vignettes from a different world

extremely fitful, disordered sleep. probably withdrawal from desvenfalaxine 100mg + other health issues. surreal and vivid imagery tonight. fell asleep for 1st time around 11pm, woke up every hour or so until ~3am, woke up at 7ish and fell back into fitful sleep until mid-afternoon

around 11-12pm
i am upstairs in a version of my house. i realize that my house looks different and suspect i am dreaming, so i do a reality check (breathing through plugged nose). it succeeds and i become lucid. i run outside (it is sunny and beautiful) and begin rubbing my hands together to stabilize the dream. unfortunately, it fades quickly and i wake up.


i had other dreams during the night but i do not remember them.

6-7 am
the entirety of this dream takes place downtown. the atmosphere is somewhat bleak - it's grey and snowy - but the sun is out.

first i am having a debate with Richard Dawkins and a Christian theologist in a parking lot. the debate is on the subject of marxism. many people are watching from the main part of downtown, which is several miles away; the geometry in this scene doesn't make very much sense. dawkins keeps attaching balloons to himself and floating miles into the air, carrying his debate on from the sky. at times it becomes night; the sky turns deep blue and stars come out. i complain to a friend that i can't hear dawkins from up there and she chastises me, saying i should pay more attention.

next there is a new attraction downtown: a massive tower which houses a gigantic transparent tube. you enter the tube and it shoots you up to the top of the tower, then back down. my boyfriend decides to try it. a team of middle-aged women in black uniforms pack him into the tube and i watch as he jets into the air then falls down at an astonishing speed. afterwards he mentions something about "astronaut MILFs".

then i sit down at an outdoor table where a group of unfamiliar people are eating. they arent bothered by my presence, surprisingly. i pick up a menu: some of it is in english, some of it in the Cyrillic alphabet. i decide that the cyrillic language is lithuanian (does lithuanian use cyrillic? i don't know... anyway...) i have no money to order food but the people let me eat some of their food. it tastes delicious: savoury and sweet. the dishes were primarily meat-based. at one point the restaurant owner comes over and asks me if i have any questions. i cannot reply because my mouth is full of food, but i point to an item on the Cyrillic menu for which no price is listed. she explains that this is an entire roast pig and due to the quality of the meat and the preparation time it costs around 900 dollars. she gives me a meatball from it as a sample. it tastes nice. there is a tripadvisor rating in the window of the restaurant: 5.0/10.

later i am walking through downtown with my red-haired imaginary friend from a previous dream. i complain that i am sick. she tells me i probably have problems with my liver and i disagree with some recondite explanation involving the amount of water in my body. as i discuss water the windows of an adjacent skyscraper seem to turn to segmented/striated bodies of water.

finally i am walking behind two men and overhearing their conversation. they are talking about a man who was found murdered in a dilapidated house. an old woman found him, rebuilt the house and made it amazingly beautiful, but she had left his corpse in its original position. these men had been hired to clean corpse secretions off of the furniture so the house could be sold.


9-10 am
i am in a large, disorganized country house in which the dominant hue is deep yellow. several teenage boys live here. at some point i begin writing a short story about living in this place. as i write the story, by narrating it in my head, the scenes play out in my vision.

the opening scene is rendered in Poser-style primitive CGI. a generic model of a man -- hairless, no identifiable facial features, no genitalia -- jerks around erratically within a cubic matrix formed by grey rods which connect red, yellow and blue spheres to each other (think of a 3d molecular model). the background is blank white. there is a soundtrack of erratic, metallic electronic music, something like aphex twin, but more aggressive.

the next scene takes place within the country home and involves the boys. i cannot remember specific events, besides one where a boy accidentally burned my arm with a cigarette and i punched him in the face, but i recall that this scene was very long and involved a great deal of violence + homoeroticism.

the final scene is staged in a massive, darkened room. there are two glowing crystals here, one green and one blue; i understand that these represent Zeus and Hera. one of the boys is here too, floating naked in midair and dwarfed by the dimensions of the room. the crystal discuss various things. at one point a thunderbolt strikes. there is no definitive conclusion to this scene.

the story replays over and over in my head, at least 5 times, in the perseverative manner of some fever dreams. i am very proud of the story i have written -- to me it seems to address lofty, complex themes and it takes me on an emotional journey; i recall being impressed by the complex syntax and clever wordplay of my writing. my story, i believe, transgresses and deconstructs the entire institution of contemporary western literature...

in another dream i am at a swimming contest of some sort. i need id to enter the changing rooms and i do not have id. i try to sneak in through the back door, and i succeed, but i become lost in the maze of changing rooms: there are dozens of different rooms, separated by ages as well as by gender. i eventually find the correct one. i get changed, go into the pool and begin the contest which apparently involves me tackling people while demanding they tell me what subgenre a random metal band belongs to.

the winners of the contest are me & my friend M.M. the prizes are books -- a compilation of Hesse's Siddhartha & Steppenwolf and some imaginary tome of Faulkner's. (my subconscious loves namedropping, apparently.) M. chooses the Hesse book and I am a bit disappointed because I had wanted it (in real life i would have preferred faulkner!). i look inside the Faulkner book and there is a picture of a beautiful blue-walled estate with exquisite Gothic architecture, which takes up the majority of a small island. i am awed at its beauty. this is Faulkner's home, I understand; the island has some absurdly long and comically French name.