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.

in the first dream i was sitting on a non-moving escalator in a mall. the floors and walls were white, there was a lot of brushed metal, and the mall seemed very spacious. as i sat on the escalator, i was eating bbq chicken wings. i said "i love to eat chicken wings and stare at people on the escalator". i thought this was the most hilarious thing ever.

then i was in a conference room. the colour scheme, again, was brushed metal and white. some college students were watching a powerpoint presentation and working on their laptops. very boring dream.

i woke up around 5 am and went back to sleep. i had this dream during that time:

i was in a large grocery store. i wanted to steal some pop but i kept seeing security guards walking around. at one point i wandered into another area of the store and began reciting a poem. i then listened to a recording of my own voice and was embarrassed by how awful it sounded. i returned to the area where i was before and i saw a crowd of people in the other aisle. there were some security guards in the group. i tried to figure out what was going on but i couldn't see anything.

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.

lovely, lovely dreams tonight. nothing particularly unpleasant has been going on in waking life as of late, but these dreams showed up anyhow. slept from about 9 to about 6.

i have spoilered the more graphic parts of the molestation dream for those of you who might be disturbed by it.

in the first dream i am driving around my city at twilight. i remember the exact area where i was -- near the intersection of R-----d & R----n.

Spoiler for click to read:

suddenly i feel invisible hands touching me. it is as if i am sitting on someone's lap but there is nobody there. i am greatly disconcerted. suddenly i am in the passenger seat and a teenaged asian boy is driving, while still touching me occasionally. he pulls into my school's parking lot (it is night now). there are 3 other boys waiting for us as well as an old man. i am nervous. the asian boy introduces me to the old man and tells me that he was the one who was touching me. a girl adds that he is 63 years old and a banker, and gives me his full name. she urges me to tell the police.

later i am in a room with blue walls. there are my little pony posters and merchandise everywhere. i am talking to a woman in her 30s about my experience. i want to tell her the man's name, but i cannot remember it. i get frustrated at this and also about the fact that i am discussing my sexual abuse in a my little pony fanclub.

in the second dream i am in an unfamiliar house. i am sitting on the couch and i am shocked to discover that my ex is sitting right beside me. for a moment i consider that this could be a dream, but the vivid and detailed imagery convinces me otherwise. i get extremely angry. i start yelling at him, asking "how did you get here?" "why are you here?" i don't get a straight answer. i begin punching and slapping him. he barely fights back.
i go do something else for a while and i come back to find my ex sitting on a bed crying. i thought he had left and now i get even angrier. i scream at him and throw heavy objects at him. i tell him that i'm going to bed, and if he isn't gone by the time i wake up "something bad will happen".
i go into my bedroom for a while and then come back. my ex is still there, playing a SNES game on a blue tv. again, i physically attack him and threaten that bad things will happen. i'm furious. the tv says "error, zero zero, error" and then i wake up.

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.

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.

very interesting dream phenomena tonight. slept from about 12 pm to 9:30 am and had normal dreams, was awake for about half an hour, and fell back asleep from 10 - 11 am which is when the interesting stuff started...

midnight - 9:30 am

i was looking at clothes in a large department store. i wanted to buy a dress. the dresses i wanted (one black dress and one light blue dress with dark turquoise polka dots) were in the children's section, but i figured i could fit into them anyway since i'm petite.

the next dream began in my grade 9 drama classroom. i was talking to an attractive girl with long black hair and pale skin. i believe her name was nadia and i understood that she was russian. i felt intense feelings of love and tenderness for her. there was a bed in the classroom, and we wanted to sleep together, but we were afraid other people would see and judge us. at some point the classroom morphed into a bedroom. i remember nothing else.

10-11 am

hypnagogia

after a short period of wakefulness i lay back down in bed and shifted into a half-aware state. i was still environmentally oriented - i opened my eyes a few times to see my bedroom as it normally is - but i was experiencing the involuntary associative thought that accompanies the hypnagogic state. generally i enter directly into sleep shortly after experiencing this "hypnagogic thought" but in this case it was not so. i began to have what i now realize were auditory hallucinations. at first i believed i was listening to a podcast on my laptop, which i often do before falling asleep. the audio was very distinct and i could identify the different people's voices although i was not able to make out the content of their speech (it was a little quiet.) then music began to play: specifically, the songs neutral milk hotel - oh comely and the gerbils - glue. i remember being puzzled about how these songs were playing without me interacting w/ the laptop but i believed they were not hallucinations because the audio was so clear and the songs were so perfectly reproduced -- and after all, i was not dreaming!

i am able to tell that this was a hypnagogic state and not a dream of being in bed because at one point my roommate knocked on my door to tell me that she was leaving for school -- this occured at the appropriate time (around quarter after ten) & i responded appropriately. during the time that the hallucinatory music was playing i decided i should try to get to sleep and so i used some basic relaxation techniques (relaxing the body from the toes to the head).

dreams

the relaxation technique fades into a dream wherein i am sliding down the stairs to the basement of the old townhouse. i repeat this a few times. i am aware that this is a dream and i believe that sliding down the stairs will metaphorically allow me to 'slide' deeper into the dream state as well as 'lower' me into a state of sexual disinhibition. it seems to do both.

i enter into a dream where... well, in the interests of full disclosure, i am an underage (~12-13 y/o) girl partaking in various sex acts with a nondescript college-age boy. the perspective is quite interesting here: i am watching the dream unfold in third person, but i am experiencing the sensations that my dream-self would experience in the depicted situation. i am able to control the dream by willing certain situations to happen.

my dream-self has red hair with bangs and pigtails and green eyes. her outfit changes many times over the course of the dream. the male character has short black hair and glasses; he is tall and thin. the dream varies between realism and an anime-esque style (i very rarely dream in a non-realistic style; i can probably count the number of such dreams i've had on one hand.)

this dream is divided into multiple different scenes. each scene begins with me meeting the boy in his college classroom (large and crowded, with metal walls; he sat near the door) at the end of class. we have to be discreet, as i am underage. after we leave the classroom, the sexual activities ensue. a full description of everything that transpired in this dream would be frankly pornographic, and i have no need to write it all down here as i'll be able to remember it without epistolary assistance. what's important about these scenes is that the sexual sensations i experienced in the dream are far, far more intense than anything i have ever experienced in waking life. i attribute this to a release phenomenon engendered by the downregulation of activity in certain brain structures during REM sleep which causes disinhibition and consequent overexcitation in various other areas; there could also be a psychological component to it. nonetheless it never fails to amaze me when i experience it.

after many "scenes" the sexual dream ends, along with the lucidity. i find myself in a washroom stall, and there is a copy of a manga that contains illustrations of the previous dream on the floor. i am afraid that other people using the washroom will see it on the floor and think i am perverted. i try to find somewhere to hide it but i cannot. later i am wandering through a dark maze of strangely-proportioned washroom stalls, trying to find a normal one: i understand that they are all weirdly shaped because i am in germany.

at some point i find myself atop a large warp pipe from the mario series. i am in the middle of a great sea and i can see a small island close to me. the colours here are somewhat muted/desaturated but still quite pleasing to the eye. i go to the island, which is very small and covered in yellow-brown dead grass; there is a quaint stone hut with a thatched roof here, where there lives a young woman with long blonde hair and a weathered but beautiful face. she wears a simple cotton gown. i gather blackberries and other fruits with her in front of the hut; i understand from the local flora that i am in scandinavia. i also understand that i am inside of the video game animal crossing.

my perspective later becomes detached -- moreso playing a video game than being inside of it. it gets dark and the sea becomes stormy. i understand that the woman is the "lifeguard" of the sea and i decide to drown her as an ironic joke. i pick her up through the game's interface and drop her in the sea, but she will not drown. i do not remember anything else.

----

a lot to analyze here, but i'm far too lazy. it was a pleasant experience nonetheless.

dreams tonight were very mundane, can't recall much of them

i had a very long dream about being in a public outdoor swimming pool. there was a girl there who was making sexual advances on me, and later an autistic boy who was trying to show me pictures of a tv show or something? also a blonde guy who i think was antagonizing me. at one point i sustained an injury to my leg and i was afraid that the pool water would infect my open wounds.

then i was at school. the entirety of this dream took place in one room, with grey floors, white walls and harsh fluorescent lighting. a tall middle-aged woman with red hair, ostensibly a teacher, was berating me for not finishing an assignment.

finally i was walking through a distorted version of downtown with two rappers. they were talking about their lives and i found it very inspiring although i can no longer remember what they said. the weather was dreary: overcast & slushy. we walked together for a long time; at one point i became separated from them and was attacked by a group of kids who threw rocks at me from across the street. it was painful. one rock was very large and hit me on the head; in the dream i could feel my consciousness slipping away and my body collapsing. i came close to fainting but i recovered. after that they left me alone and i regrouped with the rappers.

then we parted and i was sitting in deep, fresh snow on the side of the street. i was with some other people & we were telling jokes and laughing with each other.