Dream Log: April 4, 2003

Dream log, 2 April 2003

Details unrecoverable, but it included a noder gathering where people stripped naked, or were about to. Though nothing truly interesting came of it.

Dream log, 3 April 2003

Details unrecoverable, but I have one clear impression of stopping off at a shop - an antiques shop, perhaps? - run by arcanamundi. I was cool towards her and tried to make my appearance there seem normal.

Dream log, 4 April 2003

I finally decided to go to France for the first time. I thought I'd do it quietly, just walk over one night, look around, get myself used to it. The first town I came to wasn't too bad, fairly familiar in appearance, with a slightly distinctive architecture. I went along a few streets. In one of them going down to the next one required passing through someone's glassed-in patio to get down the hill to the next level. I asked them for permission and they said sure, in English. Must have been an English expatriate.

I've left this dream log too late; the details are fading. I think I tried some shops, tried to note where the supermarket and so on were. This was all at night, in the wee hours. More of these connections within houses from one street to another. More English-speakers. To someone in one group I jokingly remarked that I hadn't heard a French-speaker at all yet.

They were noders. I was fairly sure this must be the noder gathering, and I tentatively approached the two people there. "E2?"

She smiled and they acknowledged me. We started chatting easily. She was very nice, young but motherly. He was a youth, whom she referred to as something like dari. I didn't catch her username, if she'd given it, and couldn't quite work out who he was: short for Darius, or was it a pet name for darl? A little later her husband also came in.

There must have been some introduction that I missed or mishead when more arrived. A young Indian woman - or perhaps half Indian, half Chinese, something of that kind - was the noder bantam, that at least I remember. She pointed out her father, or mother, her family weren't entirely sure which, who did indeed look curiously epicene like some ageing eunuch or boddhisattva. I didn't catch whether he was a noder too.

I asked someone the name of the town: Beauville or Bonville or something of that kind.

Later I was in the countryside on the edge of town. Very nice. A wood, an old quarry, but suddenly opening out into a glorious panorama of colour and trees and waters: it seemed more like something in the spaces of North America then what I would have expected in northern France, but after all I was new here. I luxuriated in the beauty of the scene.

Somehow my shoes had been reduced to virtually nothing, very badly worn and damaged; I decided I needed to go to a shop and find new ones. The shop scenes mentioned above might have been at this point. I was sitting on a rough rock ledge with a grassy covering. Then I saw, just below me, a pair of ankle-length green boots, rather tattered but clearly better than mine. Probably abandoned by a tramp. I thought in my present state they'd still do better than the leather rags that were left of my own. Then I noticed what I thought was an abandoned blanket under my legs, probably left by the same person. Looking longer I saw a person was still wrappen in, blanket or perhaps sleeping bag.

After walking round for a bit, I was sitting on the same ledge. Now I realized there were two sleeping bags, not one, if not more, with a couple in each: not tramps, but respectable-looking campers or some such. And I was sitting directly on top of one of them. I got up and asked whether I'd been sitting on them all the time. They said yes, looking at me in a mildly amused way as if they thought I should be embarrassed by it.

I was in a pub with Alan and my mother and aunt and many other people. I felt like I knew all the people who owned and worked in the pub very well, and they let me do whatever I wanted while I was there. At one point I was sitting behind the bar eating some food when my father walked in and gave me and everyone else a strange look, and sat off to the side somewhere. I kept hoping he would come and talk to me but he never did.

The pub was dark and had a very welcoming feeling to it, but I became uncomfortable waiting for my dad to acknowledge me. I overheard him talking to another man about a commercial he had seen recently, and what he said went something like this:

"There was a man walking through what seemed to be a water desert. There was no sand anywhere, just shallow water that went on forever. He came to a palace made of water, with watery towers and pillars in the front. When he walked into the palace, a silver car appeared. It was a Lexus. He got into the car and drove away. Isn't that amazing? Everything made of water and then a car that looks like it's made of water too! I want a Lexus now!"

He moved around the room a lot until I lost track of him. I turned to a man who was sitting next to me (he reminded me of the Green Man, and I considered him a father figure in this dream) and asked if my dad had left. He said no and pointed to a booth in the corner where my dad was sitting with a group of guys, looking uncomfortable. I decided that I didn't want to waste my evening worrying about him, so I sat and joked around with Alan and my mom for awhile. One of the bartenders came by and placed a huge bottle of soda on the countertop. My mom made a face and said, "We had that stuff when we were kids and it was disgusting. Don't drink it." She crossed the room soon after that, and when she was coming back she stopped in her tracks halfway because she saw something in the foyer to her right. She made a face like "oh my god" in sarcasm, and laughed and sat across from me.

"Your father just gave me a look like he wants me to come home with him tonight," she said, leaning across the counter and smiling. My aunt laughed and said, "I dare you to go!" and I replied, "Yeh, I dare you too!" But I thought harder about it and concluded that it wouldn't be a good idea because they might get emotionally involved and that would just make life more complicated for everyone. I was about to say that to her, but she said it herself and we all agreed it was a bad idea.

We all eventually ended up in the foyer, talking together. There was a Chinese girl about the same age as me but a few inches shorter. She told me that there was a place in the back of the pub that had a ghostly feel to it, where she'd heard strange whispering voices before. I asked her to show me the place, so she took my hand and led me through halls and rooms until we came to a white door that opened out to a garden patio. The door was stuck, so we had to crawl through a doggy door that was cut through the bottom half. There were two Asian men seated at two different tables on the patio. They were very quiet, and the girl led me to the center of the garden, saying "My brother killed my father a few days ago." She was crying. "I think that might be who is whispering to me."

The center of the garden was a huge tree with leaves and branches that spread out so far. It might have been an oak. The roots were enormous and forced their way to the surface of the earth, where small white flowers and moss covered them. We stood together on the roots and waited. After what seemed like several moments I started to hear a strange whispering sound that seemed to me to be coming from the tree itself, instead of from a human voice. A strong wind began to blow, hurling flower petals around us in spirals. The Chinese girl suddenly became smaller than she had been before, and I took her hand and we ran back toward the building.

As we reached the patio, the younger of the two men seated there stood, and began approaching us slowly, his face devoid of expression. I urged the girl to get into the building, but for some reason the doggy door had become too small for me to follow. I assured her I would find a way out around the other side of the building. The man was walking towards me now and as I ran to the side of the building I was expecting to find a high wall that would be impossible to climb (because that's how my dreams usually work out). However, I was pleasantly surprised to find a very short fence that I only had to hop over.

I returned to the foyer where everyone was still sitting. The Chinese girl had shrunk to about two feet tall, so I picked her up and held her on my hip. We looked at the door, and the young man soon entered. He made eye contact with both of us before turning around again and leaving.

One of my friends had bought a new guitar, but something was horribly wrong with it. The headstock looked like a Washburn guitar I had been looking at in real life, but the body was shaped like a Fender Mustang. The finish was dingy white. When I looked closely, I saw that it was made by Pearl, the drum company, but I recoiled in shock when I saw there were two small bongos mounted on the body.

And then I woke up.

This is the first time I can remember dreaming about nonexistent musical instruments.

2003.4.4@15:53 phraggle says re Dream Log: April 4, 2003: bongo guitar... YES! what a fantastic idea. if they can do it with keyboards they can do it with drums too.

I've been having very funky dreams again lately. I love dreaming. Dreams are my in-sleep-entertainment. I think they're cool. Funky. And - maybe - strange.

*smiles*

Yes, I am a dreamer.

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Deam Log: April 4, 2003

I am riding a horse through the narrow cobble-stoned alleyways of a medieval town. High walls of houses, narrow streets, little light. The path is steep. I am carefully guiding my steed down downwards. Now I notice that my horse is white. And invisible. I am riding an invisible white horse through the narrow steep streets of a medieval town. After a while the path is just too steep; I have to dismount. This is where things become a bit difficult. I have to guide my horse down there, but the only indication of where it actually is are the black reins that end somewhere near its mouth. For there is no saddle.

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Dream Log: April 5, 2003

I am in some futuristic city - futuristic in the 70s kind of way. Tall towers of weird shapes, air-transport - but everything is covered with this sepia layer making it look like an old photograph. I am with friends. English-speaking friends. But I don't know what country I am in.

Suddenly I realize that my flight home is leaving in 30 minutes. I can't afford to miss the flight. I am rushed to the airport which is one of those labyrinthine brown-carpeted office buildings. There are many different floors interconnected with others with escalators and staircases. Check-in desks are normal office desks always standing near flights of stairs.

I approach one clerk and tell them that I need to catch my flight and that I'm late and that I'm really sorry about that but I really really need to catch that flight.

Ten minutes left.

No problem, the friendly clerk replies. I should calm down and he would take me to where I can check in my luggage. Down stairs and up escalators we get to luggage check-in. It's one of those desk-thingies that connect a kitchen with the dining room and you can hand food through the window in the wall. Just here I hand over my luggage.

And nobody wants to see my ticket.

I am given directions to the plane now. But they can't accompany me - their working day has ended. Unaccompanied I rush down a further flight of stairs and arrive on the ground floor. I run outside, on the airfield...

Only the airfield is not an airfield but a royal garden surrounding a fairy-tale castle complete with turrets and moat. I stop dead. Where is my plane?

The roof of the castle starts to crumble, something is pushing it away from the inside. People are running about doing last minute preparations for the flight. Dust and small rocks fill the air. And now, finally, the Zeppelin is free to leave the hangar and ready to fly me home.