skeleton

A very long, completely non-linear, nonsensical dream. I won't try and make any story out of it, just writing as I remember things...


It was around Christmas time and millions of people had gathered to see a Christmas play in a theater. All of the people, including myself, were large nesting doll type things. I was much older, maybe 40-50, and had a husband. The line to the theater was inside a dimly lit hallway, and was so long it seemed to stretch out forever. By the time we got to the theater, the play was ending. We were the last to leave, the stage and hallway so eerily empty now. At the door to the exit a receptionist told us we needed a key to leave, which would have been given to us during the show. I tried explaining to her that we'd got in late and weren't given a key. The three of us talked like old friends for a while before my husband pulled out a key and placed it in it's lock, and we left the theater.

Then, I was in a shop that had tables and chairs set up like a classroom. Outside it had been snowing heavily, and I was covered head to toe in winter gear. I was also my own age again, human, and had no husband. I'd wanted to go out to ski, but didn't have any skis. At the entrance to the shop was a row of pigeonholes with different footwear in each hole. As I thought about stealing a pair of skis, my inner monologue in the form of a pink fairy flew around me and told me not to, but I did it anyways. Then I went outside and skied up and down a large hill of snow for a while. When I reached the bottom of the hill for the last time, I walked into white light.

Now I was in a shopping mall at night, putting on an interpretive dance performance. The mall was covered in a faint purple glow. At some point in the dance, I had a flashback.

In the flashback, there was a large green hill above a small town. At the top of the hill was a giant oak tree. Under the tree, I saw hundreds of bubbles, every bubble containing a moment in someone's life. In one particular bubble, I saw a young girl asleep at her schooldesk. Underneath all the bubbles is a field of roses covered in thick thorns. I had the knowledge that the girl could either return to her life at her desk and wake up, or remain asleep and pop the bubble, falling into the endless field of thorns.

Then I was in a bustling street, and it was the middle of summer. At an intersection in the street a famous band was performing, and thousands of people were packed tightly around them to watch. I was with a friend and wearing a shirt that had a quote from one of the band members on it. The person in front of me turned around, revealing to be the member of the band that said the quote. He saw my shirt and laughed. After the show was over, everyone dispersed into the city. I was walking along a row of shops with my friend and realised I was wearing shorts, even though I hate wearing shorts in public. We went into a clothes shop and I asked my friend to buy me a pair of pants as I went to hide in a changing room. At the back of the shop where the change rooms are, I saw a row of stalls and 2 bathrooms, each with very specific signs above them. The signs had strange requirements like "for very smart women" or "for hat people". I decided to go into a few of them to see what could set them apart. In each of the stalls, every surface had a fullbody funhouse-like mirror that reflected different versions of myself depending on the sign outside. I saw myself with long blonde hair and a purple dress.
There weren't any bathrooms or stalls labeled explicitly for men, so I went into the bathroom labeled "for very smart women". Inside, instead of mirrors there were screens. As I sat down on the lid of the toilet the screens lit up and started to tell me facts about myself. My star sign, my favourite foods, how likely I am to do certain things than other people in my lifetime. When I stood up, the tiles under my feet lit up. The screen told me my height and weight: 4 grams. When I left the bathroom my friend gave me a pair of pink leggings, and we left without paying.

And then I woke up.

I'm in the car with my dad and we're driving into the town that I grew up in. As we're driving down the streets, I look around and notice how much it has changed. The school I used to go to is all new and so much bigger than it used to be, the roads have been updated, everything is so much flashier than it used to be. There are new shops and houses all over the place that I've never seen before. We park in the parking lot of the shopping centre my dad and I used to go to every week, and we enter in through the back way that we'd always use. For the most part, it looks the same.
I'm excited to see the people that I grew up with again, considering its been about 3 years since I'd been here. In the grocery store, each aisle is littered with teenagers talking and messing around with each other, but there isn't a single kid I used to play with. I recognise some of the faces, being kids who live in my new town, but none of the ones who went to my old school. None are kids who I'd shared classrooms with. I realise it's been so long that I've forgotten the faces of everyone who made my childhood what it was. I go back to my dad whos in the self checkout and dejectedly tell him none of my old friends are here.
We walk back through the rest of the shopping centre to the car park. I look around, the shopping centre is the same. The neighbourhood and the school and the people might've changed, but this mall is the same as it always was. The $2 store, the fish and chips shop, the spices store, it's all the same. And then I woke up.

Also, tomorrow is my birthday

This is actually a dream I had a while ago, but I wanted to share it.
I'm walking through a grocery store with my Dad, and he's talking to me, but I can't remember what he was saying. Every few minutes or so, I look up at my Dad as he keeps talking and I notice him getting older and older, yet I haven't aged at all. The two of us go through the whole store. Eventually, I can't hear my Dad's voice anymore. By the time I've reached the check out, I'm by myself. The cashier asks if I want a bag, and all I can do is look back into the store, before walking off into the closed shopping centre.

That dream has stuck with me for a while now, one of the most cohesive and meaningful dreams I've had.