic to hazelnuts. {sigh}

After that was done, I went over to the till to learn how to cash out the store. I don't remember what the system was, but I do remember groupings of letters and numbers whose meanings she rattled off. I was lost, but then again it was my first day. It was here that I had a moment of panic. Had I told her that I was a student and could only work evenings and weekends? Then I calmed down as I realized that in order for her to hire me she must have asked me those questions. Even if she hadn't, I had had a good day and so even if I was fired it would be an experience without regrets.

As I left the till with her to go to a table in the back I realized that all the candy had been moved to the storage shelves in the back room. The candy store now looked like nothing except a large empty warehouse filled with circular tables. It was into this empty warehouse, the windows shrouded in brown cellophane, that a large man walked carrying a beaker full of bubbling fluid in and around tubes. He walked past us, his lab coat pristine, to the back area we were heading to. He climbed up on some boxes to reach up high with a pipette and syphon off some purple fluid that was sitting in a beaker way up on some crates. I was confused by his actions and audacity. It was when he merged the fluid in the pipette with that in his beaker and swirled it that I became curious. All made perfect sense when he lifted a pipette filled with the new combined solution and held it above the beaker to drop slowly down. The drops fell and hit an imperceptible hemisphere over the beaker he was holding. After he released the drops he sunk his pipette down for more solution - passing through without touching the dome - and repeated the procedure. He was obviously investigating the pattern that drops made as they splashed down onto a dome from a height of a few inches. See, perfect sense. At this point I became invested in his process, wanting to know what was revealed in the splatter pattern.

I don't know how this one ended. I don't think I woke up here but I don't remember anything after the purple splatter experiment.

Video Games in my Head

2007-11-01T12:33:00.000-06:00

Occasionally when I OD on any one video game, my brain just perpetuates the game in my sleep. Last night, my subconscious played Diablo II all night. There is no plot to these dreams, there is no meaningful interaction between characters, and there isn't even an advance in graphics or game speed. I appear to continue playing Diablo II all night, in the same manner in which I play Diablo II during the day. The only significant difference is, while dreaming, the interface of the computer is no longer necessary. I don't see a monitor, nor do I need a keyboard and mouse. My brain just perpetuates the game ad infinitum. I don't even seem to have the gratification of leveling or of finding better gear, or whatnot. I seem to be playing for the sake of playing. I actually really hate these dreams, I feel more like I'm hallucinating than dreaming when I have them. It feels as if something's not right in my head.

Once, when I OD'd on Age of Empires II, I had a dream in which I could not actually rest until I had garrisoned all of my troops inside a castle or tower. I would wake up roughly every thirty minutes or so, hallucinate/dream until I had my troops safe, and then I'd fall asleep only to physically wake up in another thirty minutes and repeat the process. That ain't right.

It does make me think about how my subconscious handles repetitive video game playing. When I dream about fictive worlds from books or movies, I am generally an interactive being who gets to play a role. When I dream about video game worlds, I'm a bystander in my own head. It's kind of disturbing.

Emotional Echoing

2007-10-31T23:18:00.000-06:00

I've been finding lately that, as per usual, the details of my dreams may fade over the course of my waking hours. Every once in a while an event with trigger a resurfacing of the dream in the next day or two - the clarity is variable. What I've noticed, though, is that emotional echoes stay with me longer.

For the last few days I have had the weirdest feeling that I'm not who I've been told I am. Not in a society-imposed telling, but the I'm in someone else's body feeling. It hearkens back to the dream where I could tell that the events weren't happening to me. I know that these feelings are without application to my day. I know that they are throwbacks to intense emotion generated in my sleep. I can't call them baseless, for they are rooted in experience - just not waking experience.

This isn't the first time emotions have echoed. I once had a dream in which I was smoking. I craved cigarettes for a week afterward and had to keep reminding myself that I didn't smoke. It was a weird week, especially in that the smoking had no context. All I remembered of the dream was that I had smoked. It made the craving harder to resist.

I've also had dreams of an intruder in the place I was living. I've woken up in the middle of the night to an odd sound (I'm not generally a heavy sleeper) in conjunction with a dream/nightmare and felt the panic/rage. I've been able to force myself back to sleep after this but throughout the next day that feeling of having my personal space violated comes and goes.

Does anyone else find that the emotions in their dreams are just as real after waking up as they were in the dream? Worse yet, they are somewhat more difficult to work through as you can't tackle the impetus. Sure, you can tell the rational part of yourself that you don't really feel it - see how long it takes your moods to bring themselves around. If you get it to work, tell me how to make it happen.

Last night I was Swedish...

2007-10-30T11:33:00.001-06:00

Well, it's happened again. A fragment of a dream. I know there was more before this but it is only because I feel as though I am walking into something in progress. I do know where it ended though...

***

I was up in the air. I was hanging from this contraction of straps and balloons, all of which was suspended from a hot air balloon. I was talking with my brother, whom I was doing this for. I was commenting on how he must love this. He replied that he would like it more if he could go for the badges - and sure enough, hanging beneath us were markers to try and reach, and in doing so you would get be granted a badge by the organizers. He then made a comment that in attempting to do so he would be at the mercy of the organizers - that was when I realized that the contraption was being flown and maintained by five-seven year olds. Needless to say the panic was nothing compared to a few seconds later when the balloon began to plummet to the ground for its landing. The landing was safe, although I only know this because I was suddenly on the ground extracting myself from the straps.

I went home to where I was living in a small apartment with my parents - I was a teenager. It was in a small building on a main street, with strip malls along the way. It reminded me very much of the streets, like Broadway, where there are living quarters over stores. We did have issues with the noise, I remember that. I think the neighbours liked to party. I know that my mother was worried because my father was in the military and we were at war.

Cut to my father leading a small boy to an small fort of the defenders in the war. He gives the boy a roll of duct tape and tells him what he needs to do. The boy, nervous energy giving him speed, starts the roll of tape on the side of the fort where a crack is just visible and runs around the fort, taping in a circle. As he does this my father comments that he must do what is necessary for the greater good, and he hopes that the child's small size will mean that the enemy fire misses him. Sure enough, it does as the child completes the circuit and the fort stands, fully supported. Alas, the position becomes overrun and the defenders must flee back from the offensive invaders.

My father flees to a small cabin away from the fighting. Inside are a woman and her two daughters. They are all smiling and playing. My father bursts in to warn them, but doesn't have time as an enemy officer follows him in. My father rounds on her (the officer) and calls in the debt she owes him. She nods in a resigned fashion and sends for her scientists. The scientists arrive and set up a field around the still smiling woman and her children. The small family with not exist until twenty years from now when they will reappear in the same spot, with only a few seconds having passed for them. My father escapes during this time, trusting that the debt will be paid.

I'm back with my mother and brother in the apartment. The neighbouring building is being torn down and mother is worried. We sit in the stillness, nervous and waiting. The silence is incredibly loud. Soon a bulldozer's lights shine in the window and we close the blinds to shut out the two giant orbs. The machine pushes against the wall, testing the strength of the building's resolve to stay upright. Mother sighs and hugs us close telling us that she wishes they would stop doing that.

Father is home. He didn't see him come in. He is somehow very sneaky and slips in unnoticed. He is hunched over even though he isn't, and he has been behind enemy lines. We know this. We also know that he is not here to stay, just to check in. He has to go again but while he remains we are a family.

The enemy forces are just outside the town. I can see the pall and scar they leave on the land reflected in the sky above them. They are still a few days away, and the town is torn between disbelief and making preparations to leave. It is in this atmosphere that my uncle crosses the street from his house to come visit us. He comes in the door with an air of sadness. His eyes regard me in a way that I know he is going to harm me even though his eyes are only sad. He tells my mother that he knows she will not leave so long as my father is behind enemy lines. He looks at my father apologetically and tells my mother that he is here to take his son with his family as they flee. My parents are confused and my uncle is forced to shamefully tell of an event in the past that neither of them know of.

It is a quiet evening in the house of my parents before they have children. My father and uncle are quietly drunk and my mother, a heavy sleeper lies in bed, dreaming of her husband. My father goes to bed and my uncle sleeps on the sofa. In the night my father gets up to go to the washroom. The noise of his doing so wakes up my uncle who is disoriented and doesn't understand why he isn't in bed. He gets up and goes to bed, where he has sex with his wife. My mother is still half asleep and thinks it is her husband, and so a fuss isn't raised as brother and sister, in their minds, satisfy the needs of their respective spouses. My father stumbles from the washroom and passes out in the living room. My uncle wakes up before the others and appalled rushes across the street to his own home, telling no one. None months later I was born.

The story comes out and my father looks me in the eye. We both know that he will always be my father, and yet he instinctively knows that I have two fathers now. My mother demands paternity tests in a broken voice. My father and mother exchange looks and suddenly everything is okay between them. Their love hasn't changed and they will belong to each other until they die. My father vanishes to go behind enemy lines. My mother hands my sister and me over to my uncle and the house is closed up. She disappears as we cross the street, destined to join my father. She isn't abandoning us but rather is following a love that is both her being and my father's. She loves us and believes that we are now better off with my uncle; her presence would only confuse things and cause my uncle pain.

My uncle's family is making ready to leave. The skies are grey and the light tells me it is early morning before the dawn. I suddenly need to gather things from the apartment for my sister and myself. I go to the house, unlock it and then lock it behind me. I quickly gather up items of clothing and food into my backpack when the door is opened. Standing in torchlight is a young Nazi officer with his cohorts. The army has moved through the town and small unproved groups are searching the houses door to door. I am bathed in the light from a flashlight and told that I'll be joining the ranks of the great military force. Suddenly my uncle is in the doorway. The young officer snaps to attention as he is berated for attempting to draft someone for whom other purposes have been determined. My uncle is saluted as the young officer tries to mend his mistake. I am offered a warm sweater to replace my threadbare one. As I am chilled by the weight and warmth of the new sweater the young officer comes over and puts a small sticker on the back of my t-shirt collar. He tells me that this sticker will identify me to other agents in the school system to whom I need to give my information to. From time to time I should make sure my sweater is pulled down in the back to reveal it and someone will contact my six-fold bad flesh.

I find myself ushered unto a bus with my sister as my uncle watches. I get the feeling that he doesn't want to be what he is but for the sake of him family he was forced into it. He watches the bus depart and I know I will never see him again. On the bus we are referred to only by numbers and forced to sit in assigned seats. I am filled with sorrow as I know that I will soon be separated from my sister. Forever. She is only five and as I watch her hug her stuffed animal I am overwhelmed with hopelessness for I now she is too young to resist the indoctrination that is to be the rest of her childhood.

I find myself walking down the halls of a private highschool. One of the other boys rushes by me and then stops to slap my on the back of my neck at the collar. He asks me if my six folds fat ass can move any faster. I know who he is and that I know will have to determine what to tell him. He gets me alone and becomes the rude, self-superior prick that I knew was lurking under the guise of a care-free teenager. He is obviously the plant that the Nazis have in this place and he believes in their cause wholeheartedly. He is in the position of power and I know that my life hangs in the balance, and yet I get the feeling he doesn't know that I am an unwilling informant. Apparently my uncle has ingratiated himself into the new regime very convincingly.

Before I get the chance to speak, I wake up.

***

It's weird. While I refer to myself in the dream, it was like I was in someone else's skin. None of the family were mine and yet I got feelings of similarity from them like I was overlaying my own feelings about my family overtop of the person out of whose eyes I was seeing. I feel as though I was actually living in the body of someone in Sweden during the WWII. I don't know much about the war, and less about Sweden, but that's the magic of dreams. I don't even know how I know it was Sweden, or how I know that the enemy were Nazis. There were no flags or insignia. I do know though. I am confused about how my brother became a sister... then again this dream has left me unsettled in more ways than just that.

I blame the moon

2007-10-28T03:42:00.000-06:00

Well, the full moon is waning and I am grateful. I haven't posted here but I've had some disturbingly real dreams. The ones in which people I know make appearances - very rare for me.

I don't know about the rest of you but I am hypersensitive to moonlight. I've found that if I fall asleep in a fashion where at some point in the night my face is bathed in direct moonlight, I will have bizarre dreams and likely also wake up. In a similar fashion I have problems sleeping around the time of the full moon because my dreams become amazingly vivid and frequent. My sleep was so bad due to dreaming that I turned off my alarm and then fell asleep for another four hours.

My latest dream only exists in one fragment in my memory. I don't think this was the beginning and yet it is all I recall. I know I was an adult through all of this. My parents had an orchard in the back yard of their home in the city. I gave my father advice on his plants, which he scoffed at. He in turn started rambling on and I tuned him out. He became enraged and tried to send me to my room. I went to my room and grabbed a few things I was storing there and then went home to the place that I, as an adult, was renting. I came back the next day and had to converse with him through my mother as he refused to speak to me. In the end he tried to send me to my room again. I remember being very sad and angry as I left in my car. I have no idea if I woke up or if the dream went on.

Full moons kinda suck. They are pretty and all, but they really kinda suck.

Dreaming of Friends

2007-10-26T10:24:00.000-06:00

My dreams have not stuck for the last week. I know that I have dreamt, and I'm quite certain that all of my dreams were mostly pleasant. I don't know why, but Carla has been in my dreams very consistently this week. The only thing that is sticking in my mind about a dream is that several of my friends and myself were working at a "cool" photo developing place, and Carla was working at a "lame" photo developing place. We convinced her to quit her job there with panache, and she built a robot that would deliver her two weeks' notice and then possibly explode? As I mentioned, my dreams haven't really been sticking.

Anyway, when I dream of friends, I usually try to figure out what it is about that friend that I think of as iconic. If I can figure out what they possibly represent to me, then that helps me figure out what exactly I'm supposed to understand about my dream. So, for instance, when I dream of Kaz, he represents sensuality (and I just freaked out those of you who haven't figure out that this isn't AJ writing, but that's just the way I roll), support, love, etc. When I dream of J-Bra, he represents camaraderie, and long-term friendship. When I dream of Carla, I think she represents creative mojo, and artistry.

I take my dreams pretty seriously. I think it's a remnant of my Biblical upbringing, and the significance of dream prophecies, but that's neither here nor there. Once I determine what the icons in my dreams represent, I try to figure out if there's something that I can take out of my dream, to understand what my psyche was doing while I slept. Since Carla has been a figure in several of my dreams, and since she represents creativity to me, that signals to me that I should pay attention to my creative outlets. I feel like I've been neglecting my creative outlets quite a bit, particularly my poetry, so that's likely what my psyche is spinning out while I sleep.

Dreams with friends with them are pretty easy for me to work out. The dreams with strangers in them become a lot more difficult to work with. Then you have to start looking at symbolism and roles in a much broader scheme and it's a big ol' mess.

Why don't I remember?

2007-10-24T13:04:00.000-06:00

I had a vivid dream last night, but it slipped through the cracks in my brain too fast. All I have are vague memories of it and feelings. I remember that my friends were in it and all my perceptions and reactions to them were as they are in real life. Furthermore, everyone behaved as they do in real life. For me this is bizarre. Usually my dreams are full of people that are neither faced or faceless. If I concentrate on making out their features they invariately start to pull off masks, one after the other as they go down through face after face. It can be very frustrating. Anyway, not so last night.

There was also no temporal displacement of individuals, although the setting was from my childhood. Everyone I saw in the dream was someone I have seen in the last two weeks. The only individual I didn't see but who was mentioned is someone that is part of the current group but lives in a different city and hasn't been by to visit recently.

For me this dream was really sedate and normal... it kinda freaks me out.

All You Can Smoke

2007-10-19T17:20:00.000-06:00

I'm not even sure how much of this is a dream.

Cheruby and I spent the night last night at Cheruby's dad's friend's house in La Ronge. Her youngest son gave up his room for us. It was full posters and paraphernalia with maryjane themes. The room was locked all night.

I dreamt that the boy came into the room in the morning and we talked about stuff casually while he gathered his things for school. During this conversation, he mentioned that he and his mom wouldn't be at the house for the weekend and his staff was in the coffee tin in his closet if we wanted any. We were allowed to have as much as we wanted. I was pleased with this offer and thanked him very much before he left.

Both friend and son were gone from the house when I emerged from our locked room in the morning. The friend was at the memorial this afternoon and told us if we needed to spend the night again, we would need to phone her son on his cell to get the house keys because they were both going to be away for the weekend.

My Dreams Are Leaving Me

2007-10-19T10:44:00.000-06:00

Ever since I went off of the antidepressants that I'd been taking for several months, my dreams are not nearly so exciting. I don't remember them as much as I used to, and when I do dream they're slightly more mundane. My dream last night, however, got me a little riled up and therefore I'm finding it coming back to me throughout the day.

I was at work doing a book pulling shift. When I pull books, I prepare lesson plans and materials for all of the students being taught. It was a hellish shift, and it kept going and going and going. I made the decision to stay the night because I had to keep pulling books the next morning, and it seemed like the only way to get everything done on time.

The night fastforwarded and the next morning's work began, and I realized that I hadn't told Kaz that I wouldn't be coming home and that he'd be freaking out. It was still stupidly busy, and I was having a hard time getting to the phone to call home. Then, I started getting irritated that he hadn't called work to see if I was still here, and I started having a million and one insecurities that Kaz didn't really care if I were dead in a ditch or something.

At this point, I actually saw myself traveling home in the middle of the night through cemeteries and really dense forests, and feeling quite icky about the whole trip. Then I flashed back to my standard day at work.

I had decided to give up trying to find a phone because I was still not on top of my duties at work. As I was getting some lesson materials together for a student, I overheard a teen-aged boy shyly asking out a teen-aged girl. Both players in the dream were actual students that I see every week in reality. The boy was rebuffed brutally, and to add insult to injury the teacher who was tutoring the girl started to make horrible remarks about the boy. She said, "Well done, [girl] because it wouldn't be appropriate for a future doctor to date a boy with no prospects, would it?"
"No," the girl said in that bored students' voice. The one they use when they know everything by rote.
The boy went to his table looking utterly devastated, and I fumed internally.

As I continued my work, my internal monologue was going haywire. I was making grandiose speeches about the problems with classism, and how inappropriate it was for the teacher to say those things. I was frustrated that a teacher whom I had admired turned out to be such a bigot. I felt the need to do something, but I wasn't sure what could be done.

I decided to tell the supervisor of the teachers. She was in her office, so I went in and she was talking on the phone. Then, I got all distracted because I still hadn't heard from Kaz, and I still hadn't been able to tell him that I'd been at work and was safe.

Then I woke up.

Drafted into service

2007-10-19T08:56:00.000-06:00

It started in a riot. I was an observer as it swept through the streets of a foreign town. It was okay that they were rioting though. You see it was common knowledge that pestilence would soon strike their ranks, what with them eating food off the ground - tossed to them so they needn't stop rioting.

Suddenly I was in part of the rioting group. We were all in blue uniforms and were being funneled by the streaming food and trash on the ground. The food was only potato chips though, so surely they were safe to eat. I tried one before thinking better of it. After all, it was Newfoundland. Soon we were being swept past an officer and adjunct of rank. I fell back and eavesdropped. They were talking about a fellow with my name. Apparently he had had some issues and died. They were about to perform an autopsy. The officer mentioned my name was the same and the woman looked me over. She smiled and told me that she made a study of those with my name. I could see in her voice a long line of those she had studied. She gave me her card and told me to contact her if I was interested. I laughed, telling her that if the previous subject was like me then he had died of intestinal difficulties and allergies. I then hurried to catch up to the others.

The garbage was gone and we were in a barracks. I was having problems fitting in, not being trained in the military. A particularly efficient group of men were causing me difficulties here in the desert. I did my best, but something didn't feel right. I decided that since I was in London, I'd stop by and see the woman who had given me her card.

I found her in the compound. She smiled at me and ushered me in. I sat across from her and she pulled out a stack of mail. Apparently she had all mail going to those with my name channeled to
her first. The first envelope was not for me, but the second held the name of a highschool friend. It was a card that gave me two dates on which to watch the sky, even if I did nothing else that day. One was a few days from now and the other had already passed us by. He wished me well, and said that he wouldn't be around to see it as he and his wife had decided to fulfill their suicide pact before before either of the dates. Enclosed was a sepia folder of them in Victorian garb. I got angry at the lady when I saw that the card was six months old. She was patient and explained that not everything was what it seemed. Apparently there was a rogue faction in the military - those efficient men in my unit. They were suspected of being an elite terror group, and the lady felt that indeed many in the military knew about and supported them. She gave me information that I zipped up into a black bag and left with as she worriedly ushered in an officer.

I went on my leave. I rode my motorcycle with a bale of pink hay to an outdoor animal shelter with a group of people and a wagon full of bales (pink and normal coloured). The shelter had two open sides and a roof and reminded my of the covered bridge in Sleepy Hollow. My guide and I filled the shelter with hay until it was a few few from the roof. The rest of the group left and my guide put on an anti-thermal suit as I was suppose to be out and about alone. No sooner had he done so than I detected a group of three "cleaners" approaching from where I had come. They were positioning behind collapsing bales in the field when from the other side appeared figures. They were glowing blue and ethereal. They were also hostile and threatened me (and the sense was humanity also). I quickly grabbed my giant gun (appearing from in the hay despite my not having brought it) and shot them all with blue lasers. They disappeared and I turned back to the "cleaners". They, having witnessed the altercation, were retreating to make a report.

In my CO's office I was commended for my report - the most well written to date. I thanked him and told him that practice was making my better. I then left for my bunk. There I found a surprise. My black bag had been reconstructed larger and of wood. What a nice surprise! The efficient men gathered around me smiling, all except the leader. I thanked them. Their leader said that I'd had enough time to go soft. We all set off on a grueling run to an abandoned barn in the desert. Once inside, I was given a hard time as they made me, the new guy, go through my paces. By the end I had earned, if not their respect, their grudging acceptance for my willingness to tackle any challenge. They made obscure comments about an upcoming mission, and my look of inquiry was met with a grim face. I was told that it would take more time getting to know me before I was included into the group.

An officer came and got us from the barn and led us outside into to the compound under the dunes. It was night and a war exercise was in progress. One group was fighting in the lee of the hill and suddenly one of the grunts called out to make sure that the practice rounds were in play. As he spoke he started to ember/dissolve from a shot in his shoulder (thing the fire spit from the big bug in Starship Troopers). It consumed him completely and suddenly streams of a liquid were flying over the hill and men were dissolving everywhere.

I saw this, with the efficient group, and we moved as one in retreat over a rise. In the valley we started to battle a giant insect. At first it looked like the fire breather in ST, but after it's beady head came off, the neck turned into an anus from which a conch shell and occupant burrowed into the ground. A grenade into the 'anus', which was beginning to regenerate into a neck, served to blow up the above ground creature and simultaneously blew up the shelled half of it as well which was sucked up into it by the explosion.

We made our way into the underground base. There we realized we were without weapons and sought an escape route. Everything was moving along until the small black spiders tried to stop us. As we got closer we saw that they were actually plant organs in at the nodes of a vine. The vines tried to grab us and we had to rip them off before the black organs were able to do whatever incredible nasty thing that they did. One of the creatures used its metal fastener like limb to open one of the pipes and start to flood the base. We fled, in reduced number down the halls, dodging around pipes that were across and along the halls. (Who designs a hallway with pipes across it? Some made limbo fiend architect?) We were making our escape when one fellow saw a sword lying across the pipes. He demanded it and when given it he leaped ahead to cut through a black plastic pipe. We all yelled at him to stop - he was going to make the flooding worse! He managed to get half through the pipe before an iridescent red/blue/gold fish rose up before him and frightened him back. The man-sized fish was somewhat penguin-like and obviously part of the invading alien hoards. We backed off and it splashed back into the water that was now waist high.

I was retreating carefully through the water with a few others when my alarm woke me.

***

Note a few things I found weird: While I say "my name" above, it was my real name actually being said in the dream. My highschool friend was an actual highschool friend that I haven't seen in ages. The lady was Lindsay Crouse (Professor Maggie Walsh from Buffy).

About Us

2007-10-19T06:30:00.000-06:00

AJ's blog: Effigy
rilla's blog: Monitor Me ~ Rilla's Blog

Finding my cultural roots

2007-10-19T00:29:00.000-06:00

The dream stared on campus. I was coming up out of the elevator into what was supposed to be my department. Instead, I found myself on the wrong floor. I reentered the elevator with a couple confused people and went up a floor. Once there I recognized others who were meant to be in the department. We commented on how we had jumped floors and then went in to seat ourselves in a lecture theatre that was old and defied space constraints of the building. Afterward we all filed out and I was left to walk along a curved glass hallway. As I was walking I met a student whom I was TAing and offered him the help he needed. We parted ways and I went to a very old church on campus that was falling down.

I went to the back room of the church and met with the very nice black priest in robes of warm colours who offered me some traditional ethnic vegetation from my cultural background. They came in two cardboard bags and had writing on them that I didn’t understand. I did know with certainty that my dad would. I left the office, in which the priest remained and refused to leave, and went into the burning church. People were gathered outside, but there were more trapped in the pews by the large rough-hewn ceiling beams. Along one side were a group of bums and other ne’erdowells who weren’t trapped but were unwilling/unable to leave. Instead they watched. I looked to the priest in the front who beckoned me forward. I went to him and he told me that as I had always been such a good boy, would I like to take communion. I agreed to one more time. As I partook, I became infused with a glowing divine power. It easily helped me to lift the beams off the parishioners and turned the beams to precious metals at the same time. The parishioners all fled and I went to an orphan boy who refused to leave. I looked at him and he knew he would be taken care of. He left and I turned to the ne’erdowells. In turn I went down the row and touch the book that each suddenly had. Each book was different in all dimensions but were the same in that as I touched them I sensed the evil in those reading them and condemned their bodies to the fire of the church. I turned and left, with the church crashing down behind me. The group wandered home, and the orphan boy left and joined a group of others on his way to somewhere else.

I took the packages to my father and told him I wanted to reconnect to my roots. He saw the packages but couldn’t make out the words. He summoned another fellow to help us and we went to an old library. Once there we were eventually guided to a back area of an open floor. There we searched through archives until we found some useful information about our history. Two very nice old librarian ladies helped us. It wasn’t enough until we were able to find satellite surveillance of the ancient lands our people came from. They showed us fleeing the Mongols after an internal war. They didn’t, however, have GPS coordinates and so we almost despaired until we found star charts from the same time period that overlaid the path my ancestors took with their horses and carts while dressed in furs and leathers. This gave us the general area and so we set off.

Travelling to modern day Siberia we found ourselves in the snow and cold. I was a child with two young couples, one of which had a baby. We were at a modern terminal of a high speed train near where we wanted to be and we looked around. We hustled onto the train to go a short distance further east, and looked some more at the culture around us. The guild asked if we were satisfied as going further east would mean passing through the guarded and barred arch leading to the warlord’s territory. We agreed that we were satisfied and that while disappointed to not see our ancestral homeland we would not enter the warlord’s territory. Instead we started to ski back to the warmth of the library. We never did make it because while we were skiing, the woman in the lead with the baby strapped to her back was going through a ravine-ish cut in the snow when a bear that was laying (literally, on his back) in wait up top dropped down. It was at this point that skiing became louging and we were all following a man-sized half tube in twists and turning in the mountain. The bear roared in triumph but failed to correct for a turn and went flying out. We were safe. The woman reached the bottom and the man who came behind asked her hoe the baby was. She took it out of its carrier (which was on her back which she had been travelling on) and found that it was fine. She passed it to the woman of the second couple who decided she would carry her own baby from not on. Of the child I was there was no sign.

I walked from the slope into the meeting room of a team of male North American scientists who were trying to figure out how the Russians had built their new satellite. Bad 70s music played on LPs in the background. They had copied the satellite as best they can in all the layers they could but it didn’t work right. When they pulled apart the layers of the satellite (which were all square and flat) and pulled apart a pilfered Russian satellite, the NA’s found that while they had used yellow glue to join the squares, the Russians had used orange. They were perplexed and tried to figure out what the orange was. In the end they gave up and sent me to meet their contact on the inside.

The contact was the wife of an abusive and domineering man. They were both Russian and lived in the pyramidal house at the top of a cliff. The non-cliff side had a drawbridge. It was okay though, because all this time I wasn’t really there but was more of a projection that she could see. She still was terrified and looked around constantly for he r husband, not wanting to be revealed. It turns out that we were related, although I wasn’t related to her husband. She sent me to find the answer and I descended down the hill into the mists were they cleared into a family unit travelling back in the olden days. I was riding my own armadillo. It soon turned to bone beneath me and I returned with a profound sorrow to the house in the present. My relative refused to come away but I prevailed on her and we fled over the drawbridge.

As I, alone, looked up at the house on the cliff I decided to whistle for my horse that had just ran past me to the farm at the base of the cliff - the evil husband’s farm. I whistled to my horse and he came running out. It was at this point that I realized that the people at the farm were the best so I might as well continue to keep my horse stabled at the farm. As the horse reached me I realized that he was two years old and I’d like to train him to carry me as a rider. I threw a blanket on him that he got rid of promptly – he was right, it didn’t smell good. Instead I swung up onto him with my hands in his mane and woke up.