Dream Log: September 6, 2000

What can I say ? Having started to write these dream logs, I've become more obsessed with remembering my dreams. I sometimes mid-dream think that "this I will have to remember!" To no avail. I can only remember the very last dream sequence I have in the morning.

The Dream This morning it was yet again about old friends, but this time a strange encounter with them. I somehow got to be with them, without being there. For them, I was not present. I was spying on them. They were talking about me. Their lives were changing in different ways. Some got married. Then all of a sudden everything fast-forwards to a distant future. They are old. Their wives are old.

Wake up.

What was this about ?

A bunch of dreams. As usual, impossible to remember all the details and nuances but...

I'm driving along a tiny winding country track in a tiny green vintage sports car. I come across a small tent across the way with various clothes and junk scattered outside. I feel a little guilty as I have to drive over some it to get by. When I'm past, I try to accelerate but am slowed down. Looking back I see that I caught on the tent and am dragging it and it's occupant along. I stop and find that the tent owner is a guy from school, one of the most popular guys in the class. I'm overjoyed, ask how he is, and so on. He's got a toddler, a beautiful boy. I pick him up and hold him and I get an amazing rush of happiness..

Give a big hand for quarter-life crisis, folks.

Next, I'm in a big castle which is surrounded by savage wasteland. With me in the castle are a collection of exotic characters or monsters. They're very impressive but it doesn't take long to realise that they are just in colourful costume, and they seem to be performing for my benefit. One of the characters, just inside one of the rooms, is made up as a big, blue monster or something, but has fallen asleep. As I open the door she wakes and tries to play the character not realising that she has rolled out of the costume. I am immediately smitten by this bleary-eyed blonde. We tumble into a bed and..

..my landlady calls loudly on the door to remind me that a man is coming round to fit the blinds after 9am and will need access. Damn.. damn.. damn!

I dreamed last night about the end of the world. At first me and some friends where just watching some fireworks at night. And then all of a sudden there was this large bang and I saw a mushroom cloud over the city. I saw it blow up buildings and take everything in it’s path. I knew that i was going to get to me and I was going to die. I closed my eyes and started to pray.

The next thing I know I’m floating in this large red cloud I start to think I’m inside the mushroom cloud but can’t figure out why I wasn't dead. I see this light open above me and this white light shines in. And most of my friends around me look up and leave there body and go to the light. I start to think well shoot I can’t do that. And here I spent my life going to church. Maybe I fell asleep when they said how to do that. Then I thought well at lest try and sure enough it work. I was up in the light.

After that I dreamed that me and some friends where visiting hell. We had to get special visitor passes. And hell looked a lot like GameWorks (a very upscale arcade). We waited in line and walked past this racing game that had many cars and 1 big like 3 story tall screen. After that I woke up.

fragment

. . .It's raining. I am moving through the house, checking the windows, making sure they are closed.

I am in the basement. The first room I come into, the window is open; I close it. And the next.

But in the third room, to my horror. . . I discover a window that is mottled. . .and a frame that is rotten. Not only is the frame rotten, but the pane of glass is TOO SMALL to fit up into the rotten wood. How it has remained in place this long, I don’t know.

I think it was held up by being keep open. And now that I try to close it, it comes free of the frame. As I am trying to figure out what to do. . .I let the glass go. . .and it starts to fall inward! But I catch it. I am left breathless.

On the bottom of the frame is a small piece of wood, a couple of nails sticking out. I think this may do to support the pane up into the top of the frame, but what about the sides, and what about the bottom?

It's still raining. . .

I was in the attic room I lived in when I was a preteen, in one of many apartments I lived in as a child. There were paper streamers all over the place and it was strangely illuminated for a room with two windows that are stuffed with AC units. The light came from above, as if the roof had been ripped off and thick gauze laid down to disspate the sunlight.

There was a guy in the room with me, but not someone I would recognize in real life. He had wild blonde, curly hair that was more animated than he was. He must have been a boyfriend of mine because I sat on his lap to where I could face him. He began convulsing, saying something about being too aroused, that he was going to, um, you know, right in his pants. So he grabs my navy blue sweatshirt and uses the arm of it to, uh, try to be tidy about it. It was like some thing from an anime movie, and it was pretty gross, because, you know everything in anime movies is exaggerated excessively and I don't mind in when it's in the movie, but not in my dreams. I don't dream in anime, and to be blunt, that thing scared me.

After this we walk downstairs and get into this car. I'm driving, but I can't figure out how to use the steering wheel, because it's in two halves, one on either side of me. To get the steering wheel together, I had to clip one half over me and the other over me, like a Playtex Cross Your Heart bra. The steering wheel was strapped to seatbelts and the halves of the wheel had these outlets that were plugged into posts in the dashboard. The boy, still "wearing" the sweatshirt sleeve, had to help me with it so I could drive.

I have no idea where we were headed, but there was a lot of slow traffic congestion and people milling about, like crowds dispersing after a car wreck or a parade, not knowing where to go right away. And we drove through wet streets, not saying a word to one another.

My First Everything2 Dream (tm). Apologies to those involved. No noders were hurt during the making of this dream.

I woke up in the middle of the night, realising that Sensei and Jinmyo were downstairs in the kitchen. I could hear them complaining that my knives were not sharp enough, as they opened up bottle after bottle of wine, and I could see their shadows stretching up the stairs from the over-bright light there. I pulled the duvet up around me, and wondered how to warn them about the lion that was in the corridor. If I shouted out, I'd wake the lion up, and it would eat them. If I crept down the stairs to warn them, the lion would pounce and eat me.

Eventually I had the answer: I made a handful of different origami birds, and found some cat crunchies in my sock drawer, so that I could bribe the lion into placidity. By the time I got downstairs, the lion was under the kitchen table, eating noodles. Sensei and Jinmyo had gone, but had taken a small stack of books, so I assumed that they had escaped unscathed. I hope I was right.

I am some kind of private investigator, "shadowing" some suspicious person who is creeping around the campus of a fundamentalist or evangelical Christian private school.

Perhaps it is suspected that the person I am trailing is hiding explosives somewhere on the grounds. At first I assume that I must remain hidden from the headmistress of the school, but the walls of the classrooms are transparent and she at some point sees me, seems to recognize me, and smiles.

Perhaps we have a conversation, but at the very least, she seems aware of what I am there to do, and appears to be doing things to help me.

A scene on the roof of one of the campus buildings: for some reason it reminds me of a mansard roof, even though it is more like the typical roof of a cathedral, though more modern and minimal in its construction. All these surfaces are see-through, or seem to conceal boxes and cubes of various sorts.

I begin to suspect that the person I am chasing is not placing explosives, but he is searching for them himself. The thought occurs that this is all some sort of scavenger hunt, as the headmistress organizes the children to join in the chase.

No weird poetic references in last night's dream. No disturbing people telling me things in cryptic language. It was a rather straight-forward dream. My friend Shelby and I were driving up Interstate 5 through California's central valley. It was foggy as it tends to be this time of year and we couldn't much beyond the yellow line in the center of the road (in my dream Interstate 5 was inexplicably a two-lane freeway). Shelby is usually a talkative sort, but we drove in silence. I watched the steam curl up from the styrofoam coffee cup sitting in the holder.

I shoved a tape into the deck. It was The Grateful Dead, and we turned off the freeway at a Fresno exit while "Uncle John's Band" played softly. We parked in the empty lot of a truck stop. The neon sign glowed luridly. I admired the length and elegant lines of Shelby's neck. She stared out of the window at something I could not see. I grabbed her hand and we watched the sun come up, and a trucker come out of the stop eating a strawberry krueller and drinking coffee. A moment later, in some sort of mindless dream segue, we were back on the road

Shortly after, I woke up and briefly sketched down some of the more striking details.

Binary subtraction probelems, but I couldn't remember how to use 2's compliment. Three girls, one lives down the hall, one I grew up with, and one I think I love. No sex, just their faces. I woke up quite sad.

Last night I spent some time on ICQ talking with my ex-boyfriend since we are still pretty good friends. Of course, this means that I had a dream about him last night.

Yet another summer camp dream. My ex and I are working at the camp together, and its the end of the season. We go to someone's house in Boston while waiting for our plane the next day with a bunch of other people. The whole summer I've been faithful to my current boyfriend, but at the end of three months of camp without seeing him, of course I'm really "missing him" if you get my meaning. So, we're at this house with a bunch of people, and my ex and I start talking and decide that he will change his ticket and come to Portland with me to visit for a while. I get upset about something, and he takes my hand and holds it. The girl that he had been messing around with all summer comes out of a back room, and sees us, then runs off. He doesn't go after her. He just sits and looks at me very intently.

So, I ask him about the girl. He says something really callous about how she was just a "hole" and she meant nothing. (I have to note here, this is totally not like my ex at all, which is why the detail stands out in my head) Then, he starts going on and on about how much he misses me and regrets our breakup. I just sit there and stare at him, amazed at what he's saying. Then, the girl's friend, who turns out to be this girl I used to work with, comes over and says that everyone has to leave the house. Its late at night, there is a storm outside, and our plane doesn't leave until the next day. Everyone is in shock that this girl is making us leave. Then, she comes out of the back room and says, "Everyone except "Bob" has to go!". "Bob" is my ex.

So, I start packing up my stuff and getting ready to go. I get on the phone and call some hotels, and get one, then call a cab. My ex comes in and whispers to me that he's coming with me. The cab shows up, and we get in and go to the hotel. Things get extremely steamy from here on out, and I woke up before my alarm this morning with the sheets all tangled around me, feeling aroused and guilty all at once.

I guess I shouldn't feel guilty, since I didn't actually cheat on my boyfriend in real life, and I doubt I would even if my ex did come to town and tried to seduce me. Still, even if it did just happen in my head, having sex dreams about ex-boyfriends makes me feel weird.

Quite long and vivid dream, but all I remember is:

We were living in a place with a huge backyard, with very green, lush, healthy grass. As I write, I realize this is laid out like the backyard of my oldest friend, Chris (in real life I haven't seen him for about 20 years). Anyway, it is different in two ways: the first is that it's mine (and my SO's). The second is that the house next door used to have a three-foot retaining wall because the hill was so steep. In the dream, it was a dizzying drop, and it was so windy you would expect Heathcliff (the man, not the cat) to come sidling up, with his coat and hair undulating wildly in the wind.

There is some kind of game going on, that involves chasing and being chased, and I keep ending up by this precipice. There is no fence or warning of any kind. I am so incredibly aware of the danger of falling that I drop to the ground each time I am near it. Down below the people look about two inches high.

Someone new to the game and a bit too aggressive is chasing me, and I am just able to keep ahead of him. Suddenly I put on a burst of speed and leave him in the dust.

i think i've had this dream before.

i'm living in a crowded studio apartment in some city and my grandmother has stopped by. but not either of my real gandmothers. she's tall and thin (but strong), with salt-and-pepper hair. she looks tough. she's wandering around the small space examining my belongings distastefully. she approaches my bed, where i am under the covers, where i must have been when she walked in, and throws a hundred dollar bill folded in fourths onto the comforter. only then does she meet my eyes.

'moron,' she says icily.

she starts walking around my room again, and she opens up my jewelry box. she wants me to sit on the side of my bed, and she puts a necklace around my neck, one of several i've inherited from her. i know that she does this every time she comes to my house, and picks a different necklace each time.

i have to go somewhere, so i get on the subway, feeling guilty because i'm confused and feel like i've rejected her peace offering. i'm angry with myself, because i don't know how to be close to her, and angry at her for confusing me.

i meet a boy i have a crush on on the subway, but i can't have a conversation with him because he's sick and keeps throwing up when i'm trying to talk to him. i don't remember what happened then.

I had an overtly sexual dream for the first time today, for the first time in all my 19 years of life. Maybe i'm just weird or something, i don't know.

I would have thought that i would have dreamed of someone who i actually wanted to make love to, not one of my good friends.