Dream Log: October 7, 2001

Last night a powerful dream -

Bright sunlight awakened me from a restful sleep. Like I do most mornings, I walk to the living room and look out over the valley and mountians to check on the weather and compare the yearly advance of the sun.

What awaited me was astonishing and beautiful. From the east to the west, set against the crystal clear backdrop of the mountains, eleven new world trade centers! They were full size replicas, eleven sets of twin towers golden and silver in the warm morning sun. Twin towers over the arroyo seco, over The Five, over Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank. It was a kind of miracle. From the towers, improbable given the scale and distance, I could see smiling people waving from the windows, waving white sheafs of paper.

"Everyone, come here! Come see this! It's wonderful! Somebody has done something wonderful!" I was shouting to the house, to the neighborhood, to everyone.

Why eleven sets of towers? I don't know. The attacks occurred on the eleventh. The towers themselves form an "11" when viewed as text characters.

It was wonderful. Then I woke up to the western counterattack.

Something I dreamed...

I was in Kuhmo. My family and I were going to the new cinema.

The new building was pretty huge - from inside, that is, can't remember what it looked like from the outside. It now had multiple theaters.

I picked a movie at random from the list of the movies that were shown at the time. (I usually don't do that!) It turned out to be some movie that my sister said she was going to see, but it didn't sound like something I would like.

The rest of the family each went to see different movies, so we spread up.

The hall was bigger than before, lit with dim lights, with the walls reflecting it, giving a dark shady red atmosphere - very much the same colors as the hall was back before the last renovation.

It turned out that while there were many screens, there was only one really big hall with multiple auditoriums, each pointing at different directions! The hall was divided to two parts, each had 6 sections of auditoriums: Three next to the walls, and two in the middle. Here's something resembling ASCII art:

    ###############################
    #\                 /#\
    # \_______________/ # \____
    # |               | # |
    # |    _______    | # |
    # |   |   |  X|   | # |
    # |   |   |   |   |===|
    # |   |   |   |   |===|
    # |   |   |   |   | # |
    # |   |   |   |   | # |
    # |   |   |   |   | # |
    # |   |___|___|   | # |
    # |               | #
    # |_______________| #
    # /               \ #
    #/                 \#
    #######################

The walls are marked with #s, the stairway that lead over the two auditorium sections to our part of the hall is marked with =s, and the vast rows of chairs themselves with line markers. The screens were on the walls. My seat was marked with X.

Now, the problem was that while I was sitting so that I was looking at the screen that was on the right wall in the drawing, the movie was shown on the screen that was on the wall on top side of the map...

As I was sitting down, a black guy asked me what time it was. I said nothing, just showed him my watch. It was 18:50. The movie would start at seven.

When it was one minute to the beginning of the show I decided to go to get something to munch. I got out of the hall to the ticket booth, but they had nothing. I walked a long way and got to another room (with boring white walls, white small spot light (bedside lamp?) with 80s style metallic yellow lampshade, bunch of boring cupboards with doors made of white-painted chipboard, darker yellow chipboard table with simple metal legs and old red cashbox and pocket calculator... The only illumination in the room was the fluorescent light on the roof and the small spotlight aimed at the wall with the cupboards - the back part of the room was completely dark) that had soft drinks. I bought some of those, and the salesperson gave me old, very very worn 10 mk banknotes back. (Those haven't even been in use for years!)

I needed to go to another store to get more stuff. When I came back, getting somewhere between my home and the cinema, I noticed it was around 19:25 already... The movie had already started...

I needed to make excuses for myself for being so stupid when I left so close to the start, and swore I would go to see the movie the next day. I even thought they might let me to get there with the same ticket, still not ripped...

(In RL, the Kuhmo cinema was renovated in recent years, and the renovation was overseen by my father... Of course, there has not been too big of a need for multiple cinemas in Kuhmo, it's such a small town =)

(In the dream, the ticket was a Finnkino ticket; however, Kuhmo cinema isn't part of the franchise...)

last week:

I am riding shotgun. Mom is driving. Grandma and Kelly are in the backseat. We are about to drive through an intersection. The light is green.
A car swerves in front of us. Our brakes screech. Everything turns black.
We are still in the car. The car is in a shopping mall. There are lots and lots of other cars in here too. No one knows how we got here. Terrorists are walking around with guns and walkie-talkies. They are holding us and our cars hostage. The rules are: No smoking. No soda.
Grandma lights up a Kool. A terrorist taps his gun on her window and shakes a finger at her. She stubs it out and pouts. Kelly whines that she is hungry. Mom is hysterically hyperventilating and crying.
We are parked next to a jewelry store. I get out of the car to look at the diamonds in the window. A terrorist walks by. I ask him if I can have a piece of jewelry. He breaks the window and lets me have my pick. He isn't so bad after all. I go back to the car and show everyone my new sparkly things. They are not impressed. I get bored with the dream and wake up.

last night:

I am visiting my cousin Brad. In my dream, he is a redneck. He and his friends want to rob a bank. I think this sounds like fun. We get in a white truck and drive to a warehouse to pick up something (I never knew what) first. On the way back to the truck a security van drives by. Brad and his friend say shit and duck behind our truck. I stand and look into the van's lights. I want the driver to see my face. I realize that I do not really want to rob the bank.
We are driving to the bank. I am riding shotgun with my feet on the dashboard. Brad is in the back, and his friend is driving. There are tall black trees on both sides of the car. All we can see is the road. The road is covered with blood. There are dead animals heaped everywhere, piled up high. A mutilated, dying cow runs past the truck. Blood is everywhere. Our tires make it fly up and spatter on the windshield.
And then we drive out of the black forest and the road is clean and there are no more animals and the windshield is clean. Brad says that we are almost to the bank. I say, "I do not want to rob the bank. I will not help you." Brad's nameless friend slams the brakes and his face twists into something ugly. He is furious. He wants to kills me. Brad sits passively in the backseat, looking out the window. His friend grabs one of my breasts in each hand. He will rape me before he kills me. My feet are still on the dashboard. I kick up and around and stick my right heel in his throat and DIG. I hear a very bad noise. I wake up.
The twisted thing is that this did not feel like a nightmare. I was not afraid. I was angry at Brad's friend for wanting to hurt me, and I was curious about the blood. But neither of those things frightened me. I think there's something wrong with me.

The physician's smock I was wearing didn't surprise me, considering I was strolling through a psych-ward. Neither did the legal pad in my hand, or even my black wire-frame glasses despite my normally 20/20 vision. What did surprise me was the fact that the distracted-looking doctor who was guiding us through the hospital passed dozens of empty cells without comment. The place seemed to be empty. But he seemed to be purposely striding towards one end of the hall, where the tile floor changed suddenly from white to black, and the walls along with it. Suddenly my entourage stood out in striking contrast against the walls, and I noticed a few familiar faces. L, a friend from my previous life at the university, and R from my even more distant high school days. Lucas made a characteristically whimsical comment on some point concerning the actions of the character occupying the cell in front of which we had now paused. The wall of the cell facing the corridor was suddenly one-way glass, and the cell, along with its occupant came into view.

He was standing in the center of the room, hands at his sides, staring straight up at the ceiling of his cell, as if waiting for it to come crashing down on his head and finally end his imprisonment. The half-smile on his face was not one of enlightenment. The only other object in the room was a short, shiny black table. I couldn't ascertain the material of its construction. I guessed highly polished wood of some sort.

Our guide spoke up suddenly from an open cabinet to the left of the cell. I had not seen the cabinet when I had passed it, because it did not stick out from the wall and the door was fashioned to look exactly like the outer wall. Despite its function as a cabinet, it was built like a safe. Inside were two objects, the syringe filled with a pink liquid and a strange device that had the appearance of a small radio, with an extra long antenna at the center. The rest of the cabinet was completely bare. The doctor removed the radio, but eyed the syringe warily, almost fearfully. "The transmitter here is what I wished to demonstrate to you." I spoke up to ask about the syringe, but the sound of the heavy cabinet door slamming into place and the excited murmur of the rest of the crowd killed my question. I considered making use of my legal pad so I wouldn't forget to ask again later, but at that point a pretty Indian girl dressed also in a smock tugged on my sleeve suddenly and whispered, "Are you going to attend the football game after the demonstration?" she asked. She had glasses as well, and she now readjusted them higher up onto her thin nose. I admired her shiny black hair, now pulled tightly into a bun on top of her head.

"Yes, of course. Aren't you?" I had heard nothing of a game after the tour.

We were suddenly interrupted by a muffled clatter as the single piece of furniture in the cell slammed against the wall between the madman and us. The table bounced harmlessly off of the wall and landed on its side on the floor. The madman was in exactly the same position as before, except his gaze was now leveled directly on the wall in front of him, where only his own reflection was staring back at him. "It's okay now, ladies and gentlemen. Observe his actions after I have adjusted this device." He twisted a knob on the "radio," and inched a tiny lever upwards. The madman didn't so much turn his head, but it seemed as if his eyes had suddenly turned grey. I got the feeling he could no longer see. I felt this might be worth scribbling in my notebook, and I turned my head to obtain the thoughts of the Indian doctor from before, but she was gone. I disappointedly scanned the immediate crowd. To my surprise, I saw her a few rows behind me and a few feet to the right. I tried to catch her eye without success.

But then the doctor opened the locked door to the cell with a flourish. The people around the door took a few steps hurriedly back. The madman appeared in the doorway. I noticed suddenly that he was young. I wouldn't guess any older than 25-26, and his hair was dark black, and hung over his forehead and part of his eyes, giving the appearance that his eyes were lowered. He was of medium height and build, with tanned skin. He was the image of perfect health. He was sick beyond repair.

He emerged from the doorway, and walked through the parting crowd. He walked not with the Frankenstein jerk I expected, but with the fluidity and grace and of a dancer come out for the final bow. He walked directly up to me. I held my position, but looked nervously around me. The madman and I were at the center of a circle of onlookers. I looked back to the madman; his eyes were black.

I sat up in bed and realized I was thirsty. I drank some water. I layed back down.

It was later, and I was at a football game. R was there, but I couldn't see Lucas or the Indian girl anywhere. We split up into small teams, and began our game on the grassy slope in front of the hospital. We were all kids, around 15 years of age, except for two older men that were presumably hospital orderlies. We were all dressed in sweats and t-shirts. On my team were several people I did not know, my former roommate C, and myself. The opposite team was comprised completely of strangers.

C became the quarterback, I became I receiver, and the rest of the team was superfluous. We were kicking ass. Completion after completion, touchdown after touchdown. I even made a few interceptions and turned them into points. Suddenly C disappeared, and so the rest of the male portion of my team. Now I was playing with a team full of Vietnamese girls, all of whom spoke only Vietnamese. I assumed the position of quarterback by virtue of my naturally superior upper body strength, if not my talent. They were trying to tell me where to throw the ball. Suddenly I knew the word meant pines. They wanted me to throw the ball to the slim, fast girl underneath a pine tree near the sidelines. One of the orderlies was charging me so I quick-released a pass as hard as I could, hopefully in her general direction. I saw from the ground that it was too high, that it would go over her head and even over the building, but it did not. She leapt higher than was physically possible and gracefully caught the football in one hand, and sailed lightly into the end zone. My team of girls erupted into frenzied cheers. Their faces were painted; they were both fans and players. They did not cheer for me. They lifted their slim comrade onto their shoulders and carried her away. As they marched away cheering, their heroine turned unsmiling and looked at me, and I saw she wasn't Vietnamese at all, but the Indian girl from before with her hair down and no glasses.

And suddenly I saw the future. I knew it was the future because I wasn't there and yet it was true. In a flash she was attending an interview, the tour guide from before questioning her pleasantly and then she was working observing testing staring at the madman. She was obsessed with him she loved him, but she hated him. She ran away with him. In a brown SUV I saw her attack him from the back seat. I saw her smother him with a mask that was somehow filled with a smoky gas. I saw now from outside the car the crash and the explosion. I was upclose when I saw her burn. I saw her carried away by her triumphant teammates. I cried

when i woke up.