joeseph

The first dream from last night, the only one that I can remember during my big chunk of sleep, started off with me playing videogames with my coworker and his friends. We've made plans to play Street Fighter; this one is Street Fighter 3, nut not 3rd strike like I'm used to. I pick Ken and I do a lot of shoryukens. The graphics are better than 3rd strike, but the gameplay has changed. My 3 friends pick characters that I have never seen. I remark that I haven't played this one, Street Fighter Alpha (something. This was a dreamy mislabelling). I go to play another game, using a really old PlayStation controller, one which doesn't even have analog sticks and the button layout is wider. There's more space between everything. I choose the controller I'm playing on from a menu (apparently this makes a difference, I think. OK then), and the game starts. After an opening cutscene, I'm left alone in a post-combat shootout zone. I go around and try to collect supplies; even though I know what I need is guns to make it to the next part of the game, I start picking up lots of tiny different syringes, full of veterinary medicine. These will definitely come in handy if I ever have to do ghetto surgery later on down the line. But the needles start to come loose from their housing, and prick me in the leg. Austin comes around---I am with him and Alexander. (It's not a game anymore, I've forgotten about that part and moved on in the dream world.) He says "no no no, THIS is what you need," and I can tell his tone is condescending but good-natured. He already has syringes, supplies, etc. I open up my mouth to show him all the syringes I've packed in there. "Ohhh, Joe." They've made my mouth numb, like after going to the dentist, since they've pricked my cheek. I shake them out and there's a deluge of tiny, 2-inch needles that fall out, covered in spit.

We move on. We have salvaged a plane, and Alexander can fly it. But it's not fully functional. We manage to move it over the fence that's blocking us from the next area, then crash land again in some trees. After a small fight with enemy BADDIES (I don't remember if they have guns or not), we get out and start exploring the surroundings. The people who own the property we've landed on are angry; one of them throws a big rock and hits one of Austin's friends (an old friend from Alameda? A teacher?) in the head, killing her. Fury on our parts. They chase us out of their house, which we had been exploring. They offer us some food? The timeline of events gets hazy. The dream ends with the rock incident and the husband chasing me. We try to fly the plane again, which was crash landed in a tree, and it swings around and moves in a disjointed manner, like its continuity as a geometric object has ended. Like when you get too close to a wall in a game and you see the inside of the polygonal shape of your character, where planes extend all around to the edge of the screen because your reference point is now inside, not outside. The plane is not gonna go. The dream ends with the plane out of the picture, perhaps it has flown away, or is trying to, and I'm defending myself in this huge, unclimbable tree against the angry husband, who's trying to get at me with no regard to his own life should he fall.

Dream 2: A brief fragment I had after going back to sleep for another 45 minutes or so. A really cluttered managerie of symbols.

The dream takes on coherence while I'm at my old home in Moorpark. It's raining, really coming down. There are two mexican kids playing in the garden, which is muddy and sopping wet. I notice that there are tons of dead fish in the mud. "What are you guys doing?" I look closer; it's like they're trying to build a little pond. It's cute, in a way, but they're also killing the goldfish! I go inside to ask my parents if this is OK. No discernible response. I come back outside and pull them down from a set of ladders they have stacked against the side of the house. Still raining. One of them must be 3 or 4 years old. He's only like 2 feet tall. I start to play with them, and it's actually a lot of fun. There's an innocence to them that I love, that sets me free. I walk back around to the other part of the backyard. The hot tub is going. It's still raining. Everything is wet. It's like my whole family is there. In and out of the hot tub. Food. There's a little bench on the side of the deck, and I put my hands on it and try to prop up my body on my elbows. (Apparently this is called an elbow lever. Cool.) It's not too hard, so I go for one hand, but there's a part of the hot tub or a sprinkler or something spraying me with warm water. It pivots my body around the one hand that I have planted. My wrists are somehow flexible enough that I just keep going, facing the other way (towards the hot tub instead of away). I fall into the wet, warm grass soon after, doing a somersault. My dad comes up behind me, and I try to squat him. I really, really want to stand up and put him on my shoulders. I'm almost there. I straighten out my legs in real life, moving around in my bed. But I can't quite do it. I ask how much he weighs now; he says "about 215, maybe a scream over." I know he's heavier. Later on, before I move inside, I see him about to kiss my mom, although I know they are divorced. I think "Is it really that easy? Is that what I couldn't do?"

I go back inside. I'm going to take a shower. I'm naked. Two of my coworkers are there. "Oh, you seem to have lost your towel...." "I know." It's alright. Towel back on. Sonny says "I can't tell you how I feel anymore...." And this is SO cute that it makes me incredibly happy. I wake up feeling joyful.

Lots of psychological shit in that last dream. It's also really vivid because it happened about an hour ago. I've only meditated and showered before writing it down. My parents and my family are always in flux and I feel like they don't know what the fuck they're doing. Why not have a little backbone and stick to what you want to do? If you feel something, go ahead with it. Otherwise, why did you get divorced in the first place?!? Alas, it's a really complicated situation. The wetness could be my sexuality, which I also know nothing about. Childhood, growth, developing strength, showing off. But what do I have to look forward to? A convoluted adulthood? Damn, dude