Dream Log: January 24, 2001

Running through the woods. Listening to the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.

I hear myself writing a letter in my head.

Dear Danny,

    I'm sorry life isn't getting any better for
you.  It blows that you can't figure it out.  You
are just a little misguided and can't find your
motivation.  You live at home and work at Blockbuster.
You think this makes your life suck.  You have tons of 
talent, your parents have money, 
and you could graduate in May with a degree 
if you were at school for one more semester.

  On the other hand, I'm years away from my bachelors,
I'm broke, I got cancer, I have a new surgery every
two weeks, I can't work, and I'm happy.  It's perspective.
I'm not dumping on you, I'm just thinking...

maybe if I show you my life you'll wake the fuck up
and realize yours isn't that bad.

Love, Josh

At my Mom's house for a wedding of some famous foreign relative.

She was there. I didn't plan to have a crush on her; it just sort of happened. Maybe I'm just piggybacking on someone else's crush -- an annoying habit of mine. Of all the dreams in all the dorm room beds in all the world, she had to walk into mine. And we were there in my room, just the two of us. I shut the door. It had no handle, but instead there was a horizontal slot in the middle of the door, with a half-ring attached to a hinge at the side of said slot, so that the ring could swing through the slot and function as a handle (the door opens outward). I drew the ring inside so the door could not be opened, but the room could be seen into. We hugged on the bed for some time, and probably talked about something. It was nice. Then I realized that the door was open. I went to check it out and found that it was, in fact, open a bit. Obviously my brother was responsible. [Upon reflection, a slot can function as a handle just as well as a ring can. Dream inventions suck.&093;

There were some other tangents, but I forget them all now.

Woke up when I tried to read something. Slept in awfully late.

On a bus, I wanted the water jug, so I went towards the front. There was a tall, attractive woman sitting there and she had a small illustrated book and a plastic cup of water on it. I recognized the book as Charles Lamb's essays, which made me admire her more. I went for her water and made clumsy attempts to take it from her without disturbing her reading; obviously it was the wrong shape to be a water jug, but perhaps this bus didn't have a proper jug.

She apologetically interrupted her reading and lifted up her book to reveal a keyboard under it, but by now I realized I was making a faux pas and had mistaken her personal cup for the bus's jug.

I went back to my seat, but I was thirsty so made several abortive expeditions up to the front to search discreetly for the jug. This time she had hot water, to which she had added ice, from a thermos on the shelf at the front of the bus.

We got talking about Lamb. I was enthusiastic, and added that I preferred his letters, and explained how good they were.

I got off because I recognized that I was now in Richmond High Street and had been on the wrong bus. This was a mistake I had made before, and I knew the bus continued to the west to Greenwich on the coast, a lonely route with a long wait for a bus or train back. Although I had got off before going that far, I would still not be able to make it to work by nine o'clock. I would miss out on some noding! (I did wish they wouldn't give similar numbers, 343 for 341, to buses that ultimately went in different directions.)

I unpacked my things in preparation for the trip back. I had a plastic lunch box full of brightly coloured small figures, like an over-large jelly baby, but made from bath bomb. These were going to be a node, with a title along the lines of "After we've made enough cock jokes, can we please shut the fuck up and have a serious discussion about..." I forget what, in six to eight words.

There was a bright cardboard packet, the sort you might get a battery-operated action toy in, and it was covered with the usual garish-coloured slogans, but the key words were of course in blue and underlined. The toy was related to my smaller figurines. It also mentioned a live event they were sponsoring, in which the master of the match would be at Hypermaser.

The other thing I unpacked was my cup of tea. I discovered to my disgust this had gone lukewarm, and worse than that, it had a nasty lump of milk in it. Yuk.

I spat it out in the kitchen sink, and threw away the drink all over the sink. My mother asked me what I was doing and I told her to shut up. I looked for the carton with the off milk in it in the fridge so I could throw it away too, but it didn't seem to be there any more.

My drug dealing neighbor was driving my ex-boyfriend's beat up Oldsmobile, and parked it across the street. Whatever was in that vehicle was like a supernova on a dark night to moths. Huge spiders, little spiders, cockroaches, ants, all sorts of unimaginable insects of all colors and sizes began to crawl out of our houses towards the car. Some of them crawled over me in my bed as I lay there sleeping. I can feel the movement of their tiny feet across my skin, and I felt revolted. When I stepped onto the floor they were there too – hidden in the carpet. None of them fought back, merely accepting it when I would crush them with my bare feet. They had only one goal, to reach the Oldsmobile with whatever bug-lure it had.

They piled around the Oldsmobile and my drug-dealing neighbor, waiting.

It was the kind of night you'd expect to be Halloween, but the streets were empty. I lived in a house I'd never been in before, downstairs, in the room by the front door. I had white curtains over the closed window looking out onto the sloping street.

Someone had died earlier that night, and I had found a piece of metal on my bathroom counter. I knew these things were connected in that way you always know things are connected when you're dreaming. On examining the metal, I discovered it was actually an easily-conceilable weapon. It was a thing of sharpened steel and rivets and bearings, weighing only a few ounces. When rolled up, it was about the size of a cracker; when opened, it was a round, bladed device that could have been called a Crown of Thorns.

I retracted the weapon and put it in my pocket, and set out for a walk on this strange night, hoping to yield some clue as to what exactly I had gotten myself into. I reached a house I knew to belong to my friend, Justin. Walking towards his gate, I noticed a piece of black cloth hanging from the gate hinges. I pocketed the cloth as well. Walking through the gate, I got that strange tingling you would read about in a spy novel, or a comic book. I spun around to see a figure in a reaper-like black cloak, with a Crown of Thorns just like mine!

We squared off, prepared to fight to the death, if necessary; and somehow I knew it was completely necessary. He struck first, slicing the crown across my shirt, tearing it and leaving a thin line of blood running down my chest. After the attack, his arms were out wide, and I took advantage of the situation to kick him in the stomach, doubling him over. I followed up with a knee to his chin that sent him sprawling onto the grass. The figure scrambled to his feet and ran off immediately, dropping a pouch as he ran.

I didn't chase after him, more curious with the nature of the pouch he'd dropped. Picking it up, I noticed how heavy it was. I opened it up to find a small motor inside, like you might see inside a high-end radio-controlled car. Somehow this obscure clue led me to the conclusion that the killer was none other than Justin himself!

Racing back home to find a phone, I had neglected to conceil my Crown of Thorns, and so people began to notice me running wildly up the hill with a weapon in my hands. There was a shout, and then people began to chase after me. I hid the weapon under my jacket, and they stopped, staring blankly at me as I continued to run. I made it back to my house and jumped through my open window. As I reached for the telephone, I heard laughter coming from behind me. There was Justin, cowl thrown back and eyes wide with madness, cackling wildly.

We squared off again, this time more cautious. I attacked first this time, with a sweep that knocked him off his feet. My follow-up slash was stopped by his left hand as he grabbed my forearm. He kicked me in the head, and I fell down beside him, perpendicular. Justin threw his right arm back and stabbed me in the belly with one half-inch thorn. I howled in pain and rolled away from him, regaining my feet. He stood up as well, and resumed his maniacal laughter. I threw my Crown of Thorns frisbee-style, and his laughter stopped, as he no longer had a windpipe with which to continue the act. He fell to the ground, grasping his throat, and died slowly and without a sound.

My parents gave me a lobotomy.

At least, I think it was a lobotomy. At the moment, it was rather apparent that they were going to do something to my brain, and they weren't telling me about it.

Strangely enough, I didn't mind all that much.

Remember those 'Exposed Man' anatomical kits you buy from the hobby store, with transparent 'skin'?

That's what my head looked like. Brain and eyes and ears floating in space. I know this because I had a rather decent out of body view of my brain.

Then the phone rang.

Of course, it was for me. Oddly enough, I was able to answer it. The call was from a woman who was thanking me for a letter I sent to her thanking her.

Of course, the fact I had a dream about my parents cutting out chunks of my brain definitely exposes my psychotic nature.

I should've noded this this morning, but I was in a hurry to go to school. It was a weird dream. The first dream that I remember that relates to what I've been reading lately...which is the Eye of the World. I had just finished it last night (and I started The Great Hunt this morning) at about 1 or 2 in the morning.

The dream didn't last very long, because I didn't sleep for a very long time (4 hours at least)...I'm surprised I even dreamed, I usually don't. Anyways I was in the Blight with some of my friends I think and suddenly two Myrddraal appeared. It's weird, because in the dream the Myrdraal were dudes in black cloaks, but with those I know what you did last summer masks -- without eyes of course. And they held me and as always, I panic. In the dream I panic, because I couldn't escape and the two Fades took me by the arms, away from my friends. Then for some odd reason, I chomped on one of the Fades' head and it was sugar! His head became a big block of sugar with a big chunk bitten off.

What an odd dream, but it's kind of fun being in a dream of a place you've read about. Reading and dreaming are almost the same -- kinda.

I'm talking with friends and playing music. They ask me about each thing i put on - where is it from, who is it? It's Badawi. It's Latcho Drom. It's Challenge of the Future. It's Aphex Twin. We're all happy. It's getting later in the night.

One friend is on the point of leaving where he hangs near the door chatting still, with his young tired son resting against his shoulder. The boy has blonde hair and a plaid shirt and his fist rubbing his eye, and he tells me i should stop the music.

Why? I ask. He tell me that his head isn't big enough to hold it all.

But- i say But- my head isn't much bigger than yours.

It is bigger, though.

But- i say, do you remember yesterday? What did you do yesterday? How big is yesterday? Bigger than music? I intend to show him that he can hold last week, tonight's dinner, an elephant, and all of his classmates in his head.

He falls asleep. Everyone leaves.

Other things occur, and i decide i should wake up and write down my dreams. Other parts of me decide i'm not allowed to wake up first, so i try to spell it out with playing cards on the seats of a train. I wonder if people will think i'm cheating if they see the letters written on the cards, and i get nervous, so i get up when someone goes by and sit on the seat - carefully, so as not to disturb my work but just hide it. When i stand again, i find that the cards have stuck to the back of my legs and it's all gone.

I wonder who that little boy was. I can still see him showing me how small his head was with his hands, as his father talked to someone else, leaning on the doorframe.