vignettes from a different world

decided to start keeping a dream journal again because my recall has been abysmal the past few months.

i do not recall much of the first dream. i remember that the scene was dark and there were several men around. at one point (i do not know if i was awake or still dreaming) i thought to myself that i should try to remember this dream.

later in the night i believe i had a false awakening. i dreamt that i was laying in my bed, and i decided to go back to sleep. my dream began on the bottom floor of a house. i was sort of aware that i was dreaming, and i decided to go up the stairs because it would turn this house into a cool house from one of my favourite dreams (which i had before i started keeping a journal on DV). the house was large and airy with many floors; the top floor was a white gazebo several hundred feet above the ground. i was sitting on a chair in the gazebo and gazing out at the sky. i was still faintly aware that i was dreaming. i tried to give myself a feeling of happiness/euphoria but it did not really work. i became aware of my real-life body and my dream imagery began to fade.

after that i slept fitfully. i would wake up once every half hour or so and return to sleep almost immediately. i had a dream about being at some kind of camp. there was a lot to this dream but i do not recall much. the part i remember took place in a large outdoor pool. it was sunny and warm outside. i asked a man what the temperature was and he said '42 degrees'. i decided to go for a swim but by the time i reached the pool it had been drained. it was full of wet leaves and detritus.

edit: remembered another part of the camp/pool dream. i was with some teenage girls who had some pills that they said were MDMA. most of the pills were pink tablets with imprints but two of them were large black "bars" with white text and hearts on them. i told them i had to analyze the pills before i took them. i recall that i found out the 'bars' were some kind of herbal supplement.

i am lying on the couch in the living room of the old townhouse. it is night and the room is lit by lamps. i feel very ill and feverish. my mother is here. she tells me to get up and go to school. i reply that i can't, i have meningitis and i should be in the hospital. she screams at me and we have a long argument. i am intensely angry. later i wonder if i am going to die and think about what my boyfriend would do if i did. (i was violently ill before i fell asleep which probably accounts for the focus on illness here).

in the next scene i am walking to my high school. it is snowy and i am with my father. i find an iphone sticking out of a snowbank. i ask my father if it's ok to take it. he says yes, so i do. then i am inside the library at my elementary school with some other people. we are watching a movie on a projector screen. at one point there is some starbucks product placement in the movie and starbucks gift cards pop out of the screen and onto the floor. the other people and i scramble to grab them up. they keep coming, along with some lollipops and -- hydrocodone pills... i grab several pills and remark to C.W. that i'm surprised it was legal for the filmmakers to do this.

then i am working at a daycare for disabled children. i am standing on a large circular mezzanine in a domed wooden building with a rustic/old-fashioned atmosphere. there is a matronly black woman here. later i am taking a bath while covered by a white canopy to research therapies for autism?

finally i am outside, on a beautiful rocky coastline. i am listening to a lecture about canadian geography from a disembodied voice. i sprinkle green powder onto a moss-covered slope which i recognize to be british columbia. the voice is now talking about aboriginal tribes: "our friends, the mogwai, are dead..." finally the subject of the lecture changes to buddhism. i don't recall what the voice said.

the general atmosphere of these dreams is unpleasant.

i was directing a music video with my mind. i do not remember what the music actually sounded like but i recall thinking it was like the doors. the vocals and lyrics were very prominent. the music was vivid and complex as it always is in my dreams. the lyrics were about some kind of drug hallucination or delirium.

the music video was set in a darkened suburban area, on someone's lawn. the colour scheme was mainly dark blue and black. the lead singer was dancing around erratically while i caused strange imagery to manifest. there were many of these strange images but i only recall a few. at one point there were cloth-like, lumpy growths swirling around the branches of a tree, disappearing and reappearing. later, there were unfamiliar people standing in rows and i caused their faces to distort. after doing this for a while the dream scene unexpectedly went black and an image of a humanoid figure with a bright red, glowing circle for a head and an ill-defined glowing yellow body appeared. i felt a jolt of intense fear unlike anything i have experienced in waking life. i screamed loudly in the dream but my screams sounded muted and distorted. i wondered if i was screaming in real life. soon afterwards i woke up. (i wasn't).

very busy, haven't been able to sleep much - ruining my dream recall. some fragments tonight:

1. i was in a distorted version of downtown (bright colours, very sunny) with my boyfriend who now had massive dreadlocks cascading from the back of his head. i found that very unattractive but i decided that he is my boyfriend, so i should deal with it. we entered an empty furniture store. it was hexagonal with large windows on every side; the carpet and most of the chairs were green. we sat down on a couch. we wanted to kiss but we were afraid people would see us through the windows, so we just cuddled a little. suddenly the room started tilting from side to side. we heard the store owner coming in and we ran away -- but he was actually glad that we visited his store and he gave us smoothies.

2. i am with friends (the only one i recognize from real life is M-----) in a huge department store. we are wandering around and i was stealing things. i recall spotting a stick of men's deodorant that was selling for 80 dollars, so i decided to go to the women's department and steal a similar product. i never found the womens department but i stole some books.

then it is night and we are downtown. we want to go to a bar (i don't drink irl) but the only way to enter is through a third-story window. my mother is wearing a red shirt and lying motionless on the sidewalk a few yards away; her body seems shrunken. we pay little attention to this. i try climbing up the building's many roofs (roof-awnings? what's the architectural term for those) - dead ivy vines cover the building - but i can't make it to the top floor. at one point my mom gets up -- she's acting normally, wants to join us.

3. i am at a public indoor pool with a lot of other people. there is a young girl in a wheelchair there and a fat middle-aged woman is saying rude things about her. i tell the woman off and people applaud me.

4. i am reading a website about a spa. the company is from quebec and much of the website is written in french. i don't recall what the text said now but i remember that upon waking i remarked at the fact that it was sensical and grammatically correct -- strange because text in my dreams usually makes little sense in terms of content or syntax -- especially strange because french is my second language!

one part mentions that they have special tools for relaxation or something to that effect. the text is a link, so i click on it. it brings me to a page that displays various styles of bongs (they're all blue and silver and quite elegantly designed). there are also prices for "asian massages" for women and men. the prices are all in the 1-2k range. so i come to the realization that this is a brothel where you can smoke weed.

i decide to visit.

the spa is an outdoor pool. it is very sunny and bright outside. the geometry in this scene is odd - i think i'm floating above the water or something. a girl arrives, but no sex acts transpire, at least that i can remember. i wake up.

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quick analysis:
i've had many similar dreams about department stores. my dream-stores are always massive, labyrinthian, with blank white walls and floors and an eclectic assortment of items.

the image of my mother lying on the ground probably comes from the time i saw a hipster girl lying face-down on the sidewalk in toronto (with her ukulele of course). she wasn't drunk or sick or anything, i think she was trying to be artistic or protest something, but it was just silly. the police made her get up. there's also another dimension to this image i think - my mother was an alcoholic while i was growing up and to this day i have a strong aversion to being around any drunk people... especially her.

almost all the dreams i've catalogued so far have had something to do with sex. generally, dreams with sexual themes are very rare for me. i haven't had any changes in my real life that could trigger this... maybe my subconscious is just trying to embarrass me.