Bubble

1. I dream that I am in a grocery store, and that part of the grocery store is a bar. There's a girl in a cutoff shirt, or something. I pay for my groceries and park my cart outside the bar. The bar's very dark - the walls and floor have been painted black. I have a beer and buy a 6 pack of cider. When I return to the cart, someone has stolen half of my loaf of bread, and 6 eggs out of my egg carton. I complain to management and show them, and ask if they will reimburse me for the bread and eggs.

2. I dream I am in the attic of an old house. I've broken in. There's a lot of old stuff stored in here, some of it mine... how my stuff ended up in here, I don't know. Some friends and I have packed it into boxes. The attic is filling with water, and I'm moving through thigh deep water trying to sort through these boxes.

We hear people in the house below. I get worried that they will discover us, so I start trying to put the boxes away neatly so they don't realize that their attic is full of someone else's things. I'm also worried they'll notice the water pouring down from their ceiling, since it's draining but I don't know where it went. Another friend gets on a cot that's built against the wall and starts talking about how in his college dorm, it was so tiny that he had to pull his knees up any time someone opened the closet.

We decide the coast is clear and start handing boxes to someone on a ladder outside the door. From there, it's easy to go down the ladder and through a hole in the fence into my own yard. The boxes have some of the homeowners' stuff as well... I plan on selling it at a yard sale.

My house is an old white two story. It's about a hundred years old, and there's nothing particularly special about the house itself. The yard is full of trees; one is much older than the house, and towers above it. It is an old oak tree. My grandpa is there now, and he is talking about how everyone cuts down their trees, and everyone's yard looks the same, and it's bland and sterile. I look at the yards of the other houses on the street (somehow they are bland-looking mansions) and see that they are all treeless and perfectly manicured. I flop down on my side and roll down the hill, and my brother (who is suddenly there) does the same thing, while our mother walks behind us. When I look up the hill, the contrast between my yard and the rest of the yards is striking. The trees rise above my house, and their branches weave in and out of each other. My grandfather comments that having so many trees in the yard is pleasant and adds character to the house. I pat the perfectly mowed, perfectly green grass at the bottom of the hill and tell him that the rest of the neighborhood seems very sterile in comparison.

I wake up briefly and then go back to sleep, and the dream resumes, although it has lost some vividness.

I continue from the bottom of the hill into a neighborhood beyond the bottom of the hill. I walk along a sidewalk. It is bright and sunny outside, and probably June or July. There are some preteen girls standing in a yard, chatting, and a little boy in a red striped shirt on a big wheel. This neighborhood is also quite uniform - suburban America, at its most mediocre. The vividness is returning. I realize I am dreaming and try to push through into full lucidity, but the dream is still too thin and everything goes black, and I wake up.

Original journal entry dated Dec. 15th, 2002:

First I had a dream that I lived in this weird old house and there were two trees in the back yard - a pine and a birch. I decided they weren't enough because we needed a good shade-tree and planned on planting on oak or an ash, but the hole I dug was way too big. I also ran a boating company with my uncle, but in my dream my uncle was some big fat redneck (none of my uncles are fat). this one guy wanted to rent a boat but he was half-blind and stupid and drove his car into the hole I dug for the tree. Then I went to get him a boat. But the boats weren't in a real river, they were in a fake one where we could control the currents with switches and stuff, but I messed up and hit the wrong switches. I could also, incidentally, breathe underwater, so I did a lot of lever pulling and such in these complex underwater tunnels beneath the river. Then I went inside to watch TV, creating a nice seque between dreams...

... in this dream I was watching the news when all of the sudden the picture started to change. The guys from "Megatokyo" had decided to interrupt the feed from the news network and take over the TV channel. They managed to keep it up for about 3 hours before the channel wrested control of the channel back. In the meantime I was very entertained by their antics.

Original journal entry dated July 20, 2002:

I had a nightmare that I was in the hospital because I was going to have a baby, only it was actually twins. (this may be because back in reality, I had a stomach ache). Anyway it pretty much resulted in the doctors have to make a few strategic incisions, which I was not happy about. On the other hand one of the little boys was adorable. Or would have been, had he not born an incredible resemblance to a prune.
So I had to go to the bathroom really bad, but the bathrooms in this hospital were absolutely DISGUSTING. They were old and even sort of old-fashioned, and very rusty and cracked, and disgustingly unclean. Most of them didn't even work. And none of the working ones were free, either. And the place really stunk. So I had to wait for someone to get done so I could go, but even then I didn't want to touch the toilet seat because I was afraid I'd get an infection because those incisions were still healing. And there wasn't enough space in the bathroom stall, either.

Anyway, then my dream cut to an alternate reality where I was blessedly not having a kid and instead my dog had puppies. So everybody was eating in the hospital cafeteria even though I don't know why we took a dog to a human hospital and then I needed to find a way home. I knew I could take this one public transport, if I wanted to. But before I did that I had to do work, and for some reason we ("we" meaning my fellow patients and I) were treated like criminals and forced to do heavy cleaning duties and stuff. So then I found a combination grandfather's clock/guillotine, and it had a secret panel in it which led to a very old wrought-iron elevator, but the elevator didn't work so I couldn't escape. Then I had to go back to the person in charge and get on the transport. Then the woman driving the transport wouldn't let me on without payment, so I gave her some chicken soup.

And then there was this riverboat cruise thing, and alligators and stuff. And the guide kept yelling at me to get out of the water but I couldn't because there wasn't enough room in the boat, since he had taken too many people with him. And the water was very murky and dirty. For some reason we were in the Rock River, which runs through Rockford, IL, but it's only fitting that I'd have a nightmare about Rockford.

So then my dream changed and I was playing Virtual Reality duckhunt with some guy, only we had lifepoints too, and we wound up having a shootout because I was cheating.

Original entry on March 18, 2008:

So first I dreamed about this one river, and it was very very polluted, and these guys decided to go fishing. Only they found this one invisible island. At first it seemed like a really wonderful, idyllic place, and this nice old lady invited them inside.

Note: if a "nice old lady" invites you ANYWHERE, it's a good idea not to go. In fact, run really fast in the opposite direction.

Anyway, so of course they listened to her, and they went into this house and down these stairs into this, like, underground mansion thing. Which seemed really great and everything at first, but then they started to notice discrepencies in stuff that they didn't notice at first. The woman had a pet dog, like a big mastiff, only it seemed a little strange sometimes, like it couldn't quite fit entirely inside of its form. Like sometimes the walls would flicker, or there'd be stains where there shouldn't be, or the furniture or the stuff hanging in the closet would seem really weird for a second, that sort of thing. Then one of them made the mistake of looking behind the shower curtain and there were a bunch of skinned bodies hanging there. So all of the sudden the illusion fell away and they realized that they were in a structure made entirely of bones and decomposing bodies and other stuff like that, the remains of people and animals and stuff. She'd fed some of them to her "dog", which was actually this huge demonlike thing. So anyway, she turned out to be a pretty ooglay monster thing herself, and chased them. They jumped into the river and managed to get to their village. The mayor, who was a woman, and looked strangely... well, familiar... led an expedition to the island with a bunch of big tough guys, only when they got there the place was deserted and all of the bones and stuff were dried up.

Ok, dream number two, there's this really busy police office and they're trying to catch this one serial killer dude who's responsible for a bunch of really gruesome murders. But well the police office is really busy, and they're very overworked and everything. They get this call from this one woman who seems to sort of be freaking out, there's a bunch of growling and snarling in the background that sounds like really pissed off dogs, and she's asking them to send people over. The cops are like, "We're really busy and we'll send animal control, ok?" and then they hang up before she can say anything. So the woman's stranded on the bed with her two kids, and she DOES own a doberman, only it's sort of dead right now because she's being attacked by evil vicious snarling demon-babies. And one of them goes after her kid so she winds up wrestling with it and it sinks its teeth into her arm.
So the cops are looking at this newspaper clipping later on, and the headline is "Woman And Children Found Dead In Bedroom, Eaten". And they chalk it up to this serial-killer who's been going around. They just can't seem to catch the guy.

I don't recall much of my dreams last night.

I recall a group of children, and one of them had a chainsaw, and I was trying to warn them that the chainsaw was dangerous, but they weren't taking me seriously. I looked away as the one with the chainsaw started swinging it at the crowd.

And then... people who turned into cans of mush? Looked kind of like canned pumpkin. I don't recall why, except that some of the cans were diseased, and they were needed to defeat some sort of evil ghost by piling all of the mush on top of it, and all of this was taking place on a boardwalk above a nasty polluted pond. I also recall a very gaunt woman with stringy blonde hair.

There was a lot of blood involved. Otherwise, my dreams were disjointed.

Then, I dreamed I was buying a bike. The store I was wandering around in also had a grocery section. I was looking for something specific there, but I don't remember what, and then my mother was grocery shopping with me.

I took 3 mg melatonin before bed. I don't know if it did my dreams any good, but I slept pretty well.

I dreamed that I was staying at somebody's house... a couple, who were maybe in their 60s. I don't remember the man very well, but the woman had shoulder-length dyed brown hair and wore sort of flowy pastel blue clothing with lots of jewelry. Their house was on the edge of the water. It was mostly open to the air, with pastel curtains hung between pillars. It reminded me a lot of some of the houses in Florida. When I asked about hurricanes, they said they'd rather live on the edge of the water than relocate to a hotel on slightly higher ground where they would just drown anyway.

Then, there was some sort of hurricane/typhoon. The house was blown to pieces. Somehow, the couple was unaffected by the craziness going on around them, but extremely concerned about me. Even though I hung on, I ended getting blown away.

The dream shifted. I was entering a city that was built on the water. I descended on the city from the air, somehow. The houses' walls were made of white plaster, and the rooftops were glittering ceramic tiles in all sorts of jewel tones. The architecture reminded me a lot of the American Southwest. There were canals between all of the houses. Somehow, all of this was on top of a mesa that rose out of the sea. I recall that I was able to get into the city because my cousin J helped me get a passport.

The environment around the mesa reminded me a lot of coastal South Africa. There was a cave system inside of the mesa, with different levels to it, all of them filled with enough water to pilot a boat around. The poorest people lived in boats in the lowest levels of the cave system (which also opened to the sea, through a tunnel that looked very mouth-like). The richest people lived in the houses on top of the mesa. The lowest level was very dimly lit, and the cave walls were made of sort of a brown clay.

I was at the lowest level, and suddenly had a boat. My boat was a little house-boat, about as small as a house-boat can get. The lowest level of the mesa, where I was, had terraces, with waterfalls. I thought the sound of one particular waterfall was very annoying, so I tried to pilot my boat to a higher level. One of the other residents was an extremely skinny man with tan skin and a shaved head. He stopped me and said they wouldn't allow boats at the higher levels, because the water was too shallow. I thought that sounded like bullshit, but turned around anyway.

The dream shifted. I was somehow involved in a plot to detonate a bomb somewhere in Sweden. I don't remember why. I remember moving there because my friend had moved there to teach English (which she does in real life) even though I really wanted to move to Norway instead.

My great grandfather lived in a run down little shack there, and wore a ratty red robe. I remember thinking that he looked very thin and frail. He was trying to tell me in broken English that what I was doing was evil, and begging me not to do it. I was doing it for his good as well as my own, although I don't remember how. After I had completed the task, I was able to move my great grandfather to a much better apartment. He still wore the same ratty red robe, and he refused to talk to me.

I woke up, rolled over.

Dreamed my roommate was talking about getting married to one of our other friends, but I don't recall anything else.

(this dream is current, as of last night)

Side notes:
WILD attempt unsuccessful. I felt the onset of paralysis, but the sound of the heater distracted me, so I was unable to "dive". Ugh. I need to not let those things distract me! I may have to turn the heat down, although then I'll have issues with being too cold. I can't wait for summer.

The second time I woke up, I just couldn't tolerate remaining on my back. It's hard to describe the sensation, beyond discomfort coupled with a compulsion to roll over onto my side.


The dreams:
1. I was wandering through a hospital, which was also a university somehow. The elevators didn't work properly. The math professor accidentally locked me in the classroom; I don't remember how I got out. I remember that there were a lot of ledges and narrow bridges you had to climb in order to navigate even the most basic parts of the building, such as the library, and thinking to myself that it was unsafe.

2. I dreamed that M--- and I were driving through a city. It was an unfamiliar city, but it was on a bay or sound of some sort. I wasn't paying attention, and M--- was driving. He drove up the metal framework of an unfinished bridge, and over the edge, into the water. I bitched at him and told him that he needed to pay attention to where bridges end. Rather than letting the car sink, I dragged it along behind me in the bay so that it floated and started the engine, using the car's engine to push us through the water faster.

3. I dreamed I was lying on a mattress with Mom and G---, and G--- was trying to tell me that if you add red paint to yellow paint, it makes green paint. I was arguing with him that it did not, although at the time I couldn't articulate why. Mom began playing with actual paint, like finger paints, and made a mess.

(Woke up, used bathroom)

4. I dreamed I was in a city with high rise buildings. The light was shining off of them.

5. I dreamed I was talking to a rheumatic old man. He had oddly-colored eyes, one was a deep blue hazel with brown in it and the other one had a brown iris shaped like a flower, where each petal had 2 dark brown dots in it, and no pupil. He had a cloth that was soaked in bleach that he would sniff, and told me about how comforting it was to him to smell it, then pressed it in my face - I wasn't too thrilled with it, although I do like the smell of bleach sometimes. He then told me about how the gene for his weird eye was recessive, and asked if any of my relatives had the recessive gene. I told him no, because he was creeping me out. His eye reminded me of a weird cat I remembered seeing (dream memory, not real), a black cat that also had oddly-colored and oddly-slanted eyes.

(woke up and went back to sleep)

6. I dreamed I was grocery shopping, and trying to select food that I thought both my brother and I would enjoy. The grocery store was dark and dingy, and the freezer cases had cloudy glass and didn't seem to close correctly or be working properly. I was loading up on junk food, thinking that we hadn't been able to afford it lately and he would be pleased. I also bought Fresca. I wanted to buy a small sample pack of different sodas, but someone had stolen 2 out of one of the sample packs and another one was nothing but grape (I hate grape). I was disappointed.

Woke up. I need to remember to perform Reality Checks more often upon waking, though.