Dream Log: November 27, 2000

It's 1999, and I'm in pre-WWII Nazi Germany. I'm trying to escape with kanon42 to England.

Scene 1: We're on a train from Detroit (in East Germany) to Paris (in West Germany). There are blue christmas bulbs strung along the length of the car, casting a calming, cool light on me. A klaxon sounds, and we're passing into some dangerous area controlled by the Nazis. A voice over the PA system, which I presume belongs to the engineer, announces that "we'll be switching over to red lighting now, for dramatic effect".

Scene 2: Still on the train. Soldiers on bicycles are attempting to stop the train, but the engineer is ready for them -- the train is equipped with flamethrowers, which he activates, turning one Nazi after another into a screaming crispy critter. After some time, though, this begins to lose its entertainment value, and with a snarl, he tosses the weapon over the side, where it explodes.

Scene 3: Now we're at a hotel of some kind, or a country club. We're attempting to cross a wide field on which well-dressed people are playing tennis and croquet. I keep grilling kanon on our cover story, but she's not getting it -- "Where are you going, Ma'am?" I ask... "Penn Station, New York", she responds. Let's go over this once more. We're going to market to get flowers. We're stopped by a soldier, but I think quickly and say we're on our way to the baseball game that's starting at the other end of the field.

Scene 4: In the city. Winding through streets crowded with burly men carrying even burlier zucchinis and other vegetables. A cold wind blows across me, and I wake up.

The Green Berets Meet Cabaret

John Wayne is a transsexual ex-soldier, in love with a burly truck driver in a Viet Nam-like setting. An ongoing set of military operations are the backdrop to the action, but observed from a place at least partially civilian. Many threads of action and personal stories going on at the same time.

A U.S. military base is disabled in a guerrilla attack, but the officers in charge are too embarrassed to call for support, so they try to recover on their own, with no electrical power to the base, with foul water and spoilt food, oblivious to the likelihood that further attacks are nearly certain to come soon.

JUMP CUT TO: A restaurant-cum-cabaret with very good entertainment, but rapacious billing practices. The stripper of Afro-Indian origins whose breasts are bound to resemble a nose, which has the effect of transforming her upper torso into a grotesquely comic face. The music is something between jazz and acid rock, and it seems clear that the performers are well-known, top-flight jazz musicians, who are playing here for reasons no one could begin to divine.

There is a $23 added charge to our bill, added because we are using a charge card. We are a large group, aware of and at one time trying to help the military base, but we have gotten word that our efforts are pointless. We have come to this club, then, to drown our disappointment, and also to find out what the next step is, if we are to survive, escape, and find our way out of a situation that is growing ever more tenuous.

Outside the club, the Catholic Church has decided to re-establish control of a local cathedral. Special priests, dressed in hellish demon robes, all black, with spikey, extremely delicate, yet somehow architectural black lace collars and faux wings, are flown on cables from the roof. Each priest flies swiftly downward from the roof into a black, openwork cast-iron sconce, which is attached to the main support pillars of the cathedral. Once inside this "grillwork," coal and oil pour down over the priest’s head.

A ball of fire descends to the sconce where the priest stands. Flames engulf each priest as he cackles defiantly. As the flames build higher, the priests are lifted from the flames and descend to yet another sconce to repeat this ritual. The ritual begins with one (or a very few) of these demonic angel priests, but as attention draws to the "performance" the number of flying priests is multiplied.

Somewhere in this scene, John Wayne, looking like a not especially attractive, mildly overweight, and middle-aged woman, of the sort who might run a bar or a brothel in many movies, is seen being kissed by the truck driver/Hell’s Angels-ish lover mentioned before. It seems clear that they are planning to do something that will not meet the approval of the Church or the Army.

Now I know I've flipped: dreaming about Richard Whiteley..
I dreamt I was famous. No idea why: the first part of the dream was garbled up to the point where I found myself on a stage, something like the Oscars. Celebrities were everywhere. I kept recognising faces in the crowd as Bruce Forsyth handed over some kind of award. He wanted me to make a speech. Horrible flashes of Gwyneth Paltrow went through my head and I couldn't think of anything. Then we were backstage, and the producer was explaining that now they were going to fly me to my new home. We drove off in a limo, in the back of which I sat, next to an outrageously beautiful boy of about 18, who was trying to kiss me. I was trying to explain that he was too young, and I didn't kiss people unless I was in love with them, and he argued with me all the way to the airport. I remember wondering why we were travelling on JAL when we were obviously going to the States. First class on the plane was amazing: enormous black leather cubes for seats with unfamiliar gadgetry attached. David Byrne was asleep in the cube next to me. He had taken his shoes off. His toes were filthy.
Next thing I know we're in St. Louis. I know it's St. Louis because we drive past a station bearing the name, although it looks exactly like Sheffield station. It's dark. We stop near a beach. I get out and Richard Whiteley is waving to me from down by the surf. The sea glitters blackly, lit by thousands of candles in the hands of a huge crowd. Richard counts me in, and I start singing 'La Mer'. The water has amazing acoustics. I start to float in the air as I sing (weirdly like Somos) and Richard, with a small jazz ensemble, floats up beside me, all playing the song, the crowds, way below us, gradually shrinking.
Woke up.

I had a tapeworm for dinner. It was cooked in the stove, inside a small bucket filled with sand. It looked exactly like tagliatelle, and it tasted somewhat like a mixture between pasta and french fries. Eating a tapeworm didn't strike me as gross at all, not even when its head started moving...

Later, I read a recipe for tapeworms, and discovered that I hadn't prepared it correctly. The bucket was supposed to have some carbon on top, to drain the blood from the worm's brain. This would keep it from convulsing in cramps.

My mom and my SO's dad came to visit us in our apartment. We were chatting and everything was going along nicely, until my mom decided to ask, "So, are you two getting married today?"

Then my mom and SO's dad started interrogating us like mad. Why aren't you married? Aren't you going to get married? Don't you want to get married? Then they tried to persuade us. You guys could just go down to city hall, it would take barely any time out of your day. Think how nice it would be to be married.

I was dead-set against it. My boyfriend looked like he was waffling. I kept thinking, "What the hell? My mom is trying to keep my little sister from getting married, and now she's pushing me into it."

Everyone in the dream was pretty much the exact opposite of what they normally are, including me. It was very strange.

I and someone else thought about capturing a zeppelin tied down in a valley.. It was tied down with heavy wires, and a mentally unevolved horse morph was guarding it. The other hijacker talked to him while I moved down the landslope to one of the wires. I had a hammer with me, and the wire was connected with a bolt holding down a wheel that was locked on the cliff. I managed to hammer the bolt enough to turn it loose, dropping the wheel and the bolt off as the wire got loose and snapped up towards the ship. The parts those fell to the ground were a bit rusty, but I decided to take them with me, holding them away from my clothes. I got back up, and the other hijacker had persuaded the horse to come with us, but when we got to the ship, we disengaged the last wire holding the ship down and got into air while he was stepping in, so he fell into the valley the airship was held in. Then, I dont remember what happened..

We seemed to be looking for something on our adventure, and long after the airship incident I and my companion were travelling up a tropical river with large and slow two motored boat. A smaller motorboat full of tourists got easily past us, passengers waving and laughing at us because our travel worn clothes and less-than-average ship made us look like aboriginals. I wasnt insulted, but annoyed enough to push the throttle to the maxium, only causing the engine sound go up without any visible effect to our speed. I walked frustated back and forth while my companion told me to take it easy, but when I got to the motor I noticed that a part vas missing from one of them. I grabbed a square metal piece I had gotten from somewhere from the floor and somehow got it to hold on the engine, making me feel good enough to sit back with my friend. Soon we got to our destination, a ship-like restaurant built in the middle of the swamp for tourist attraction. We tied our boat on the dock and got in, but I woke up..

1. In RL I set the VCR to record a show before we went to bed. I dreamt that in the morning I checked it, only to find it set on channel two. This meant that nothing got recorded. Even after I woke and realized it was only a dream, I was still convinced of its reality.

2. There were strange sheep-shaped things running around outside the house - they were made of scraps of wood and old screws. They had no visible animating principle; in fact you could see right through them since the wood was just piled up any which way, as long as it formed a roughly sheep-like shape. I understood that these things were dead sheep, and at last I decided that I would go outside and get rid of them. So picked up a board and gave the nearest one a good whack. It didn't have any effect, so I heaved as hard as I could and gave another thump across its nose. I wasn't able to hold onto my board, and the wooden dead sheep started slowly toward me. I was backing up slowly, not wanting to panic or run, but I was moaning in my sleep, so the SO woke me.

Frustration And Frequency

• Driving at night with my friend August. We're on a long road trip to visit another friend. I've been driving for several hours and we decide to switch seats. I pull over to the shoulder near a three-way intersection. We both get out and August gets into the driver's seat. I walk around a bit, stretching my legs. Across the street is a shopping centre and I tell August I'm going to get something to drink. I cross the road and buy something at a market. Upon leaving the store, I realize I am disoriented. I try to find my way back to August but can't. The stress and frustration build until I begin to believe that I am lost forever and will never see August ever again.

• I discover a scam to get many boxes of ice cream sandwiches for free. It involves signing up for a cellular phone service repeatedly and getting a coupon for the free ice cream. I am successful a few time and get some mint chocolate chip, strawberry and vanilla boxes. But the next time I try I run into some bureaucratic bullshit. I talk with the operator for almost an hour, answering meaningless questions like, "what is the phone number of your local fire marshal?" During this time I'm talking on my cell phone and walking around on a road near some bus stops. It looks like an area near the applied sciences building of UC Santa Cruz. After a while, her supervisor comes on the line and starts quoting lines from the contract. I start yelling at him and finally get him to admit that everything was his company's fault. Strangely, I am disatisfied because now I don't know what to say. Just then I get another call and my mother comes on the line, commenting on the situation and telling what I should do as if she'd been listening in the whole time.

• I hang up the phone and hear a very loud, low-pitch rumble. In my mind, I receive the knowledge that I've attuned my mind to a very low frequency as a result of the negative energy surrounding the situation. Reflexively, I tune up and the rumble fades away to be replaced by a very high frequency tone of the sort I'm used to hearing in the quiet of night as I go to sleep. But it's so loud that it wakes me up.

I'm sitting around with my roommate, and she keeps bugging me about how there's something I need to do. I remember what it is, there's someone I need to assassinate. It's almost 4:30, I'll be late.

I get in my car, and drive off to the place. It's the office building where I work. I walk upstairs, and into the conference room. All of the employees are here.

Someone starts explaining to me. It's a loyalty test. Everyone was told the same thing. We don't really have to kill anyone. I see the man I was supposed to murder. The CEO starts talking about how great it is to see such a high turnout of loyal employees. I take my gun from my jacket, and shoot my target. I feel extremely guilty about this, and everyone looks shocked.

The other night i had the first dream i've ever had about Everything2. It took place, at first, in a valley, with a little river flowing out of a small lake. On the west side of the river there was all this gooey stuff which someone told me was 'nodegel', oozing down the walls of the canyon. Nodes (looking sort of like sculptures made from sticks and pine cones, but containing a bit of paper with the text of the node) would be placed on the east side of the river by 'newbies' and whatever other users and would be carried across by the 'Editors' and placed in the goo. Well, for whatever reason, I had been granted Editor privelidges so I started picking up nodes and carrying them across the river. I would randomly throw them into the nodegel across the river and expect them to do something. Eventually, someone, who i think was supposed to be Dannye, started yelling at me for mis-managing the nodes. Apparently I was throwing them around too quickly without getting the consensus of other editors.

I was a bit confused by this time so i decided I'd go wander off into the nodegel and look around. I wandered a ways in and found some really 'bad nodes' - they were just pieces of paper with scribbles all over them. I tried to 'downvote' them but i couldnt find the button in this strange world. So instead i pulled out a marker and scribbled on them. Someone saw me brutalize their node this way and came up to me crying about it. But for some reason, i was evil in the dream, so i just laughed and ripped it up

Then the dream went off on a tangent, and i ended up living in a lesbian commune up on the hill with one of my friends. It was fun until some of the girls there decided to kick me out because i was a guy. Besides, in the dream my girlfriend found out i was living in there and got jealous (don't ask why). I don't remember any more of this dream.

I probably know exactly how a piece of this dream came about: Too much Junkyard Wars on Friday.

But, that part was minor, to say the least. I was in a junkyard. Not the sort of engineering heaven style junkyard in Junkyard Wars, more the post-apocalyptic gang turf style junkyard.

I wasn't myself. That much I knew. I was more or less fending off numerous thugs invading the junkyard. Oddly, this was all done in third-person... I wasn't myself, like I said, but I think I was in control (As much control as a dream allocates) of this person as I watched him.

At this point, my conscious mind came back in control and asked my subconsciousness, "Hey! What're you doing?", and my subconsciousness must've answered, "Oh, hi. I'm screwing with Spam's mind. Wanna watch?", and my consciousness thought about this and said, "Cool. What're you showing?", and I was more or less forced to stay asleep until the duration of this dream was over. So, this part is clear in my head, and I overslept.

Anyhoo, eventually, after beating up thugs junkyard-style, someone suddenly ran up to me and yelled, "You have to get out of here, they're gonna nuke the place!" I answered back, "I have to stay here and protect my people!", which was odd, since besides this guy who told me this, I was the only one on my side here.

After that, the last thing I did was construct a trap using a white car before something exploded in the air. It wasn't a nuke, per se... no mushroom cloud. Instead, it exploded into a ringlet of green stuff, presumably radiation. It hit the ground and all the radios suddenly started up with static.

Then, I was suddenly watching an interviewer talking to an army general. The general was saying things like "Well, of course, we don't LIKE sending in nukes to areas. In fact, I don't like it myself." He was tending to small samples of soil, or gerbil food, or whatever they were. They were all in portable dog kennels.

It was around that time that I gave up on the whole dream and woke up. But that was my night.