All DJ Entries

Before 2002.



Poulgolo is part of a moor on Quiberon peninsula, in which relatives possessed a small patch of land without any building, just heather and pine trees. In this dream my grandmother gave me a guided tour of the property, the biggest part of which I didn't know. Other members of my family, such as my younger cousin Joss, my uncle Pivy, were also there. There was actually a cloister on the property, or a half-cloister (only two "walls"), turned North-West. The rays of the setting sun enlightens the place through the pillars. On the East side of the cloister is a huge room with only three walls (the South side is open), without any window or light, so that seen from the entrance, it looks empty. In fact when you progress into it, you can see that the wall on the other side is not finished, there is a 60 cm (2 ft) opening between it and the ground, on all the length, hidden in darkness. We all get into it, using church candles to give us light. Behind the wall, the room is a really huge amphitheatre (or a giant stairway?) going down earth's depths. We walk down for several minutes. It is very wet, there are puddles and moss grows, so it is very slippery. We can't really see the walls on either side. We finally reach the bottom, where there isn't anything particular, just a big stone wall. We go back up the "stairs". My grandmother gives me the cloister and its secret amphitheatre.

I cannot really interpret this. Someone give me something that was kept secret, so it must be of some value, but in the end it is a dead end.

A regular pattern in my dreams : I discover that a place I thought I knew was in fact much bigger, with underground levels or hidden passageways. In my list of dreams, this features is joined with the criteria "something is not what it looks like".
Another systematic feature: the orientation. In my dreams there's always a North, East... (and so on). Geographically speaking, it is most of the time very coherent, to the point that I can draw maps of the locations.
Another common feature : religious locations. Many dreams occur in churches, monasteries or religious looking-buildings, even when there is no religious "action". It is worth mentioning since I am the most obtuse atheist. Is my unconscious calling for more religion in my life? Or should I say "was it", since I less frequently dream of such places these days?

I'm standing in one of the cabins at a bible camp I used to attend. There are two girls in the room, and the first asks if I'll be staying here. I'm a bit confused, so I say that's possible, as I move my stuff across the room to an empty bed. This is an empty bed, right?

"What year is it?" I ask.

Without even blinking, the first girl replies, "1995". I do some quick calculations and realize that I'm pretty sure I didn't go to bible camp until '96 or '97. Briefly, my dream-self is my present-me, though no one other than me notices. I concentrate on shrinking myself to a point where I'll fit the story.

The first girl wants to make me feel better, so she hands me a 1995 issue of Climbing, still in plastic. I'm pretty excited, so I thank her and take the package, tearing it open. I ask if I can use the poster insert for the week, to hang on the wall. (Note: my real bedroom walls are plastered with climbing posters, art, postcards, and maps.) I notice that I've ripped the cover up the spine a bit, so I look for some tape to fix it.

Girl #1 asks me not to tell on her for using the word "hell".

I look around my suitcase and find a spiral bound notebook small enough to fit in the pocket of my cargo pants. The front pages are already filled with dream journal entries prefixed by the "~" I use in my written journal. I grab a pen, too. Might as well start on the kid genius routine to get a few writings published early.

Girl #2 is reading a book when the counsellor walks in, a girl with black curly hair who, huh, would actually be younger than me in real life. Weird. She praises the little girl with long blonde hair, who just looks more and more annoyed as she's praised and showered with gold stars and cabin points.

Hey, I remember that. In grade three. With the book on volcanoes. Hm.

Girl #1 immediately scoops up a book and pretends she was reading the whole time. The cabin counsellor looks at me expectantly.

"Eh heh, no." I say flatly, "I just finished reading The Great Gatsby; I'm going outside."

I wander away, looking for something to do. None of my contingency plans for time travel to bible camp go farther than "try not to get exorcised".

I sit on a swing and recognize a few relatives from an inlawish side of the family that doesn't actually exist yet. As I probably haven't met them, I resolve to swing on swings. And ask people what they would do if they got to relive their respective childhoods. Other than die of boredom.

Whatever it was that I decided to do, it got me in trouble, all right. There's a boy from the swing set crying in the kitchen we've been left in, repeatedly saying, "I'm going to hell!" I try to reassure him by saying that there's no such thing as hell; it's just a story. I stop short of saying "There's also no God, Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus," because that would just be mean. Oddly, the boy doesn't seem to have calmed down at all. So I ignore him.

From what they tell me, I'm half-sure they're going to get me to do their accounting for them. It turns out that the Mad Hatter intervened and I get to serve my time in the kitchen developing new flavours of candy. Mad Hatter, Willy Wonka, either way, I get to hang out with Johnny Depp.

Lucid moments while I'm waking up, or they wake me up. Dream scenes fade, swirling away into a brown-black nothing, while I hold on to the feeling of whatever I'm touching at the moment.

Bible Camp. Scare Factor: 2, oddly enough.

I meet Willow Rosenburg in yet another universe where Buffy (me) never arrived in Sunnydale. She's actually alive in this one, and seems to be a successful something going to school somewhere.

Cue shenanigans. Running through a mall after a bad guy, considering a shirt on a mannequin. Then there's a car chase through Ixburg.

We've been captured by someone relatively benevolent. I'm not Buffy, but another superhero. I go to sleep, and am treated to a fast-forward view of myself tossing and turning.

I wake up when I realize that there's an old man staring at me creepily, and I find that I'm somewhat glad I'm playing a male character. Probably. My dream-self looks like Nicki Aycox right now, but everyone sees me as a guy? Yeah, I've done this before in a dream. Some interesting conversations happen. Kind of like on the forums here, actually.

Anyway, I'm sitting in the kitchen of the farmhouse, plotting my escape and working on the projects I've been assigned. Willow's here, too. I think they want me to illustrate a comic book, and the people they're working with want me to design a website for them, the Catholic Church in Ixburg. I endeavor to cause their brains to liquefy and dribble out their ears, and decide to add a twitter feed to their homepage.

This is Your Church on Twitter. Scare Factor: 3 for the creepy old guy.

Color Key: Non-Lucid, Lucid, Commentary/Notes
Dream Sign Key: Inner Awareness( i ), Action ( a ), Form ( f ), Context ( c )

I was in a desert with a dusty road stretching ahead of me ( c ). It lead to Damascus ( c ). It stretched on forever, or so it seemed. I was annoyed that it was so long. Then I remembered that the road to somewhere else was shorter so I decided to go there instead.

Maybe if I had taken that road I would've converted to Christianity? I'm glad I didn't.

The next thing I recall is still being in the desert but this time there was a TV chat show style studio just there in the middle of nowhere ( c ). I had a third person perspective this time and think I was being interviewed ( i,c ). Then I woke.