vignettes from a different world

i am in a house with M., S. and A. the house is located in a clearing in a coniferous forest. the scene is generally dark. the house has wood floors and a warm colour scheme.

then my friends and i are in my elementary school gymnasium. we are playing a game in which the goal is to guess what the other person is thinking of. the theme in this round is fetishes. i come up with an idea which turns into an entire dream scene:
this scene is in the style of a documentary and it is presented by a man whose appearance and mannerisms recall louis theroux. several muscular men wearing leather bdsm outfits sre gathered together in a field. on the edge of the field stand rows of huge metal bows (about twice the height of a person) which are anchored to the ground. "louis" interviews one of the men who tells him that this is a fetish. participants obtain satisfaction by being fired from the bow as if they were an arrow. louis chooses to undergo this process. an arrowhead attached to a short length of shaft is glued onto his forehead and he is placed into some kind of leather bondage contraption which keeps his legs together and his arms at his sides. the man pulls the bow back, releases it and louis flies straight through the air.
afterwards we are in a classroom with the lights off. some blue-white light filters through the window. we are discussing sexuality with a teacher figure who is male and in his mid-20s.

the scene returns to my elementary gymnasium but now there is a war going on. the tile floor has become bumpy and ragged, unevenly painted with blue, yellow and green stripes. i am talking to a tall, thin man in a suit who has unruly black hair about the war. i understand this man is jean-paul sartre. sartre complains that another writer's books are racist and colonialist and tosses them onto the ground.

next i am inside some kind of professional building with wooden doors and blue glass walls. a man is advertising his book on quantum physics. the cover photo of the book is a ripple in multicoloured liquid. i open the book. there is a grid on one page and each cell contains a line drawing of a person. on the opposite page the author derides all of these people, complaining that the men are "assholes" and the women are "sluts". on another page, there is a large circle labeled "A" to the left of a small circle labeled "B". the book describes how the larger circle represents the immediate effects of a quantum process while the smaller circle represents the other effects. the example he uses to elucidate this theory is that if you consumed lead atoms, you would experience mild symptoms immediately, while the rest of your family would become severely ill and mentally retarded but this would occur over a long course of time. (that's dream logic for you). when these two circles intersect, they supposedly create a ripple pattern.

finally I am wandering through the hallways of my elementary school. they actually look more like the hallways on the 3rd floor of the hospital but in the dream i believe it is school. the walls, floor and ceiling are flat white. the hallways are very narrow and take strange zig-zag courses, which is disorienting. someone tells me that there is a fire in the school. i am not concerned until i see brushed metal cylindrical objects careening through the hallways and spraying water, ostensibly to fight the fire. these 'robots' frighten me slightly.

slept 11:30 - 9:00, awakening and falling back asleep several times between 7 and 9

i am in a large, dark house with some caribbean women who appear to be in their 50s-60s. they are acting strangely. someone tells me that in their culture, it is considered polite not to acknowledge strangers. later i am cutting myself in the bathroom (similar to townhouse bathroom) and the blood is getting everywhere. later still, the women and i are in a room with a young red-haired child. he keeps changing in size, from the size of an average 4 year old to the size of a mouse. he crawls around on the floor. the women are thinking of adopting him.

then i am in a "hospital", which is similar to the house in colour scheme. there is a lot of wood. i am a nurse here and i am watching over a middle aged man. his hospital room is a huge cylindrical tank with transparent walls. he is sitting in the far end of the tank, attached to many machines. he is wearing a sports jersey. i leave the room and report to the doctor, a tall young woman, that he is doing ok. she decides to initiate a different treatment. the tank is filled with water and numerous small, pink, swimming creatures. i go into the tank to explain the treatment to the man, but the creatures keep swimming into my mouth and it feels very uncomfortable. i leave. the doctor tells me to prepare a powerpoint on cellular respiration and photosynthesis.

in a fragment i can't place, i am at some kind of religious ceremony. the "church" seems to be underground and has a domed ceiling with pillars that fan out at the capitals; everything is hewn of grey-beige stone. somewhat gothic architecture?

in a different dream, i am playing with dogs in a park. it is hilly, with yellow-brown grass: beside the chainlink fence is a stone chasm and then a road. a beige concrete overpass stands further away, over the road, and in the distance, a cityscape can be seen. the sky is bright blue and clear. occasionally i see a massive red balloon rising over the city. it is very beautiful.

my final dream begins as a video game but the perspective changes. it is night in a cartoonish landscape; the land is pine green, the sky dark blue and full of stars. there is a little boy here whose pupils are shaped like crosses. he sees an area where the land slopes down, inwardly-curving, to a beach; but the slope has been separated from the level land, creating a vertical cliff. he realizes that he must push the cliff and the slope back together to save the other children. there is a segment of this dream which engenders a strong bittersweet feeling inside me, and repeats several times: the boy floats up into the sky among the stars, holding on to a red balloon.

i am with two imaginary friends. the dream begins in the park across the street from my school; it is winter and thick snow covers the ground. we are going to go to finland so one of my friends can get a scholarship for music. we have to walk lightly so the police won't be able to track our footprints.

we reach finland in a couple of minutes and enter into a large building with beige stone walls, great windows, and domed ceilings: the university. my one friend goes into the music room, leaving us free to explore other areas. i go into another room and find a shelf that contains papers on the history of finland & what i believe to be the earliest documents written in finnish. next i enter another room whose walls are covered in racks of clothing. i understand that these clothes are being given away for free, so i take some, although it is difficult to find clothes in my size.

later, outside the university, i meet my boyfriend. he jacks off and ejaculates on my thigh. there are no emotions or sexual sensations associated with this.

then i am working at a "record store" - a large, disorganized shop that seems to sell everything except records. nicki minaj comes in and asks for some vodka. i cannot serve her because i don't have a license: i feel awkward and incompetent. however a man who works at the store ends up serving her for me.

finally my two friends and i decide to visit thailand. thailand, evidently, is a large country home owned by an old lady. we are hungry, but the food here is strange. after several unappetizing choices the lady offers me a dish of fruit pieces and flowers in clear jelly, which i gladly consume: it has a delicate, sweet and light taste.

i enter into a bedroom in the house. it has blue walls and the layout is similar to my bedroom in real life. there is a sunflower on a yellow vase in my dresser. i have several vials of chemicals. i want to use a chemical that causes genetic mutations on the sunflower so that i can grow different varieties. i have to be very careful while handling this chemical because if it makes contact with my skin i will get cancer. i empty the vial into the sunflower pot but then i look at the label and realize i have just poured a great amount of acetic acid into the soil. i do not want to kill the plant so i use a vial of ammonium chloride to 'neutralize' the acid (dream self is not good at chemistry). however i quickly realize that this reaction produces chlorine gas (again... terrible chemistry...). i freak out. i get short of breath, light-headed and my vision begins to fade.

i wake up.

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.