vignettes from a different world

i had to put together some christmas-themed gift bags for my classmates. i was walking to the dollar store, which i understood was in downtown toronto although the area seemed more suburban. it was sunny outside and obviously not winter. i entered the dollar store, which was more like a warehouse. i wandered around for a long time looking for gifts. i purchased some small things. i had to be careful because i didn't have much money. one area contained some creepy old dollhouse furniture. i left this area and found out that my boyfriend was here. we looked at stuff together. i found a pair of fleece pants with airbrushed bears, owls and eagles on them and i thought they were amazing, but the tag said 'size 46' and i didn't know if anyone in my class was that large.

there was a 'computer room' in the warehouse and i wanted to use my computer for some reason. i tried to turn it on but the screen was blank. a tall guy was laughing at me.

i decided to leave, so i walked a block over to the other dollar store. i hadn't gone inside when i realized that i didn't tell my boyfriend that i left. i sat down on an outdoor bench outside of a bar and tried to get wifi on my phone. i sent him a message but i wasn't sure if it went through.

then i saw a bus and i got on it for some reason. the bus took me back home in about a minute (it would be at least an hour in real life!) and i felt really bad that i had left my boyfriend in toronto.

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.

in the first dream i was in a kind of forest area with a river (i think)? i was reading a poem that was accompanied by victorian-style engravings. i felt that this poem/drawing was incredibly significant. a sense of nostalgia pervaded this segment.

in the second dream i was on a beach bordered by a forest. it was sunny and bright. i was recording a wildlife video with my phone. i recall swimming in the water while two swans followed me. later i was editing the video to add a title and credits. the graphic design was kind of 70s-esque.

when i had finished recording my boyfriend showed up and i showed him the video. soon we were inside of the video. we were both swimming with the swans when my boyfriend noted two penguins in the water. we were surprised that there were penguins here. these penguins had a large yellow crest and a dolphin-like beak. we decided they were emperor penguins. my boyfriend wanted to go closer but i was afraid they would attack us. i had a vision of large, fanglike spines on their undersides, which were arranged in concentric circles. this prompted me to leave the water and watch them from the edge of the beach.

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.

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.