Recent DJ Posts

I've been an extremely lazy dreamer lately so there hasn't been much to write about, but this dream occurred the other night after creating my character for Dragon Age: Inquisition. The appearance editor was so detailed that I ended up spending almost three hours designing my character's face! So the "make-up artist" theme of this dream was obviously day residue, but toward the end it became a little stranger.

I was a make-up artist, and a client came to me to have her rouge re-applied. She had attempted to do it herself but it hadn't been going well. She had chosen a very dark wine-red, and I started by trying to apply symmetrical circles of it on her cheekbones, that I planned to blend in later. I, too, was having trouble placing them symmetrically, and had to keep daubing on new circles.

The young woman looked very different from when last I'd seen her. Normally she came to me once a week; how long had it been since we'd seen each other? I remembered that our schedules had been at variance for a couple weeks, and last week she had planned to come but I'd had to cancel, so we must have missed three appointments altogether. That meant I hadn't seen her in a month, and apparently during that time she had transformed her whole appearance.

I had noticed some red scaly patches on her skin and diplomatically refrained commenting on them. I was glad of my tact when I realized they were a tattoo! Two lines ran from the back of her neck over the rim of her skull on both sides and down her face in a V-shape, down her forehead, skirting her eyes, and then down her cheeks to meet at a point on her chin. "How did they do the texture?" I asked, genuinely impressed, as I ran my fingers gently over the tattooed skin, impressed how life-like the crocodile-skin pattern was, how red and shiny and raised in individually structured squares. I thought I remembered reading something about this technique, about how the ridges of raised skin had to be individually sewn into shape until they set.

I was dissatisfied with the outcome of my attempts to apply the blush and moistened a cloth to wipe it all off and start over. I realized that the color was wrong. I explained that the wine-red she had chosen was a good color for one in the peak of health, but she was under a lot of fatigue and needed to choose something more subtle for best effect. I had a sort of mauve that was way too bland and washed out, but decided finally on a softly muted orange-gold shade. Meanwhile I was only now noticing the full extent of the girl's new body modifications, and started asking about them.

She explained that she had been trying out a new job in Portland, Oregon. That didn't surprise me at all, given her new look. Her reasons for going didn't sound like the best, though. She explained that a guy had started working at her company, and she had found him despicable, but then she thought she might try out being despicable too, so she was working a stint at his company, which was in Portland. I wasn't sure how long she thought this was going to last, but held my tongue and hoped for the best. But why would she get face tattoos for a job that probably wouldn't even last? It might not matter to her current employer, but it could make it hard to get hired somewhere else later. Attitudes about tattoos are becoming a lot more relaxed, but large face tattoos are still regarded as somewhat extreme. I noticed that in addition to the large lines of red scaly skin, there were two other smaller tattoos on her face in different colors that I hadn't noticed at first.

"I can tell you've been to Portland," I commented obliquely, after she had finished her story.

"How?"

"It's the only place I've seen head piercings on a regular basis." I was deliberately choosing my words to describe an example of some extreme body-mod that she was not currently exhibiting, which was difficult because the longer I looked at her, the more modifications I saw. And even my attempt to be tactful by avoiding comment on her specific modifications backfired: at my words she promptly demonstrated that she had a head piercing as well, a thick chain threaded through two round holes in the crown of her skull. Hanging decoratively from the chain was an eight-ball. Had she been trepanned earlier, I wondered? If so then they only would have had to add a single extra hole to create the piercing. The rig looked very heavy, though. I remembered that pool balls were always a lot heavier than they looked. And why an eight-ball? Was she aware that it was a gang symbol in some places?

In all my life, I can recall two dreams about dragons. The first was in childhood and the dragon was something more like Godzilla. The second is the following dream I had a few months ago and neglected to post to Dream Views.

I was walking across an abandoned bridge. It was clearly abandoned as there were broken down cars and a number of makeshift shanty homes on it. It was day light and the sky was bright but completely overcast. I didn't see a single person on the bridge. As I walked along the bridge I looked over the edge. Below, on the shore was a forest and more shack-like homes. I saw this rouge-ish looking woman with red hair standing with a rugged looking man.

They spotted me and started anxiously motioning to something in the woods behind them. Out from the woods, crawling on all fours was an enormous gray dragon. Around its neck was a frill of flesh like a lizard. It was around the size of a full sized bus. As soon as I got a clear view of it, I took off running further down the bridge.

I recall thinking, "I doubt it can make it up here quickly." It looked too massive for much speed and it wasn't walking particularly fast. I got to section of the bridge that actually had multi-story apartment-like buildings. I ran to it, turned the corner, and hid behind a cement support column. I thought I lost it. I waited a few moments and peaked around the column.

Rounding the corner, completely silently was the dragon. It was opening its mouth, which looked like an enormous black beak. Its eyes were black with some white showing and it looked intelligent. An enormous burst of flames came steaming out of its mouth directly at me. It was a furious fire filled with wind. The wind generated by the breath, apart from the fire seemed dangerous and absurdly powerful.

I pulled back in time to avoid the flames but the cement column I was standing behind was breaking apart like cheap plaster.

I suddenly had the sense that I was not just confronting a dragon. But something very evil. Perhaps even the devil. The fire was still blasting past me. Some strength started building inside me. I felt the power to strike back even though I was unarmed.

I looked into my right hand and concentrated. A black energy started to draw inward to a single point in the center of my palm. An energetic black sphere started to form. It grew to about the size of baseball.

As soon as the fire stopped, I leaned out from around the corner and threw the black fireball as hard as I could directly at the dragons face. It exploded with such force the dragons head violently flung backwards and it made an expression of shock. I took off running into the apartment complex. I came to a wood door which I entered and locked behind me. The door lock was very old fashioned, and weak. I looked around and was in a run down bathroom. I could hear the dragon forcing its way into the hall way. The flimsy wooden door trembled with its footsteps. I recall thinking, if it can smell me in here I am caught for sure.

-Then I woke up.