Bubble

I couldn't remember the night before when I tried, so I neglected making a post.

Last night was pretty disjointed. I woke up partway through, trying to remind myself to remember my dream, but I'm not sure I really do. I do remember some stuff, though.

I woke up partway through and considered trying WILD but I was tired and making up for sleep debt over the week. And I just didn't feel like putting in the effort. I'll definitely do it tonight, though.

Anyway, I recall a fragment about... having Skittles, and eating them, and then I was digging through someone's laundry. I had dropped my Skittles in there.

I was doing this outside, kind of in front of a beach area, and it was kind of dark out but not nighttime. Sort of after sunset but before actual night sets in. And it was kind of cold and rainy out.

It was someone's brother's laundry. All of the clothing was a drab olive, or gray, or black, and there were skittles in them that weren't mine, and I was trying to be careful to eat only my Skittles and not the ones that were already in the dirty laundry, but I wasn't sure if I had accidentally eaten one of those, and it kind of grossed me out. I could sort of tell the difference because those skittles had gross spots on them, etc... anyway, I finally just spat out what I'd been chewing into a paper towel that I somehow magically found behind myself.

Then, some of my friends had moved into some low-rent apartments. They were very nice. There were persian rugs all over the floors, the floors were marble and natural wood, there was a nice fireplace, etc. I was amazed by how nice the apartments were. They were a 2-bedroom and even had a nice balcony. My mom complains that "people trash them" so not all of the apartments are this nice.

I wonder if it's possible for me and my boyfriend to rent one of these apartments, but we probably make too much money. I go outside for some reason that I don't remember, and walk a few blocks. I pass a little outdoor eating/socializing area with black cast iron tables and chairs, and think that it would be a nice place to hang out with neighbors. I'm trying to get back to mom's apartment, but realize that I don't remember which one it is or where it is, and it's very dark outside. The complex is mazelike, and I wander around for a long time looking for her building.

Then, I dream about a movie that all of my friends and I have been anticipating, but it's also actually a TV show, and it's about a bunch of underwater people/mermaids. And the special effects are TERRIBLE. The actors just have badly painted face makeup, and the whole thing feels half-assed and unconvincing, and we all feel ripped off. I recall a scene of one of the actors surfacing from beneath the waves and the makeup just looked so terrible, and I was very disappointed.

The next dream... now I am some sort of mermaid, and I live in a high rise, but I'm stuck there and don't have very much freedom, and the whole place is run by some millionaire.

I stand in front of a glass window and look out at the city. I am also floating, because I have no legs.

I sometimes steel a very small plane... but it's not a plane, it's more high tech, like a flying bike or something... and go fly around.

Flash back to another dream I had that this one dredged up:
I am in an apartment complex. It's a very run down complex. I'm going up and down the stairs, wandering around in this place. The carpet is very dirty, the walls are dingy, the whole thing is run down and it smells like food someone's cooking... that sort of general "I smell someone's food" smell where you can't figure out what they're cooking and whether or not it smells good or nasty. I remember the carpet being kind of... yellow brown...

So I go up these stairs, looking for some apartment, but I'm also not really looking for anything. The layout is a lot like an apartment I lived in when I was 13. It is not exactly dimly lit, but not well lit either. The stairs are claustrophobic and narrow and enclosed by walls. And for some reason, there are no doors for apartments. I get up to the top and there's a ledge against the wall running between the stairs, and nothing else.

Then, possibly in the same dream, I walk into an apartment building... it is dark inside... with the same sort of layout, but also falling apart.

And now this leads to recalling a fragment of yet another dream. I don't know if I've written about this one already, though.

I am in a sort of hospital place. Possibly a mental institution. The architecture is very prison-like, bars across the windows and everything is very washed out. I recall going down some stairs and gaining lucidity as I did so. I know this is a dream, but I'm not sure what to do about it. I go through a door at the bottom of the stairs.

I dreamed that C lived here, and I was living with him. My mother had also moved here. The place C had was pretty nice, but I was irritated because he was ignoring me. I was thinking of moving in with Mom, but my brother was already living with her, and the place was pretty crowded. At first, Mom lived somewhere niceish, with cool painted/tiled ceilings, but then she moved somewhere less nice with more rooms. It had ugly leaves painted on the walls and ceilings (the walls were a gross yellow, the paintings were brown). I couldn't live alone, because I didn't have enough money to.

At some point, I was riding the train downtown, and I realized I was dreaming. I tried to fly through the ceiling but got "stuck" and had what I believe was a FA. Then the apartment dream (from above) started up again from where it left off.

Original journal entry dated July 16, 2002:

There was an elf in my dream, and a big castle, and the castle used to have people in it but didn't any more. So the elf, apparently, kept on living there, even though it was a little kid. Something about one parent being a goddess or something. In any case, I don't know what made all of the people leave, only that they came back and found the elf, and assumed that it was a harmless orphan when it probably could have killed them just by pointing at them. Then there was something about the cellar of the castle, and everything in my dream changed so that it was like Harvest Moon (the game), and for some reason the cellar was massive and there was a lot of wheat, and the characters had to live there for awhile because their own houses had flooded. And then I dreamed that we (we being me and some group of people, or maybe I was the elf this time?) were going through a toy store, only it was all salvaged stuff from before some big apocalypse (something to do with the castle), so it wasn't n horrible condition but some of the stuff was old and beaten up. Then I dreamed that they stuffed me into a toy rocket and sent me to the moon. The end.

Original journal entry dated July 17th, 2002:

The first dream had to do with baseball. We were all sitting in a field outside of a baseball diamond, watching the team play. Professional teams were playing the first half, but then the people who were watching were going to take over and play the rest of the game. But when we were going to switch, the professionals didn't want to because the game was so close. But they had to give up the field. I was the first up to bat on my team, and I quite unexpectedly hit a home run. Then I was back in the field for some reason, waiting my turn or something, and Lexa drew a comic strip about how the Desk Monster, who was a sentient pile of garbage who lived in a school desk, took over the classroom. It was very funny.
Then, for some reason, I was walking through an old apartment complex.
I was walking through the old building... and it was horribly dirty and broken-down. There was dirt and roaches (both the insect and the other kind) and crack-heads and such on the lower levels. There was the atmosphere of hunger and general hopelessness, aside from the smoke and narcotics.
But there was a level of the building that I had never noticed.
When I went up there, it was ten times worse than the rest of the building. The walls were rotted through and in some place there were simply gaping holes in the woodwork. What furniture there was was moldy and dirty, and home to myriad disgusting little critters. There were a few people, but they were all in drug-induced stupors. I think I had someone with me, but I can't remember who. The light was dirty and yellow (well, this wasn't much different than the rest of the building).

The last dream was sort of weird, in a way. In it, we -- we being a random group of adventurers that I don't know in real life -- were lost in the mountains. It was cold, snowy, and glacial. We were all looking for our master, basically our boss, who had gone to investigate a claim in the area. One of the party members, a dwarf, was hoping that it would be a silver mine, since he was a silver-dwarf - that was his caste, I guess - and he mined for and worked with only silver. He talked about the "gaudy" gold-dwarves, but I think he was sort of jealous. I assured him that silver was MUCH prettier. Incidentally, this is another dream in which I was male. Anyway, after much wandering around and a good deal of almost freezing to death we happened upon a rangers'-station and they took us in, warmed us up, etc., and reprimanded us for wandering around in an area we were unfamiliar with. But our master was there! He was very busy in a back room with something. He was a dwarf, I think. Anyway, the silver-dwarf went to watch him work. He was working on a ring. It turns out that the "claim" he was investigating was a special stand of trees with magical wood. You could forge the wood like metal, and it would become stronger than steel. The only thing you could carve it with was another piece of that type of wood. It was a beautiful rosy color, too. Anyway, he was going to make his magical ring out of this. The plans looked VERY complicated, though, and he called it his "masterpiece". But it turns out the piece of wood he was working on actually had the ring he was envisioning INSIDE of it. I briefly wondered if the ring was evil (a la "Lord of the Rings").

I dreamed I lived in an apartment in a high rise, but still had the same roommates. The apartment was very dark the whole time, and the entire dream was oddly colorless. I wasn't feeling well, so my roommate offered me a smoke. We smoked out on the balcony for few minutes.

The apartment had several balconies that I recall, and one had a couch on it. I got my blanket and pillow and went to sleep on the couch. While I was sleeping, my roommate walked up to the couch chanting "murder or torture"... I pretended to stay asleep, hoping she was just messing with me but not sure. I very vividly felt something rustling the comforter. Finally I gave in to the anxiety and opened my eyes. When I opened my eyes in the dream, I opened them in real life and woke up.

Since this is a common problem I have with accidentally ending lucids, I believe I subconsciously knew it would end the nightmare. The waking was quite abrupt, though, and I was confused for a few moments. The anxiety was immediately gone as soon as I woke up, however.

#1 - Don't recall the dream much, but recall thinking, "If I were lucid, this would be more vivid." d'oh! That's close, though... my near-lucids usually indicate I'll have a dream-induced lucid dream within the next night.

#2 - I dream I work in a store. We are selling $20,000.00 coffee cups, and a whole row of them got broken (not my fault). I get into an argument with my boss, who treats all people with disabilities as if they are stupid, which infuriates me. I call my friend M__ and complain about it because I know she'll understand.

#3 - I am going up a river bank with a bunch of other people. I don't recall why, I think it was a picnic or social gathering or something. It's getting close to dusk.

I suddenly hear gunfire and see the muzzle flash of automatic weapons. Naturally, everybody panics. We weren't doing anything violent and obviously didn't expect to be shot at. There's nowhere to run - we can go backwards, away from the river, for some reason (I don't remember why).

Now we are being shelled as we scramble along the river bank. There's smoke everywhere and everybody is panicking. Up ahead, through the smoke, I see a bunch of soldiers. From their uniforms, they're friendly toward us. They're returning fire across the river and indicating for us to move toward them so they can get between us and our attackers, but there's a whole stretch of bank to cross and it's under fire. In addition, the bank is very crowded and it's difficult to get everybody to move in a specific direction instead of running in random directions and flipping out.

#4 - I am renting a room in an apartment. The room is very small and I'm putting my furniture together and thinking about how to arrange it. My friend Z__ wants to meet up since he heard I moved back to town. I am thinking about how much money I need to make before I can rent my own apartment. I'm putting trash in a trash basket, but it's made of plastic mesh and all of the trash keeps falling through the spaces in it.