vignettes from a different world

i was in the dining room of my old townhouse. it was night, but the lights were on. my mother and father were preparing for passover (we're not jewish...) and they told me that eating before 9 pm wasn't allowed. i didn't care about this because i am not jewish. i was hungry and i wanted to eat some of the snacks they had laid out on the table, but i thought it might be rude to eat in front of them when they had to fast.

later we were going to the mall, which was located in toronto and called "queen elizabeth mall" or something like that. it was quite large. the colour scheme was warm yellows and browns. i was still looking for food. i went into a dark corridor and emerged into a large, dark room that housed animals in cages. i went into one of the larger cages which contained a group of otters. i decided to build a swimming pool for them. i did this similarly to how one would build a swimming pool in the sims. i had some difficulties with this.

i walked out of the zoo area and was accosted by a large woman wearing an elaborate red and yellow dress. she was angry at me for a reason that i don't remember.

i returned to the entrance of the mall. there was a coffee shop here. a fat guy in juggalo face paint was displaying some fancy squares and cupcakes on a tiered platter. i sampled several of these sweets but they didn't taste like anything. two teenage girls were fighting nearby and the juggalo said something like "hey bitch, why don't you have a caramel square?" i thought this was funny.

i had a dream early in the night but i don't remember it at all. i will edit this if i recall any details.

later i am in the dining room of the townhouse. various people are here. i have gotten 7 or 8 identical tattoos on my hip. they are tiny outlines of men. i colour them in with a pink marker to make it look like they're naked. a girl laughs and asks me if it's my halloween costume. suddenly i realize that it is halloween. i want candy but i do not have a costume so i go to my room and find a pair of bunny ears. i put them on and leave the house (it is night) but i only get a few steps before realizing i've forgotten to get something to hold the candy. i go back inside the house. there's a long segment here that i don't remember much of. all i remember is that i was carrying a purple nightgown with bleach stains and i saw an identical nightgown on a shelf, which creeped me out a little, and people were discussing times? i went upstairs to get a pillowcase but for some reason went into the bathroom instead. i heard someone talking about slenderman downstairs. then i entered my room. i grabbed a pillowcase and put on a glove shaped like a bunny's paw. the dream ends here.

around 9 am i had the following dream: i am visiting my mother in an unfamiliar house. we get into an argument, the details of which are a little personal and so won't be posted here. i end up screaming at her, throwing a stack of paper in her face and leaving.

edit: remembered another part of the last dream. this occurred prior to the argument. my father and i were in an apartment with white walls; a lot of stuff was made of wood. the room was filled with blue light. there were parts coming out of the walls that created steep hills and inclines and we were trying to climb on top of them. at the same time that these represented parts of the room they also represented a landscape and at times they would become much larger in scale and look, for lack of a better description, like real-life video game platforms; at one point there was an elaborate gothic church on top of one. yet they were still components of the apartment.

comment: these simultaneous perceptions feature commonly in my dreams and often make it difficult to write down an accurate description. the best way i can describe it is that they add layers of depth to the dream world.. that is to say a table in a dream is not just a table; it may occasionally be perceived as an object that is functionally or structurally related (eg a chair because it's used for dining, a dog because it has four legs and is brown) or, if not fully perceived this way these sorts of associations will persist at a subconscious level and colour the dream experience. the mechanism behind this, i think, is an intensification of associative thought. i have experienced similar perceptions in waking life w/ the use of marijuana.

1am-6am

this dream takes place in the apartment. i have just bought a new pair of jeans. buying these jeans enters you into a contest: the contest details are written on a pink leather square on the back of the jeans. i show the jeans to my mother and she becomes incredibly angry, screaming at me that the jeans are awful and i am stupid for wasting my money on them. i try to reason with her but she continues to furiously berate me.

i later had a lucid dream in which i was able to exert control over the environment -- although i have lucid dreams quite regularly they are typically very short & i am not able to control anything... this dream was different. sadly, i don't recall it too well.
i was inside of a house. something about the environment tipped me off that it could be a dream, so i performed a reality check. it was successful, so i ran outside of the house (rubbing my hands to stabilize the dream -- i remember i looked at my hands once and they looked normal, which i've never experienced dream before) into an autumnal forest area with many elaborate fountains scattered around. the fountains were all turned off but i was able to will them to begin flowing. i felt an invigorating rush of power. this is the first time i've been able to change the environment in a LD and makes me optimistic for my dream control in the future.

7am-9:30 am

i am in an unfamiliar house with three teenage boys and an older woman. at one point i ask the woman what the boys think of me. she tells me i disgust them with my insecurity. i have a breakdown and begin crying. i think i might have to go to the mental hospital.

later i dream that i am playing sims 3. there is a new item, a box that your sim can crawl into. when you click on it there is an option to "enter the dread cave". i choose this option: my sim enters and does not come back. the scene then switches from observing a video game to being inside of a real life scene. the box has turned into a kennel and there is a small black dog here. i put the dog into the kennel but it escapes somehow. i talk with someone about this and we somehow make the dog want to be locked in the kennel.

fell asleep around 12, woke up around 3, went back to bed, finally woke up around 7

12am - 3am
a long and complicated dream about a tall girl with red hair. in the dream we were good friends. there was a very jovial atmosphere, unlike most of my dreams.

then a dream where i discussed lucid dreaming at length -- without actually becoming lucid.

3am-7am

i am at a strange clothes store with my boyfriend. the store mainly sells lolita dresses but contains a large variety of different clothing items as well as miscellaneous objects. at the far end of the room there is a passage to a second room which is brightly lit with many large windows. the store owners, a middle-aged asian woman and her teenage daughter, work here, making all the clothes from scratch. we talk to the two women for a while. there are many items of clothing hanging on racks here and i discover a finely crafted leather jacket with luxurious fur trim; i ask the younger woman how much it would cost and she tells me "about a month's salary". we leave this room and return to the main part of the store. there is a dress i would like to buy here, but it is too expensive. instead, my boyfriend and i decide to buy two dvds. these "dvds" come in vhs cases with elaborate box art; the one my boyfriend buys has art that's a slightly altered version of the dark side of the moon cover, and mine is a complex pattern of organic plantlike shapes. we understand that these movies are beautiful works of art and that watching them will change our lives. we trade the shop owners a large pyramidal prism for the dvds.

then i leave the store and enter into a shady urban area at night. i am now running away from three young white men who want to mug me. i see my dad's car parked on the side of the street: i get in and we drive away.

i am at the "doctor's office" for a checkup. the doctor's office is a large circular mezzanine located in a tall cylindrical structure. everything is made of brushed metal and creates a sort of sci-fi atmosphere. a red and yellow cylindrical tower rises from the centre of the structure. my father is here also. i am naked. the doctor says that i am very underweight and my father is greatly concerned by this. to demonstrate how thin i am the doctor picks me up and begins shaking me around.

then i am in a house. there is a dog here, a small cream-coloured husky. i understand that i will soon have to leave here forever. there is a feeling of great sadness.

next i am "downtown" with a chubby teenage girl. we wander into an alleyway and open a door to a dilapidated corridor. there are three doors here, each with windows; from what i can see through the windows, this appears to be some sort of child sex ring. the rooms house a number of female children, ages 8-12; they are all naked. the girl and i enter one of the rooms and we're relieved to discover (by looking at a framed poster on a wall) that in fact, this is not a child prostitution operation: the children are just working for a cereal company! this makes complete sense to us.

we enter another room. this room is white and contains several young girls who are all clothed in 50s style blue-white dresses. they have various deformities; it soon dawns on me that this is an institution for the mentally disabled. one of the girls tries to bite me. we leave.

next, my boyfriend and i are attending a music performance at a coffee shop. we arrive after the performance has finished, so we offer to put a tv show on to entertain the others. i want to put on a show about a frog without a tongue, but my boyfriend is intensely disgusted by this. i decide to put on a show about dolphins instead. however, all the dolphin shows i can find are crappy cgi videos; we want to look at real dolphins. the song vox humana - deerhunter is involved somehow. (absolutely amazing song, listen to it).

i was at my grandmother's house & my dad told me that the "liberty tank" had arrived in our yard. i went to look at it: it was a tank with red and blue stripes on the side, and the part where you sit was made of glass. there was a crash test dummy inside and at first i thought it was a real person: it was a young boy with striking blue eyes, slumped over as if dead. i remember thinking he looked russian. my dad removed it and assured me that it wasn't real. we climbed into the tank (the interior was just like the interior of a car) and began driving around. i noticed many people clothed in military uniform and i mentioned that i'd like one of those outfits. my father was driving recklessly and i remarked that he was going 80kmh in the middle of downtown; he disregarded this. we got out of the tank and entered an orange silk tent where there were many foreign people clothed in furs. i remember nothing else.

recall has been terrible the past few nights. thinking of taking up awareness-enhancing/LD-inducing techniques again but that's difficult when you're very busy irl

the dream began in the townhouse basement. it was dark. i don't recall what i was doing there. later i was trying to change the colour scheme on an ipod? then i was with my uncle in a version of my grandmother's living room. some other people were there but i forget who. he put on a blues song which i recognized as frog eyes - time reveals its plan at poisoned falls (i assumed that this version was a cover of the "original" blues song). i sang along to it. then it was very dark and i was sitting at a computer. i was trying to make a fake kickstarter for a tablet so that i could make money. i recall having significant difficulties with this.

then i am hanging off the side of a bed and trying to get a pin that has fallen underneath. B---- is watching me and making sarcastic comments. there are two lollipops under the bed, one wrapped and one unwrapped. i cannot reach the pin. i recall that i need the pin for sexual purposes (what in god's name are those purposes? i don't know.)

finally i am watching a woman dance in an empty room (concrete floor and walls; dirty; colour scheme is desaturated, dark teal). she is nude except for a pair of pink panties and i am not able to see her face. on her lower back (left sacral area) she has many deep wounds, which are (insufficiently) covered by flesh-coloured bandages in the shape of bows.

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there's not much to analyze here, but a few things i found worthy of comment:

i often have dreams wherein my subconscious is able to replay a musical piece entirely from memory and it is always flawlessly accurate... in real life my musical memory is nowhere near this prodigious (i tend to recall only lyrics and vague ideas of the vocal delivery). i really wonder what about the dreaming state allows me access to greater musical capabilities & how i can come to harness this ability in real life.

in most of my dreams that have sexual content the sex object is female... in waking life i consider myself heterosexual, i'm in a happy relationship with a man and i don't really find myself attracted to women. it's interesting, therefore, that it's mostly women who appear in my sexual dreams and i find myself wondering why. i have a vague idea that i find male sexuality more threatening than female sexuality and thus sexual situations involving women are simpler/"easier" to dream about, but really i'm not sure.

1. i had stolen four pieces of chocolate from somewhere. i was in a bedroom with blue walls (distorted version of real life). i set the chocolate down on the bed but it was soon covered with ants. i put two towels on the bed and some sort of leather tarp to prevent the ants from getting at it. then i was in an unfinished basement and my mother was arguing with another woman? i think i traded the chocolate for some kind of educational children's toy -- it was a transparent model of a head with an open top, you could stick your hand into the "brain" which was a bunch of tiny blue gears...

2. i am at school and i am given an opportunity to study different ecosystems. i choose to study one with a chinese name. i am given a large petri dish. it contains murky green water with small white particulates swirling around the centre in a floral pattern. however, goopy orange and white organic growths begin to appear in the petri dish and ruin the pattern. i try to remove the slimy growths but they keep forming. at one point my ex starts working on the same project beside me. he is doing even worse than i am. i am angry at him and i get second-hand embarrassment at his failure.

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.

fitful sleep tonight. various fragmented dreams. not well recalled. content is quite shallow except for the last fragment.

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my father and i are driving in the country at night. in a recessed area on the side of the road sits a dollhouse & a wicker shelf that was in my childhood bedroom. the shelf is full of stuffed animals -- i remember one was a dragon. i take some of them with me because i understand i will be going to the hospital soon.

i am then at "the hospital"; it's a distorted version of the townhouse i lived in most of my life. the lights are off. the stuffed animals aren't with me. there's nothing hospital-like about the surroundings; it's just the main floor of the townhouse. there are 2 bro kind of guys visiting a middle aged woman who has tuberculosis. they talk about how she is defecating blood.

i decide to escape. i am suddenly in bright, sunny, warm-hued "downtown toronto" -- nothing like downtown toronto really, just big glass buildings and an immense urban atmosphere -- adrenaline rush, i'm running through beautiful streets, i crest a hill on a cobblestone road and i yell "santa maria! santa maria!"

i am back in the "hospital", i don't remember how this happens. i'm in the darkened townhouse kitchen. there are two nondescript tall men watching me -- the guards. i understand i am here for mental reasons. i think i am fine, but i accept my hospitalization with equanimity. i open the fridge and eat some kind of pastry with a raspberry on top. i hear a voice narrating lil wayne's current medical situation. i wake up.

later: something about a girl at school, i don't quite recall what she looked like - generic teenage girl, probably around 13? she's very bubbly and excitable, a little obnoxious, but she takes an interest in me and i'm glad that someone finds me nice to be around. we are rehearsing something and she starts rubbing her body against mine. i am a little uncomfortable. i point out that it seems dirty; she laughs. next we are talking to each other on a bus. i remember that her backpack is very focal in these scenes. it's a jansport style backpack, mainly white with yellow, lilac and blue thunderbolt designs. we get off the bus with some of her friends and we are in a dark city area. one of her friends is wearing - hard to describe this - platform shoes with the platform made of hard black plastic; they are hollowed out in increasingly smaller concentric circles, like the pattern of a mining pit - goes clear through to the other side. i remember thinking this is really cool, actually i still do. we walk through a bridge-tunnel. we realize that the bridge has no railing and is thus illegal to walk on. the girl comments that she should have removed her shoes (they have a specific name -- it's very german -- i understand that its named after the guy who invented the pattern) and now the people on the adjacent, legal bridge would know she walked on the illegal bridge, because the opening of the tunnel has the same pattern as her shoes. i find this remarkable. a boy with us comments that he's seen the same pattern in greece and i understand that i'm in some kind of european country. the atmosphere in this scene is very nice, everything's lit by soft incandescent streetlamps.

then i am in a distorted version of a thrift store i frequent. my stepmother is getting married, today, and she wants a pink themed wedding. she gives me 5 dollars to buy a dress and she also wants me to look after a young girl (age 3-5, black hair, olive skin). i notice that the girl is wearing lipstick and eye shadow and i think to myself that her father is awful for making her look like a slut. i ask her if she likes wearing eye makeup and she says yes. i can't find a pink dress at the thrift store so i go to a version of the victoria's secret pink store. i find something and i try to steal it but i fail somehow. then an employee asks us to leave. i am frightened for a moment but then i realize it is just because the store is closing.

then i am inside of a south park video game (??) it looks terrible, like some awful game you'd see on newgrounds in 2005 or sth. top-down view, white background (snow) with a grey line representing the road and brown blocks representing buildings. i understand that it was made to be terrible on purpose. i have to go somewhere in the game but every time i try to go there i am transported back. this goes on for a very long time.

finally i return to real life. i am in a different store. this one has bright wooden floors, white walls; it is very open and spacious. the girl and i are standing in front of a white shelf which houses a scattered assortment of strange toys. she takes interest in a toy which seems to be some kind of japanese thing based on jersey shore?? i realize i have spent a very long time in the video game and i should have returned the girl by now; my stepmother must be wondering where she is. the girl's face has changed - her eyes are very dark and there is a swollen red area under her eyes (similar to the famous picture of omayra sanchez -- if you're going to look this up be warned that it is disturbing).

the room has darkened. my stepmother appears. the girl is lying on the ground. stepmother is angry. she tells me that the "death squad" has been informed and people from all over the world are searching for her. i break down crying. i understand that the police will be coming to talk to me.

i walk over to the edge of the room and beyond a short banister is a beautiful landscape. it is hard to describe its beauty in words. i am high above the ground; i can see the peaks of mountains and clouds moving through the deep & light blues of the sky. below me, miles below me, are vast rolling hills and lush greenery. rivers flow through the land. the immense scale is very very difficult to describe. i understand, somehow, that this is Iceland. i want to get closer. there is a very thin wooden tree trunk that i jump over the banister onto. the landscape more beautiful now and I understand that this is not only iceland but Heaven. i almost cry.

i know the police are coming for me soon and my life will be awful. i debate whether to let go of the tree and fall into heaven, or face real life. heaven is so beautiful. i let myself slip a little but then i grip the tree again.

i wake up.