Journal #86

03/21: The Price Is Right is back in dreams again, this time in animated form, in to the style of PBS (Public Broadcasting Service)-style shows for kids such as Arthur (R.I.P.) and WordGirl, and like the dream on December 4th, it's Showcase time again, but in a classroom-like setting. This time, there is a "category" that tells the four remaining students things about a Showcase they're trying to bid on.

The dream, like one of the Wayne's World films, shows all the possible endings, and one of them it decides to show is when one of the students overbids on their Showcase, gets booed, and has these red "down" marker like objects thrown at them. There was also another possible ending where all the students overbid on their Showcase, gets booed, and has the same thing that happened to one student, happen to all of them.

However, there was one student who feared this monster that would be out to get him if he lost, kind of like me when I was younger -- well, my elementary and middle school days, but I never really explained it to anyone. I forget his/her/its name, but it resembled like a typical villain from an anime, as they're usually blond-haired, and this one was no different. I'm guessing this one was male, dressed like a "scene" kid (possibly skater/emo mix) revealed in dark shadows.

Watching the events play out on TV in my room, I ask in disbelief, "What is Weston Gardner doing on a kids' show?", and the dream ends at 6-ish in the morning before any of the students on the show in the dream reacted to it. (also, that wasn't the "monster" the student feared.) (Personally, I think the mysterious character the dream showed looked like a mix between him and professional wrestler Jeff Hardy -- minus the hair dye.)

(Fun Fact: Weston was actually a contestant on The Price Is Right 12 years ago in Season 39 (2010-11), show #5263K -- aired out of order on October 13th, 2010, actually airing on September 22, 2010 in an afternoon showing, in the place of the long-running soap opera As The World Turns, which ended after the 2009-10 season in the U.S. on CBS. He won two prizes in the Drew Carey-created pricing game Rat Race (a late-Season 38 debutante) totaling $3,614, and later went on to win his Showcase, accumulating $28,638 in cash and prizes, including an extra $1,000 in his Showcase Showdown -- that's where they spin the big Wheel to see who qualifies for the final round of the show, simply named "The Showcase", and the three contestants that got up on stage to play a pricing game try to get as close as they can to $1.00 -- without going over. He passed the first Showcase, which included a boat, to his opponent, and she overbid. Oh, and the show re-aired two days after Christmas 2010 on December 27th.)

I had a heck of a bad day yesterday (mentally having to play the protagonist and antagonist at the same time in the morning), and it was stressful. I just have to learn not to take game shows and their results way too seriously, which I had been doing since my teenage years, and quite frankly, I think it was anxiety and depression-inducing. I just have to find a better way to manage mental health and anxiety. -WM86

01/16: I believe the dream this time was a continuation from the "teenage girl trying to be Hayley Williams of Paramore" dream from three days earlier on the 13th.

However, this time, I found myself in the living room of a beautiful house with a beautiful view of the neighborhood underneath a sunny/partly cloudy day a flat-screen HDTV with something recorded via a digital video recorder, or DVR, for short. On the TV screen playing through the DVR I see what appears to be a professional wrestling ring with red ropes, and a wrestler with seemingly strange attire taunting the crowd and holding in one of their hands what appears to resemble a championship belt, probably belonging to World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE, for short; the champion dressed eerily similar to 1-time WWE Champion Jeff Hardy back in the days of the revered Attitude (1997-2002) Era, but all I could see was a flash of dyed blood red hair, but the person wearing his in-ring attire (oversized colored short-sleeved shirt, baggy pants, wristbands made from women's pantyhose, etc.) from 1998-99 (during the "New Brood" days) to at least 2002 was smaller than he is (he's 6'1"), and more than likely female.

The rest of the dream made no sense, as a fake program on Netflix was shown with a cast of teenagers in what appeared to be an action-packed series in another room in the house, the setting still being daytime.

I am no stranger to Jeff Hardy-like characters in dreams that dress unusually, as I've had dreams like that since 2001 (age 15), and the last one I had was twelve years ago back in 2009 (age 23).

I am also no stranger to dreams taking place inside houses, as I remember having one as early as 1995 where I heard these electronic toy sounds, and then I walked into a room and saw what appeared to be a toy rabbit chomping on a floor, Pac-Man-style. When I went to tell my mom about it before going to school, she hilariously made a reference to Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (& Knuckles)'s Special Stages where you had to collect all the blue spheres to get a Chaos Emerald. I remember another one from early 2004 where the TV was on, probably on MTV as a music video was playing as well.

If this was trying to show me an idea for YA/teen lit, I understand. Once again, I don't mind having these dreams.

-WM86/DFW

11/3: After a few scenes that didn't make any sense, like four months ago showing my grandma's house before she passed away nine months ago, everything picks up after a dentist's appointment (I don't really have one until three weeks later).

I am walking with a character down a hallway that looks like a cross between a backstage area from WWE Monday Night RAW, SmackDown! Live or Impact Wrestling and the hallway from a backdoor leading to an office, locker rooms and the backdoor of the gymnasium at Southeast Raleigh Magnet High--which, like certain young-adult fiction projects I've written--had arcade machines. The person I walk down the hall with is possibly Ashton Hobbs from Contestant 25, a young-adult fiction book series I'm currently working on and has taken me over 20 years -- September 1995 to be exact (I was 9 at the time) -- to get perfect.

The next scene makes no sense, and was like a scene from a typical TV sitcom or movie after a school bully/main antagonist has done enough damage. I then see a locker room where a possible student is coughing, stuffed in a locker. The character and I then exit the school where this redhead teen and what appears to be his parent or his mentor were parked in line one spot ahead of us smiling and waving at me before my alarm clock buzzes at 6:45 this morning. I, however, do remember an OC ReMix playing - a remix of the opening from the 1989 Commodore Amiga game Shadow of the Beast - one of the first OC ReMixes on the site since the site's introduction in 1999.

I wonder if I had gotten this dream last night after viewing the Wikipedia articles of Ross Powers and Kelly Slater on Wednesday on my Surface tablet that led to the image of the redhead teen at the end of the dream. However, if I view the Wikipedia article of James Lafferty, nothing happens dream-wise. I've also had some pretty strong dreams two months ago before my doctor's appointment and the finals of the U.S. Open, too, but it's probably too late.

I think this dream was trying to tell me to watch what I write sometimes, although I have never in my 21-year writing career (yes, again, 1995) written about bullies doing these horrible, unspeakable things like what was demonstrated in my dream last night.