Dream Log: June 21, 2001

The first part of the dream was set in Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive computer game.

The situation was set in the second mission where the objective was to release Doc before he gets hanged. John Cooper was hiding under some wagons that had Gatling guns, and wondered what would be the best way to get rid of them. Of course! Dynamite! Sam could blow the wagons (and guns) to pieces and open the escape route.

Of course, getting Sam there would be a problem. But first, Sam would need to carry the knocked-out priest to some safer place. Since I was asleep, and it was night, it was night in the game too (interesting logic, huh?) it would be possible to do this with much less fuss. Sam took the priest and carried him across the field, towards the far edge of the map (in the real game, you can't get there!) and I knew that since you can't get there in the real game, the sheriff's men will never find the priest and we had all the time in the world to rescue Doc.

I saw some light, though, and the person who was using that snowmobile (snowmobile? in Wild West? Well, it wasn't moving too well during the dream, either =) almost spotted me. Sam moved the priest out of the way and then got the priest's horse to safe place, too.

I needed to "save" the game often and even "load" it a couple of times. In one case the sheriff got bored of waiting and ordered Doc to be stoned and hanged at the same time. (The hanging event itself looked very artificial and everyone saw that was just acting...)

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Another dream sequence involved my plush fox... I guess it had got rather dirty in the wild west. Anyway, in this sequence, I was in a mall. For some reason, I was carrying a bottle of Vodka. It was a glass bottle that had a plush fox-like outside - the neck of the bottle came out of the fox's mouth. As I walked around the mall, I poured some of the vodka on the floor. I even drank some of it, but it tasted like water. (that would be "voda", not vodka =). I removed the plush-fox-like outsides from the bottle, too.

As I got to the car again, my father was fixing the car. He had spilled some oil on my plush fox, and I was very angry.

More Catholicism.

My strange Catholic passport adventure seems to have been just the beginning, though it does remain the strangest. I was entering into a cathedral, as a service was beginning, and I decided to join. I sat in one of the frontmost pews. Soon after the service began, the priest called upon the people in my pew to recite Hail Mary. Given that I don't know Hail Mary in English, which was the language the dream was in, we instead recited some strange mutant form of The Lord's Prayer, but in the dream I thought it was Hail Mary. We didn't do very well, and there were a couple periods of mumbling. The priest was not impressed.

Later on, I was in a large semi-public building, perhaps a hotel. I went outside onto a large and beautiful covered porch made with dark wood, which I walked across to reach a wooden gazebo. Entry cost 33 Austrian Schilling, or about $2 or €2.40, which was to be deposited into a box. I knew it was some strange sort of Catholic gazebo, and I glanced inside. It was rather large, and had pools of water along the bottom. There were steps across the pools, leading to a rather high bench above the waters. Two women sat on the bench. It was warm. I'm not sure if you were supposed to bathe your feet in the water, or if there were fish in them.

I don't know why I keep having these dreams about Catholicism. I really don't think I'm destined to become a Catholic . . .

Streetcars and ledges and rats, oh my

I went to a ledge overlooking the Columbia Gorge, somewhere east of Camas. It was a beautiful spot, and a favorite of Suzanne and Gaffney, who I found sitting up there upon it. It seemed that I might be disturbing them somewhat, but it was clear I was welcome to stay a little while. I chatted with them and admired the view. They then invited me down into their boat. I went, and they had rats in a box as some sort of bizarre scientific experiment for school. I wasn't supposed to shine the flashlight on them, cause they needed to be kept in the dark, but I wanted to see them, so I did. It was only a little bit, it didn't hurt them.

When I wanted to go home, I decided to take the streetcar which ran somewhat above the ledge, even though we found ourselves near the middle of nowhere. The streetcar was old-fashioned and lime green, but I just barely missed it and didn't want to wait 20 minutes.

Later I was in town, though it didn't look anything like it does. I was talking on a payphone to Joyquality, who needed to be somewhere in the vicinity. I recommended she take the streetcar.

Beatles Waterfall & Virtual Menagerie

• With Allen and other friends, I enter a strange building at night in an industrial urban area. The interior is one cavernous room, with a high platform in the back facing a huge tv screen on the front wall. (The layout now vaguely reminds me of the last level of Doom 2.) We climb to the top of the platform and meddle with some controls. A waterfall begins to pour from the back wall off the platform, down to the floor and right through the big screen. The Beatles appear on the screen, surrounded by water. Then they appear standing next to us on the platform. Ringo Starr shows us how it's done by jumping into the rushing water and riding it all the way to the end. When he hits the front wall he is instantly teleported back to the rear wall right next to us. Everyone joins in with the ride. I hang around talking with John Lennon but only try the perpetual motion ride a few times.

• A scene that is narrated by an aristocratic voice with a British accent, while I am the acting character. It's night and I'm walking in a dark, silent house towards a particular room. The narrator describes the three objects contained therein: a television set, a video game machine, and a "menagerie". I approach this last one, a glass-sided box ten feet long and wide, it's roof just brushing the room's ceiling. On the sides are what look like video game controllers. I can make out what looks like a miniature street corner winter scene in the dark interior. As I pick up a controller and fiddle with the buttons and joystick, the narrator recalls a personal memory of his, the one on which this menagerie is based. As I watch, the inside of the box becomes the whole dream--I and the house are no longer--as the memory is relived on a snowy street corner. Like in a cartoon, all the people walking around are actually personified animals. The narrator, now walking down the sidewalk, is a large yellow bird. The memory being relived is the day the bird took a walk and, wherever he went, he would get astonished looks from tigers. I watch this happen a few times as, for example, a tiger spots the bird from across the street and is taken aback, with a hand over his mouth, looking quite frightened. Neither the bird nor I ever figure out what the problem was. Eventually I am back in the room in front of the menagerie. Through the sliding glass door I can make out a small cement patio and the lawn just beyond it. Up in a starless sky, the moon is shining.

I am in my car, backing out of the garage. My mom is in the passenger seat, yelling at me, warning of some arcane danger, and the entire atmosphere in the car is so cramped that I start to put the top down. Unfortunately, the top-down-putting mechanism destroys most of the front left of the car.

You're probably thinking this is just the sort of irony and Freudian imagery typical of the dreams of a sociopathic recluse, but it is actually a pretty unambiguous metaphor for the following situation:

I am tied up in Poe's acclaimed pit and pendulum, wondering exactly how the restraint is fashioned that escape might be possible at all. It seems to me that simple manacles would make be an efficient and effective solution, but apparently Poe did not concur.