Recent DJ Posts

04-23-2017 -- First part, long, involved dream that I can't mostly remember, except that it had a vaguely NCIS feel to it, and involved time travel and people with individual powers, one of whom was pulled through time multiple times, so that there were 5 or 6 of her present, and we were all trying to overcome bad things, and tell the story of the various powers.

Then I woke up, and realized that the dream made little sense, and most of it's internal logic did not pull together or work, and as I was thinking about how it was too bad, as I could use another cool dream to write down, I fell back asleep, and kind of continued with the analysis of the dream, and thinking of how to make it better as things started changing. Soon I was half-living and half planning out a film to compete with the Marvel movies of a superhero kind of world that was probably based more on Sanderson's Reckoners series.

Bits that I can remember include a baby Groot that looked more like a bowtruckle from Fantastic Beasts and somehow sacrificed himself, that I was trying to figure out how to kill him off, yet still manage to keep him around, except eventually I realized the idea was too close to Groot, so we could never get away with it. Instead, I had to re-imagine the tree creature as a small, but very full bush, so that it was significantly different.

In this dream, the government was all for itself, and keeping itself in control, with no concern for the people, so they had set up agencies where people who wanted anything to do with powered beings would have to go and get approval, but they cheated everywhere. For example, they had signs on the walls stating that anyone who wanted to have anything to do with powered beings would have to fill the paperwork out in Portuguese. So one of the protagonists of the story was summarily turned down for not doing his paperwork in Portuguese, because they just didn't like him, but he retaliated by pointing out the signs to everybody in the office, and telling them all that they would be turned down for not using the language, and trying to clear everybody out.

So finally Umbridge breaks down and tells the guy he can fill out the forms in English, just so he will stop chasing everybody else away, and they start asking him about all these weird scenarios that are supposed to give them an idea about his morals, and whether it is safe for him to be working around powered individuals, but they make no sense. There are questions like "How would you use a power of turning metal into plastic to win a game of Tic-Tac-Toe?" To which he answers that it is an utterly foolish question as A) the power would have no impact on a game of Tic-Tac-Toe, and B) using the power to affect the game, if it could, would be cheating, anyway. After a couple of times of objecting to the bizarre and nonsensical questions, the person evaluating him says that he can already see the guy would be a bad fit for working with powered individuals.

Meanwhile, I am planning out casting, and thinking of having Chris Rock play the part I just described, based on his role in some of the Marvel films (which to the best of my knowledge he has never been in), when I come to realize he isn't likely to be open to coming and doing our film when it would probably cost him further roles in their bigger pictures. Very strange, yet very fun stuff!

12-28-2016 -- Am out doing gas station mystery shops in an area down near Miami that doesn't correspond to any real locations, but that I have dreamt about several other times, in the last few years. This is a sort of blend of the four stations behind each other, and a more spread out area of shops that I have dreamed about. Anyway, I have reached the station (the first of this trip), and am considering what order to do the shop in. For some reason, I am considering doing some of the picture taking before doing the actual mystery shop portion, but I have to remind myself that would be bad.

So I am in the outside portion where they always have tons of signs around, and I am amazed to see that this time they don't have a lot of signs, and I am thinking maybe they will get a good score, this time. But then I notice all the litter on the ground, and am thinking, maybe not. The manager comes around, sweeping things up and glaring at me, and I move inside. The counter is very long, and has an L-bend to it, so that it takes up half the store, and the employee makes a suggestion of a possible purchase, and I say no thanks, which causes the manager to start yelling at me that if the CSR suggests a purchase, I am supposed to accept it, when there is no such requirement.

I move back outside, and am trying to line up my pictures, showing the limited signage and the lots of litter, when I see someone walking out of a tube station, and I glance at them unbelievingly for a minute, then realize I recognize them. The actual image that I am looking at is David Tennant, but who it is supposed to be is Brandon Sanderson. I'm talking to him for a few seconds, and try to let him know how much I continue to enjoy his books, and he is asking what I am doing, so I briefly explain the mystery shopping thing, then he wanders off to whatever it is he is here to do.

I go back to trying to take pictures, but the manager is making an ever larger fuss, and there are a couple of punks hanging around who seem to be trying to steal my equipment. I've had enough of this shop, and am trying to pack my stuff (seemingly several still and video cameras) into my backpack, but in the process I leave my printer sitting there for a few extra seconds, and they try to run off with it, so I have to argue and wrestle a little bit to get it back.

I am just zipping it into my backpack, and planning how to avoid having anything more to do with the punks, when I spot Tennant/Sanderson walking away, and chase after him, down into a bit of a subway station, just to try and talk a little more. I am asking if I am correct in thinking this is a regular area for him, and mentioning that I thought I'd seen him here three months ago when doing the shop, but couldn't believe it. I also mention having read the three books kind of offered on his web site, but not (at the time) published.

01-24-2013 -- [Was sick yesterday, and dozed a lot, which means a very bad night of sleeping last night. Seems like I was waking up every 10 to 15 minutes. Because of this, though I had some great dreams or dream fragments, I couldn't take the time to write them down, or I'd have never gotten back to sleep. So, all I could do was memorize a general setting, so we'll have to see just how much of these I can manage to recall.]

Playing some sort of computer game, hints of maybe Runescape or Roller Coaster Tycoon, but its a live version, not playing on the computer. Anyway, I am running around and planting some seeds or placing some flowerbeds or things like that, and I soon find myself running through some odd rooms that kind of make me think of the flash powder factory.

Buried deep in this factory, something is going on, and people's lives are being threatened, and suddenly there is a super hero there to help save the day. I am thinking it might be Aquaman. Darn it. This was the earliest fragment of the night, and also one of the most interesting, but more and more of it is gone.

Anyway, we're now doing things in this area (not that I spend enough time in the flash powder factory to be sure that is where this is, but it is a place with odd rooms, obstacles and traps to make your way through) and there are a soon two or three heroes to help us. But if there are super-powered beings to help us, surely that'll mean there are super-powered beings against us, as well.

Sure enough, as we continue to fight through the area, we start being attacked by other super-powered beings. For our protection, the heroes are loading us into a sort of shuttle craft and launching it, hoping to get us away to safety ... if it can withstand the attack of the bad guys. I think there was some throwaway comment about Doctor McCoy not having a chance to test it because of the timing.

So there are super villains surrounding the shuttle as it takes off, and almost immediately the floor is buckling from multiple hits as I *think* Doctor Octopus is under there pounding on it with all his mechanical arms, and as the floor breaks in, the entire shuttle shakes apart. Suddenly we having flying or powered heroes (Superman, Iron Man, the likes) grabbing us and trying to fly after us, while similar heroes and villains are trying to stop them and catch us, all as shuttle bits rain down on the Earth. It was a rather cool scene.

---

I was down at the corner house at Hickory and Greenleaf, and we were in the process of putting up some Christmas decorations without the owner's approval, when the owner came bursting out with the cops. Somebody had been doing something bad around the place. I was afraid I would be in trouble, but the owner of the house says he isn't worried about the people that add to his Christmas decorations, even if he doesn't understand why they do, and I explain that we just like the two houses on the ends of the block to be really well decorated as they help to represent the neighborhood and draw people in to look at the decorations. Weird.

---

Half watching, half living a James Bond movie, that may have a small bit at a super market (I can remember just a hint) before a chase started. James was chasing the villain through a long tunnel in a mountain, while we're kind of watching the chase on some kind of monitor. We can see they are about to exit the tunnel, and we're right about the timing. But suddenly things shift to a meeting room where M and a couple of her people are meeting with another high government official, and it turns out to be the guy that James was chasing. He's within the government, itself, and they don't yet have the evidence to bring him down.

Soon I find myself standing in what half feels like a class room, and half seems to be a store in a mall. I have just finished watching the James Bond movie, and in a discussion about it, I end up winking at a sort of cute girl. Unfortunately, just about that time I start to recognize some things, and realize that I have been through this before, and some crooks are just about to attack this place.

Sure enough, four or five thugs burst into the room and start shooting. I act like I've been hit and collapse to the ground, while everybody else is running around screaming and getting shot. I start grabbing other people's legs and telling them "Get down, you fools!" and some listen and some don't. Eventually the bad guys quit shooting, and start to check on who they have and what shape they are in, and begin making threats for the information they want.

I've bided my time, and when they aren't expecting it, I strike back, knock some of them out, and me and some of the others make a break for it. As we make it out of the building we were in, but are still crossing the lawn to the parking lot, we see an attractive young woman still pushing her grandmother's wheelchair away from the scene, and we'd hoped they would have already gotten out of here, but I remember from the past time that they don't have anything the bad guys want, so I urge for us to keep on running, and tell them to continue fleeing as I can.

As we reach our cars and start driving off, I'm shown to have known what I was talking about, as the crooks run right past them, to reach their cars and continue chasing us. Soon we're driving through the streets, being pursued. I think eventually we have a confrontation in a mall parking lot, along with the cute lady, her grandmother, and her kids, who have been dragged back into things, but most the details are gone. Still a fun dream, though.

---

I'm not sure which came first, the game or the diner, so I'm just going to put the game first. I am sitting at a small card table somewhere, with a game of Risk before me. I am considering playing a game with myself, but find each color only seems to have 15 or 20 army pieces which aren't going to be enough to play with. So I am looking for the box, hoping it will contain more army pieces.

As I am looking, a couple of other people decide they are going to play, also, and sit down. But if we are going to play, there are things we need to do, including deal out the cards to claim the territories and roll dice to decide who is going to go first. So one guy, who might be Dave D., rolls his die, and I roll mine, and since I only rolled a one, it looks like he'll be going first. So I am in the middle of dealing the cards out into two piles, and two more people decide to join, so Dave grabs another stack of cards, and starts dealing them out for the other two people, and we have to redo the rolling to see who goes first.

Soon I find myself sitting in a diner, right as my food is being brought to me. I think I have a burger and some nice, crispy french fries. There is a guy sitting next to me, clean cut, seems friendly, very unoffensive. Seems like a cross between a Jimmy Stewart character and the 'Happiest Man in Springfield', just a really sweet, easy going guy.

Who doesn't seem to be from around here. He has ordered a meal and is waiting for it, but he doesn't seem to know what it is he is getting. He points at my fries and asks what they are, and I tell him they are french fries. The waitress comes up and asks him if she misunderstood him. Maybe he wants a baked potato instead? No, he says, some of these 'fries' should be just fine.

It's an old-style diner, which may make some sort of sense, because soon the buildings are shaking and bombs are falling from the sky, and it turns out to be in the middle of a battlefield somewhere in World War Two. I'm running out of the diner and looking for places I am needed, and I guess 'Jimmy' does as well.

Soon I see him standing near a soldier crouched with a radio (looks much like one of those little green army men from when I was a kid). It seems he can kind of read minds, even if he doesn't have nearly any clue of what it is he is hearing. So he is just babbling random thoughts and sentences in this guy's ear, of the various thoughts he is picking up, most of which are worthless, until suddenly he starts reading the orders that the enemy troops are being given, as they are being given, which is some very helpful information.

---

Probably at least one or two more fragments from the night, but I simply can't remember them at this time.

09-17-2012 -- [First off, this was not lucid, I did not know it was a dream while I was dreaming it, but part of why I remember the parts I remember so well is because I was recalling the details of what happened earlier in the dream in the dream, not trying to remember it as a dream, but for the possible lawsuit. Also there may have been more before this, and it may have been dull or interesting, but I can't actually remember anything further back than I tried to remember in the dream, except that I am certain that it did go further back. Takes a while to get to the weird, repeat dream, time travel parts.]

Somehow I am in a parking lot of a strip mall. Could be a lot of places, but I'm pretty sure it is on Colonial, near Highway 27 in Clermont. I have no idea why I am here, and everything seems to keep shifting, but I seem to be meeting mom here, and she seems to own a business.

For much of this portion, I am in the parking lot, along landscaped curbs, though it is a business, as well. At one moment, it seems to be a gym that mom owns (anybody who ever met my mom, who weighed over 400 pounds, would know this makes no sense), and at another, a sort of copy center. I am supposed to be doing some work for her, and my 'station' is a table, just sitting in this parking lot.

Somebody knocked the table over, and stuff is scattered on the floor. I am trying to get things straightened up again. Somehow this leads to some time cleaning up litter in the parking lot, and I am talking to mom's assistant, who is kind of cute, looks a little like Rosemary's friend Mary. End up picking up a small sort of alarm clock that has broken into three pieces and am putting it back together so it works.

I ask about it, and they are moaning that it shows the next three jobs we're supposed to be doing, and they are worried things won't get done because the alarm disappeared when the table got knocked over. I explain it was right underneath the table, and I fixed it, and they are happy about it. I am gently tearing what seems to be a page with three coupons on it out of a half-size coupon store thing like I once bought an ad in, as I wait for mom, who is talking to somebody else, inside the store, except that somehow it seems to be some kind of work order for us, regardless of the fact that it looks like a coupon.

Continue cleaning up scraps on the floor, and start to come across several old comic books (ones I have dreamed about in other dreams, within last couple of years) that are just randomly sitting half in the open, half under the tables (that are still out in the open in the parking lot). I am gathering them up to throw them away, except I halfway have some kind of idea that these are some sort of mid-range comic books that are kept under the tables to keep them out of the way. They aren't cheap enough to go in the regular bins, nor expensive enough to be put on the walls, but maybe $40 or $50 an issue. They include a lot of random titles, some old Green Lanterns, and a couple of old Spider-Mans. Somehow this leads to looking at some racks mom has of trade paperbacks, and I am glancing at the thick black and white archive editions of Green Lantern stuff that print 20 or 25 issues in a single $15-$20 newsprint volume, thinking when I have money and a job, I might want to buy a few more.

By this time mom's gym or printshop or comic store is closing for the day, and they are preparing to lock it up. I walk out of the store (finally inside) and head a little north in a mall the store is in. (Almost seems to be the Buena Park Mall). I think I am a few doors down from Sears, and am passing a bookstore that I decide I want to look through. When I first glance at it, it looks exactly like Waldenbooks, but when I look again, it seems to be a different bookstore.

They are probably about to close as well, but they say nothing as I start to browse. It is a long, narrow shop, like Waldenbooks was, and I am walking back the main aisle, looking at the displays on the right side as I head all the way back. As I get to the back, I see these strange mannequin-like figures that seem to be slightly moving or swaying. There is an incredibly long line of them, and they almost seem ready to go down like a row of dominoes.

By this time, I am driving down somewhat narrow roads around some attractive houses while looking at all these mannequins, and soon I am not driving, but being driven. Soon it seems like I am being driven around a very nicely landscaped seaside community. I am seeing people walking their dogs, and somehow I am recognizing things that I drove around or saw years and years ago, though I'm still trying to piece together exactly what it is I am remembering.

We are on our way back, and are getting close to the front of the store again, when I see a small red pick-up truck parked along the curb, and I am suddenly certain I remember that truck. Wasn't that the truck that Ashlyn Gear did a sex scene with some black guy in it? Wasn't it one of the hottest scenes I ever saw? The truck is quite an old model, from the late 70s or early 80s, but it looks brand new. As we're driving past it, I see a door in the building open, and a very young, vibrant Ashlyn Gear walks out and is heading for the truck, followed by a black guy, and everything kind of falls into place.

Back almost 25 years ago, when I was just barely legal, I somehow got a couple of video tapes. One had one pornographic scene on it, Ashlyn in the red truck. The other was a worn video tape of some kind of TV show that had been recorded (poorly) over a tape of porn scenes, and you could catch tiny bits of the porn flashing in and out of the newer stuff. The thing that had been taped over the top of the porn was a drive through the small, well-landscaped community.

I start to confront them about how I saw these tapes 25 years ago, and yet they are only filming them today. And somehow they have an Ashlyn Gear here that is about 25 years younger than the Ashlyn Gear of today. Obviously there is some kind of time travel going on here, and I want to know what is going on. They try to distract me by driving me through a different part of the community, showing me the route I actually remember from the video tape, yet denying there is anything odd going on. I'm asking them to drive slower as we pass the red truck, and am even considering stopping and trying to get into the act.

Soon I am back to the front counter, trying to demand the speak to the manager, except it has turned from a bookstore into a car dealership that sells old classic cars that seem to be absolutely brand new. I keep trying to demand to know about their time traveling method, and they keep acting like I am insane, while trying to sell me a brand new 1980 brown pick-up truck in the year 2012.

We argue for a little while, and I am threatening law suits, and am reminding myself of the entire typed-out portion of this dream in my mind so I can remember it to tell it to the lawyers. Soon I am in the brown pick-up truck, and seem to be kind of stealing it while the sales manager is threatening to call the cops. I tell him he calls the cops and I'll blow the whistle on his whole time-travel thing. I drive the truck out of his lot and on to Douglas Avenue in Altamonte, turning left to drive toward Altamonte Blvd.

[I have no way to prove it, but I am almost sure I had another dream that I was remembering in this dream of driving around the community, waiting for people to cross the street with their dogs, and so on ... though it feels like I dreamed it 10-12 years ago, and not 25 years ago. I can't remember if there were any hints of sex in that earlier dream. I can't remember any, but it kind of feels like it. Weird stuff.]

09-02-2012 -- Again, more bits that serious full dreams, but some interesting parts making it worth noting stuff down. Had trouble sleeping for no known reason, so lots of time spent half-dreaming dull, repetitive stuff involving picking up passengers in Railroad Tycoon without ever building stations. Strange stuff.

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Some kind of Alvin Maker dream, back in the 1800s. Can't remember much, except I am crossing mountains by climbing a much longer, taller than usual overpass. I get to the top of this thing, and half roll, half jump off a semi-cliff to reach the Indian lands to the west. I visit for a little while, and make plans to return the following year, but only after the spring thaws. The Prophet is laughing. He thinks things are going to happen in such a way that my time estimates will be off, and I'll actually be leading everybody else back just before the major snows of winter hit. Neat stuff, but can't remember most of it.

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Somehow branching off from the last bit, but in current time. I am driving across the country with two others, Dale, and another person, who is our navigator. Have no idea who he is, though. We're going all the way from Florida to California, and though I try not to ask too often, eventually I have to ask how we're doing, and have far we've gotten, though I promise I won't ask every few minutes, and it won't turn into "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? ..." Suddenly I don't have to ask, because I recognize the small town we've just entered. [Its not a real town, but one I have dreamed of before.] I can't put an exact name to it with any confidence, but I think it is about halfway across on our trip. [The last dream was a trip between California and Nebraska, so I think we're actually more than halfway through, since we're covering the whole country, and not just half.]

Anyway, we've arrived at this town, and it is late in the evening, and we're going to get a room for the night, and a meal. There is a pizza parlor here, and to motel also offers pizza. (Think it is an Econolodge.) I am explaining to Dale that the hotel's pizza is thinner, less toppings, and less tasty, but cheaper. The pizza parlor's pizza is much better tasting, and more filling, but it is also much more expensive, and he is having to decide which one we're going to eat for dinner. The same lady is working the front desk who was working it the ten years ago or so that I was here, and she almost seems to recognize me. Dale is asking about sodas, and she explains they have powdered milk or warm juice available to drink. There just aren't a lot of drink options at the motel, itself.

I refuse to worry about that, though, as I have just remembered that on the last trip through this town, they had Hostess Os donuts, and I'm about to run off and go looking for some. I start to walk out the back door to go get the car when I find somebody in a gorilla mask, carrying a gun. I am afraid I am going to be mugged, but it turns out to be the front desk clerk. She wears the mask and carries the gun when she goes outside to scare off anybody who might try to mug her. So I continue on my way to the car in search of donuts.

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Am at some odd sort of combination of a hospital or doctor's office and Fullerton College. I'm walking around, trying to find a way to talk to a nurse friend of mine, and just listening to what is going on. I overhear some conversation about how Peter Pyle took advantage of some sort of government program to form his own college -within- Fullerton College. [This is kind of like the way there are a bunch of colleges that make up Cambridge University, which makes sense, since I got to know Peter during the exchange program to Cambridge.] Gives him more control over what he wants to study, and I am thinking it sounds like a good idea.

Somehow I am putting on an old blue blazer from Pedus (first security company I ever worked for) in the hopes that nobody will notice me, and I can go looking for my nurse friend. It turns into a long white smock, which ought to blend in even better. I get distracted, though, by a friend who is looking at a large man-eating plant. [Think of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors.] This thing is young, and it can't talk yet. It actually seems slightly friendly, or least not evil. There are two pods (faces, thinking parts) and some of their vines have grown together, so they can't get too far apart. One of my friends is trying to untangle them, but with no real success.

I'm trying to take some pictures at them, and I discover they react at least somewhat well if you sort of cluck at them to draw their attention. Not cluck like a chicken, but like you might make slight sounds to get the attention of a cat or dog, without actually saying anything. One of the pods swings to look at me, and I try to take a picture, but I find my camera is a gun. Well, I find my camera is in the shape of a gun. I stare down the sight, pull the trigger, and it snaps a picture. Problem is, I'm not hearing the click I'm supposed to, so I don't know if it is really taking pictures or not. Anyway, I keep trying to get some good shots. It must be near Christmas time, because I see a marmalade cat shift out of the way as the Grinch peeks out of a hole in the wall above the plant, then pops back in. I call out to try and get it to reappear so I can take a picture of it. I think then gun scares it, though, because suddenly its the Doctor (not sure which one) revealing he was only dressing up as the Grinch.

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I find myself in the living room of the Hickory house with a couple of friends from high school. For some reason Amy F is asking if we can all remember an old TV show, and making comments about what station showed it. I'm not sure what the show was, might have been Bonanza or Big Valley, but whatever it was, I doubt she could remember the exact station it was shown on, anyway, so I'm kind of considering challenging her to prove what she says she can remember. But since she is sitting on the couch in a short, loose skirt, and crossing and uncrossing her legs a lot, and I am sitting on the floor with a nice view of it, I'm a little distracted. I don't see anything except a nice expanse of leg, but it's still a nice sight. The other friend is a blond that I can't identify, but she suddenly stands up and starts to strip off her shorts. I'm thinking things are starting to get interesting, but she's just running to the restroom with a lightning case of diarrhea. Yuck!