Tides of Sleep

June 23, 2011

Notes
Sleeping over in a hotel room tonight. Have been going to bed very early since coming back to the states. I haven't written any of my dreams down for awhile so I figure now's as good a time as any. At the last dream I started to become a little lucid seeing as I was waking up every five minutes to the sound of my mom's alarm clock. Recurring themes of school and crossdressing.

Entry 012
I'm in a cave, swimming in a clear underground lake. Around me I can see my old classmates swimming as well, though none of them are distinct. The teacher is a woman with dark hair pulled back into a bun and a thin, delicate face. Although I've never had a teacher who looked like her, she seems familiar. She pulls out an old photograph of her and her family and lays it on the rocky shore of the lake. "Bring me tokens, then we can move on." I don't know what she means, but I dive to the bottom of the lake and place a smooth pebble on top of the photo. My classmates bring other things they find and place them on the photo as well.

We're going somewhere now, we walk into a huge chamber with a waterfall.

----

I'm in Tokyo, and I'm Japanese. For some reason I'm dressed up like a man and wearing a police uniform. It looks like my disguise has fooled everyone. Well, everyone but one guy. In Akihabara some otaku wearing a long white coat and huge coke bottle glasses spots me and knows I can't be a man. He starts to stalk me. I don't start to run really, but I'm definitely trying to lose him. I come to a tall tower. The otaku sees a baby nearby and steals it, knowing I won't run away while he's putting the life of an infant in danger. I somehow outsmart him and retrieve the baby, ringing the doorbell of the tower and giving it back to the confused Japanese housewife inside. From there on the dream morphs into some kind of parkour chase across Tokyo, with only occasional pauses whenever I think I've lost him.

----

I'm with my friend Jane, and we're at some kind of anime convention. We're both wearing costumes that disguise us as men, but the people at the convention can tell from our faces that we're girls. We're wearing tight under-armor shirts with padded muscles and tight skinny jeans with sneakers. We look convincing. We're there for some kind of competition. We walk into a packed room and head for the makeshift stage at the front. We're in a line of other costumed groups. The audience appears to be picking its favorite groups from the line up, shouting whenever the ones they like are mentioned. Our names are called out and we flex and pose for the crowd. We get a huge response, we move on to the next round.

Next round and we're on stage with different costumes this time. Now we're wearing fluorescent pink and yellow pixie-cut wigs and matching tutus. Now we're competing against just one other group for the semi-finals. The last challenge is to dress up a girl from an audience to match us. I pick out a girl with brown hair tied up in a braid. For some reason Jane has left the stage and I have to do the makeup all by myself, even though I have no idea how. I spend the entire time allotted applying pink lipstick to the girl. Somehow, though, when she walks to the front of the stage, she looks just like us. We move to the semi-finals, but once there we lose because my design on the girl wasn't original enough. I have become somewhat lucid at this point due to an alarm clock, and I feel curious about how my makeup actually looks. I look in a mirror and look strangely old underneath the makeup. I can see wrinkles cracking the top of my upper lip and bags pulling down my eyes. It scares me.

I wake up.

April 30, 2011

Notes
I wasn't going to post this at all, but then I figure I've been neglecting my journal for awhile now, and so I've forced myself. Some familiar recurring characters here, also a carryover of my broker air con dripping into the dream. Kind of ominous, as per usual, and strangely unsettling, especially around Burnett and the house. One very, very memorable dream character whom I've never met before. I can still see his face in my head.

Entry 011
I'm laying down between Octavia and Burnett, with the rest of my friends on the other side of Octavia. At first I don't seem to noticed Burnett. We're laying down, but we're in a kind of stadium place. It's some kind of school trip, I think, and the rest of my classmates fill the stadium around me. The stadium doesn't really have seats so much as risers, so that there's no back rest or place for your legs to dangle down. Most people are sitting up, cheering someone on, but my group and I are laying down, looking at the night sky. Suddenly I hear someone calling my name, singing it, in fact. I glance to my right and notice a skinny-ish boy with chin length sandy blonde hair, blue eyes and a distinctive, but cute, face. I don't know him, even looking back he doesn't resemble anyone I know in real life, but I can still see his face in my head.

I duck under the risers, swing down to the ground effortlessly. He's singing me a love song. I smile and watch him sing into his mic for awhile. Finally, I interrupt him, "Hey." I smile again. I take a couple steps forward and hold out my hand, palm-up. He looks startled, and stares at me for a few seconds with an expression of horror on his face. Before I can even react, he's twisting away, running. I'm confused, and a little hurt, but I don't really think anything of it. I go back to my place on the risers.

As I'm laying there, looking up at the sky, I suddenly notice Burnett is laying next to me. I say something to him, and we start talking. Ironically, we're talking about lucid dreaming. After that, I'm talking about some photograph I have with me. He looks at it in a way that makes me think he's seen it before, and that it has a greater significance than I believe it to. After answering one of his questions, there's a pause until I reply. Once I reply he grins. My answer seems to have made him happy. Suddenly, without warning, he plants three kisses up my arm. I'm dismayed. I realize that I had gotten closer and closer to him and that now we were only inches apart. He sees the look on my face, says, "I didn't mean it that way...". It's too late. I'm scrambling away until I'm hugging Octavia, who had been angry I was ignoring her.

When the event, whatever it was, ends, I walk home to a giant Victorian style house. It's empty, haunted in a way. There's a constant dripping from the ceiling, as if the house is in a perpetual state of wet mold and decay. My mom is in one of the upstairs rooms, and she seems to be very sick. I wait for a long time in the house, not sleeping even though I am tired and it's pitch black outside. I get the feeling I'm waiting for Burnett. Eventually, my mom calls me up to her room and tells me to go get some food for a party. This trip coincides with some journey I have to undertake.

I find myself on highway at night. The area around me is somewhat desert-like, but it's so black outside I can hardly see a foot in front of me. Eventually, I come to a kind of way-station. Here there are a bunch of vending machines that spit out hot fast food. I walk up to the McDonalds one, hit the number of the food my mom wanted, then punch in the credit card information. Sure enough the machine spits out some hamburgers. Behind me, there's a huge line and a menacing looking biker makes it clear to me that if I don't get out now there will be trouble. I run out of the way-station, and I'm back on the road, heading somewhere...

April 20, 2011

Notes
Went to bed at 8pm, woke up at 5:30am. Heard the music in my dream, but as often happens when I'm lucid half-sleeping, I could not hear the words and though I knew it was the sound of my alarm clock, felt it a good idea to ignore it and incorporate it into my dream instead. I have horrible judgement when I'm sleeping. My dream self never wants to go to school. Eventually woken up by my mom around 6am. First lucid in a little more than a week.

Entry 008
I find myself in the city. I'm lucid, but as usual, I don't attempt to control the dream. I allow myself to become involved in the storyline. I see Clemens and a mixture of people from my journalism class and people from my February trip. I realize that this dream will in a way mimic that trip. The city is a mix of Vienna, Budapest and the place I live now. There are modern skyscrapers with quaint European shops and homes squished in between. At once I see museums and horse drawn carriages and then I see glass and steel buildings at another minute. We're told to go off on our own, like we were often told in Vienna. I go on a little excursion. Somehow I end up in someone's house with a grey horse, named Grani over the horse in Sigurd, the Volsung. I'm feeding the horse in metal bowl.

Clemens comes for me. Free time is over. We end up in a low ceilinged building, kind of like a club and a hobbit hole mixed together. We're sitting at long tables eating, watching some kind of entertainment at the front. After we eat, we see a glass enclosed arcade inside. I watch from outside as some people play DDR or sing karaoke. I watch Clemens fail horribly at DDR and decide I want to play. When I try, though, the symbols on the screen are gibberish and the arrows on the pad don't work correctly. I'm kind of disappointed, dream self and lucid self, so I decide to leave.

When I walk outside, the whole city now appears to be made out of quilted toilet paper. Also, the old European charm has vanished. If it were not for the entire city being made of toilet paper, it would look just like the main street of the city I live in now. I walk around for a bit past some familiar structures like the huge mall until I come to what looks like a ramp leading down into a parking garage. I go down. It's not a parking garage, it's the lobby of a bank. Go figure. I decide to set up an account. I'm sweating; For some reason I'm really nervous my mom is going to find out I'm setting up a bank account.

At this point the music from my alarm clock interrupts my dream. Consciously I realize that this is my alarm clock, but I won't allow myself to get up just yet. I don't know why, but the music comes through to me without any words, only instrumentals. This gets interpreted by my dream self as some kind of new super power. The ability to remove the words from songs. What an amazing ability.

I wake up.

April 15, 2010

Notes
Went to bed at 11:30pm, woke up 5:30 and hit the snooze till 6. Remembered entire dream without trouble, woke up feeling strangely frustrated without explanation. Motifs of school, travel, searching. Woke up extremely thirsty, carry over of this into dream. Also went to bed in a tight shirt, carry over into dream. Somewhat boring.

Entry 003
I'm in the tan leather seats of the van I come home in everyday, complete with the same driver who has his trademark limited English. For some reason Kevin and Neil aren't there. I get the feeling I've fallen asleep in the car and we've veered way off course. We were supposed to be going home, but I have no idea where we are now.

We stop at one of the typical little bazaars lined with questionable stores. I sift through a couple piles of clothes. I'm looking for a new shirt, my current one is very uncomfortable. I'm wearing a uniform, not quite my school one, but some kind of uniform. I can't find any clothes, so I get back in the van. My shirt is so tight and uncomfortable I start to take it off while still in the van, then suddenly realize how inappropriate that is. I pull my shirt back down, embarrassed having being caught in the middle of a huge lapse in judgement.

When I get home, I go straight to my bedroom and find a bunch of my friends sitting in a circle around my rug. I start to loudly complain to them about a reading assignment in class-- A story about Sir Lancelot. I start to insult the author as if he is still living, while simultaneously being aware that he died in the middle ages. I talk about how he's only 3 feet tall and mock him for being a midget. I have an image in my head of a dwarf in a brown friar's robe and a ring of hair on his otherwise bald head. I pause my rant to try and drink water from an overlarge can, but it's like gravity is holding the water to the bottom of the can. A few drops fall out, but I can't drink no matter how hard I try.

I awaken.

April 13, 2011

Notes
Went to bed at midnight, woke up at 5:30 am. Got up too quickly, forgot dream, started to get ready, remembered dream again in shower. Another dream about my dog Riley who is back at home with my grandparents until we move back. Motifs of rain, cold, unwanted responsibility, failure, strange adventures and travel. Typical dream for me.


Entry 001
I am in a classroom, but really it is more like a kitchen than anything. Big industrial sinks line one wall of the room, big floor length windows line the other. Despite all the windows, it is unusually dark, and no one seems inclined to turn on the lights. One half of the room, the one I stand in now, is the one with all the sinks and the other half is just bookshelves and an assortment of pillows and beanbags scattered over a large, plush area rug. There is an old fashioned type blackboard at the far end of the room. The bell rings. Burell comes to me and tells me I'm not to go to the pillows/beanbags part of the room today because, since I'm a good student, he has a special task for me. Some other students drag in two big plastic storage containers. The first one is filled with grey, soapy water and the second is filled with... naked mole rats.

Burell tells me they're class pets and he's trusting me and the other students to wash them and get them settled. I start to wash them in the soapy water, but for some reason that hairless skin becomes incredibly slippery when wet. Several slip out of my hands and fly across the room, scuttling behind desks and disappearing forever. I'm disappointing Burell. Feeling ashamed at my performance, I go to catch some of the loose ones. They all evade me but for one which actually jumps into my waiting arms.

I leave the school. My mom has Riley, my dog, with her. After enduring months in some horrible kennel for pets being sent overseas, she's finally with me. I take her up in my arms and we go "home". Home turns out to be a hotel. We're travelling again, and my parents are away on some other business trip, leaving me and Riley the hotel room to ourselves. The hotel is grand, with victorian decor and distinctive red striped wallpaper.

With Riley still in my arms I walk though the store in the hotel's lobby, but I'm only doing this out of courtesy. I'm bored. It's already late, but I don't care. I take Riley with me and, against the advice of the concierge, leave. There's this truck outside towing this kind of large metallic cage. Apparently this is some kind of bus/temporary shelter for homeless and impoverished people. I get inside with my dog. It's freezing. I feel depressed. I bring my big blue jacket in close and zip Riley inside with me, her head laying on my chest. I pull up the fur hood, sit down on the floor and rest my head against the bars of the cage, watching the world pass by. I realize half way through that, for some reason, I have no pants on. The cold is biting.

By the time I get off back at the hotel, it's very late. As soon as I enter the hotel I'm scolded by the head concierge, a severe looking woman in black pencil skirt, matching blazer and tight bun that I've acted inappropriately and that the police are coming to give me a fine. If I don't pay, I will be arrested. Somehow, I'm apathetic. I go to the parlor, curl up on an old armchair and watch the grey sky outside pour down in sheets.

I awaken.