Thread: Asymptote's Dreams

9 December 2008

Deception and Lies

I'm in a convenience store that looks like the campus bookstore at my college. I'm trying to buy things for Christmas. I wander around, looking at all the food and ornaments.

The staff of the store is composed mostly of normal-looking people wearing aprons, but there's one employee who really stands out: a Spanish supermodel in a maroon dress. She's incredibly beautiful.

[discontinuity]

I start buying a bunch of ornaments and cake-decorating sprinkles (?), but I realize I've bought too much and start putting some of it back.

[discontinuity]

I'm talking to someone, and mention offhand my love for the piano song "Claire de Lune." To my surprise, I suddenly hear someone playing it. It's the beautiful supermodel woman. I feel incredibly drawn to her, and I start to notice that she keeps looking at me.

Eventually, she starts wandering around the store, and while I'm walking around, she stops in front of me and pulls a deep-fat-fryer off a shelf and shows it to me. I tell her that I probably shouldn't buy such a thing, since I'm on "a diet of toast and [something]."

Then, she kisses me. I'm incredibly happy and excited. We make out for a while, and walk around talking. Then, I realize that she's only being so friendly to try to get me to buy the fryer. I get so mad that I wake up.

I'm a Big Meanie

I'm at my parents' house. It's twilight. There are a bunch of little kids running around the yard, playing a game called "Kenya" [don't ask. I have no idea] My father and I go out to catch them and round them up. We make them line up in the driveway. One (or both) of us yells at them. They don't listen, and start throwing rocks at things. When one of them intentionally throws a rock at my father's car, I get really angry and threaten them all with a big chunk of concrete. They get scared, and I feel bad for being so harsh, but I think "I can't stop now..."

22 December 2008

NOTE: I transcribed this dream almost directly from my paper dream journal, so if it doesn't make sense in places or the wording seems odd, that's why. I get the feeling that this dream has some deep meaning I'm not aware of, but I haven't worked it out yet.

State of the Art

I'm in the future, and I feel terribly out-of-place there. I have an extremely advanced computer (that looks sort of like a gun made of a bunch of jointed cubes connected together). You unfold it by swiveling the cubes in weird ways. I'm in a college-like building. I'm in a room with a big U-shaped table. The open part of the "U" faces a big window that takes up one whole side of the room. Through the window, I can see something that looks like a factory floor. I (and the other people in the room) am trying to do something. It would be a lot easier if I used the computer-thing, but I can't figure out how to work it. Most of the other people have normal keyboard-based computers. If I could use my computer, which is much more advanced, I'd be way ahead of them, but I can't.

We're performing virtual surgery. I can't figure out how to connect my computer to the network. There's a little panel on one of the cubes that says "DANGER: The photosphere of a STAR." I open the panel. There's a laser shining from inside, and I try to point that at a laser port (or something) in the corner of the room, but I still can't connect.

Nobody will help me. We get a thirty-minute break. I wander through the hallway. I ask a guy if there's a place where I can buy a cable to connect my device to the simulation. He says there is, but when I ask him where, he says something cryptic that sounds like an address, but isn't. Then he says I'll need to talk to the guy online to use the store [in other words, I need to be able to connect to the Internet so that I can open the store and buy a cable to connect to the Internet...]. I'm about to go find the store when I realize that I can't go online.

I end up in a modern-looking room near a bank of elevators. There's glass and metal and marble everywhere. There are ads for "The Wizard of Oz" outside. Someone's written something in smoke in the sky [like in the movie] to promote the movie. I get into the elevator. It's very futuristic. I almost go down, but then I realize that I don't know what floor I'm on, so I won't know what floor to go to when I go back up. I step out of the elevator and see that I'm on the 62nd floor. That fact makes me flinch. The security guards start chasing someone, but it's not me so I lose interest. I decide to go up the emergency stairs instead of using the elevator. The stairs are weird and plastic and mechanized so that only the few stairs in front of and behind the one you're actually standing on are extended, and the rest of the time, they retract. It's too complicated for me, so I don't go up.

[discontinuity]

I'm still into the building, being led through the hallway by someone who I know is my ally. He takes me to a small, dimly-lit room and tells me not to talk to anyone. Inside the room, a guy tries to talk to me, but I don't talk back. He takes some things out of my bag or my pocket, and starts looking through my passport and other effects. I still don't say anything. He says some things in German, incantations meant to make me fat [or something]. Still, I don't say anything. Suddenly, a little cartoon-like clay head rolls into the room. One of its eyeballs is on fire, and I realize that it's a bomb. Parts start to fall off, and more of it catches fire as it's about to explode. I run.

[discontinuity]

At some point, I end up flying out a window. My "ally" shoots me a rope and pulls me back up.

Apparently, I have a family. A woman I'm now traveling with (who is also my ally) says "Oh great, you're not together are you?" (meaning me and my other ally). "I'm married," I reply.

We're going down the highway. The city's so big and overpopulated that the roads are one-way, but they switch: in the morning, you can only drive into the city, and in the evening, you can only drive out. It's evening, but there are no other cars on the road. There's a big thunderhead in the sky. I start talking to my two allies, telling them how much my son loves "Firefighter Garraty," his school's fire marshal.

A guy passes us on a bicycle. I compliment him on being "old-school." He doesn't care.

24 December 2008

NOTE: Like my previous dream (see above), this one is transcribed almost directly from my dream journal, so it may not make sense. Also like the last dream, it seems to have some deep psychological meaning that I can't quite get at. I'll be on the lookout for more symbolism.

Conversion

I'm with a guy I know of from the Internet, in the spare bedroom of my house. The guy starts playing a Weird Al Yankovic song while we build something. There's a knock at the window. I open the blinds to see who it is. It's my uncle Kenny. The Internet guy looks doubtful, but I open the door anyway. Kenny looks a lot more clean-cut than usual.

"Kenny?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says.

"What's going on?"

"Well, I saw this ad in the Bible that said Christians are supposed to convert atheists [I'm an atheist], so I brought the potion--" I cut him off.

"No thanks!" He gives up immediately, but I'm suddenly very nervous.

"Okay," he says. I feel bad for cutting him off.

"Thanks for caring enough to try," I say.

"Okay," he says.

"It's not like I don't want to believe. Sometimes, that would make things easier. I just can't." He drinks the potion from the flask. It looks like soda or beer. Eventually, he leaves. I get angry, and start wandering around, looking for things to break. I bend the trigger of a staple gun, then walk into the street. I end up punching the hood of a passing SUV and punching out two of the windows. The woman driving is frightened and drives away quickly, but I still try to figure out how to run away.

Lucid bits in blue.
Semi-lucid bits in green.

29 December 2008

Starvation

There's a very tall girl who eats a lot. Somehow, she eats enough that there's no food left over for her mother. Finally, the mother says something like "If you don't stop eating I'm going to starve to death."

SP and an LD Within a Dream

[This one's a little fragmented because I was oscillating between reality and the dream]

I'm laying on my bed, then I'm laying on a carpet somewhere. I feel sleep paralysis come on, and for a change, actually make it through without waking up or falling into unconsciousness. I realize that I'm dreaming. Still laying down, I reach over with one hand and scoop up a handful of sand, amazed by how real it feels. Then I wake up.

Lucid bits in blue.
Semi-lucid bits in green.

2 January 2009

Science Video

I'm in some sort of instructional or science video. I'm walking around a place that looks like a construction site. There's mud everywhere, and the science equipment is shiny and new. A lot of it has labels written on it in German, but the narrator speaks in English. I walk around looking at things. It's very muddy. Eventually, I start down a road (or rather, a deep rut in the dirt). It's even muddier on the road. I start up a hill, but end up sliding back down.Someone starts running over to help me, but I don't want them to. I start back up the hill, holding on to the tracks left by some giant piece of construction equipment. When I start to slide again, I growl "Verdammt!" [the German word for "Damn!"]

I reach the top of the hill, and eventually end up in front of a weird brick building or tower. THe narrator says something about destruction.

I reach the top of the tower (maybe by climbing, maybe not), and I find that the bricks aren't held together by mortar or anything else, they're just stacked together. I push some of the bricks off the edge and they start to fall. Then, the whole top layer of bricks shifts. I fall or slide down the side of the tower and watch it collapse in slow motion. Suddenly, I'm in the entrance hall of my parents' house, and I watch the top layer crash to the floor in a shower of bricks and a cloud of dust. I keep wondering if the weight will crack the floor, but it doesn't. Then, the rest of the tower lands in the entry hall. Still, the floor doesn't crack. It dosen't quite make sense to me that the floor hasn't cracked, and it seems like a lot of the bricks that should have fallen are missing. Suddenly, the bricks that have fallen jerk sideways and get sucked out the front door. I run through the door and into the yard. Time is going very fast (like fast-forwarding a video), and there's a tornado dancing around out there. This, I realize, explains where the rest of the bricks went, and why that top layer jerked away like it did. The tornado sucks something away.

Eventually, time returns to its normal speed, and I take a picture of the tornado with my cellphone's camera. I walk around, watching other small tornadoes swirl around. I keep worrying that they'll blow my hat away. At one point, I put my hand into one. It's a very small tornado no thicker than my wrist, and the feeling of having my hand in it is odd but pleasant.

The view switches to a semi-third-person view. A man is showing his son the tornadoes over by my father's greenhouse.

I'm in my parents' driveway, and now, I can see what caused all the tornadoes: there's a big gust of wind coming, as evidenced by the huge rolling dust cloud moving towards me. There's a huge, frightening storm cloud in the sky, but when I look back at the dust cloud and then look back up, the cloud has mostly disappeared and blown away. Both clouds have a very weird look to them that's hard to describe. Their outlines are too strong, somehow, and it looks to me like I'm watching it on an old piece of film.

A man is talking about God while I watch the storm. I'm waiting for more tornadoes, but none come.

Lucid bits in blue.
Semi-lucid bits in green.

10 January 2009

NOTE: This dream actually has a plot (sort of), so I organized it into parts in chronological order.

Part 1: Death in the Town Square
A woman (an advocate of animal rights or natural foods or something) is dying in a city square. There are enormous purplish skyscrapers on all sides. The woman has cancer or something, and has refused treatment. I'm kneeling next to her. She talks about how some male relative of hers got testicular cancer and was doing okay for a while but then died. I try to take her pulse, but she doesn't want me to, she doesn't want to be saved.

Part 2: In the Yard
I'm in my parents' yard at night. My mother is out there. A helicopter flies overhead, carrying musical panels of stained glass. It's like a concert. I like the music, but my father comes out into the yard and complains about it.

Part 3: The Mall
I'm in a mall. There are a lot of people around. I'm watching (or maybe experiencing) the story of an autistic man who had therapy when he was very young and is fairly socially-functional. However, his life is ruled by a little electronic box which keeps "score" in different areas of his life (interpersonal interactions, etc.). He starts talking to a girl, asking her about her score (apparently, he's gotten other people keeping score, too). She mentions my friend Charlie's head injury [more on that later].

Just like in a movie, some tough guys are making fun of the autistic man, making fun of his little electronic box and hacking into it, making it display weird data. Somehow, they start chasing him through the mall. I think This kind of movie is always the same: they're going to catch him and break his little box, and then he'll get his heartwarming revenge.

Part 4: The Parking Lot
A damp, rainy parking lot. My father and I are walking towards a bus/truck. I ask him about the rumor that my friend Charlie has suffered a head injury. He says it's true. I ask him if Charlie's all right. He says that he has some expensive device, and mentions some other weird expenses (apparently necessitated by the head injury). I ask him about Charlie's memory. He gives a rambling, cryptic answer as I get into the cab of the bus/truck and put on my seatbelt. I have to sit in the back because there's no seatbelt in the front passenger's seat.

19 May 2009

Calm Before the Storm
I'm walking through the parking lot of an apartment complex. It's late at night and the sky is dark. The pavement is damp from the rain. I'm worried: apparently there's some sort of war going on.

Suddenly, there's a bright flash that illuminates the dark clouds covering the sky. I'm terrified, because I know that this is the beginning of a nuclear war. I hurry into a parked car and sit there while I wait for the shockwave. I'm hit by a blast of fiery wind, which doesn't hurt me. I get out and hurry up into one of the apartment buildings.

Planning
The apartment is full of people, most of whom I don't know, but some of them are members of my family. I stand at a desk by the window. I'm scared to death: I know that society is going to break down and that I'm not going to be able to survive in a lawless world. I talk with my family, then start gathering supplies. We're planning to leave the city before things get too bad.

As we're getting ready to leave the apartment, I confide in my father, telling him how scared I am. This could be the last day of my life, and that terrifies me.

We leave.

Savages

We're somewhere near the apartment complex, but everything is in ruins. The world is gray and foggy and dark. We hide somewhere and watch gangs of vigilantes and savages roam the streets, killing and looting. I hate them with all my heart, and I'm worried about what will happen to my parents.

Meeting on a Hill

Somehow, I escape from the most dangerous part of the city, and find myself on a wooded hill. It's dark and foggy, maybe early morning. There's a man in a business suit talking to somebody. He's a businessman, and is trying to figure out how he can make money in the post-apocalyptic world and maintain his business. I scramble up the hill and escape.

Father
I head back towards the city. I find my father in a burned-down suburb. I gather some supplies. Savages come, and my father kills them. I leave him to go in search of my mother.

Mother
I find my mother in a car, being held hostage by a savage with a gun. I get into the car, and end up shooting the savage in the hand. He lets go of my mother. I grab his fingers and bend them backwards until they break. The man starts crying and begging for mercy. I break his other hand, then chop off both hands with a knife.

The Archive
I go with my mother back into the city, and find a museum or library I'd visited earlier. There are shelves crammed with reels of film or magnetic tape. The inside of the building is dirty, gray, and covered in ash. I open the bag where I keep my supplies and start pulling down reels of film and stuffing them into the bag. I tell my mother that I've got to try to save some little piece of history if I can.

August 7th, 2009

The Kidnapped Houseplant
My houseplant isn't in its usual place. When I find it, it's sitting on the the railing on the balcony of a huge, damp, sagging wooden apartment building. The rain and sun have activated the organic fertilizer I'd put on the plant, and the soil is fuzzy and green. The plant is huge now, its trunk is as thick as two fingers. It's much taller and stronger than before.

Eventually, I reach it and start to take it home, but when I touch its trunk, it falls apart in my hands.

August 19th, 2009

Well-Armed

My mother and I are in a convenience store that also sells guns. We each buy a gun and then talk about how we're going to hide them. My mother plans to buy a bunch of realistic toy guns and put them in a box with the real one to disguise it. I'm planning to ask the woman working the counter for whatever cheap or broken guns she can spare, to do the same thing.

If Jesus Had a Go-Kart, I Would be Jesus

I'm in a little go-kart, driving around a forested park. I start driving across a pond. I'm going really fast, flying along the surface of the water. It's amazing. I worry a little bit that the kart will sink, because I paid good money for it. It doesn't, and I reach the far shore. Someone summons me back home.

I'm in my parents' yard. There are piles of wood chips there. I approach one of the piles. I can't climb up it because it's too steep. Eventually, I managed to make part of the pile collapse, and I start to climb up. A truck like my father's old one approaches and tries to drive up the pile, but gets stuck. I'm not worried, though.

6 September, 2009

THE SIGNAL

My parents and I are driving around a parking lot near an airport terminal. I get the idea that something bad is about to happen. We drive between two rows of parked cars. Behind us, I notice one of the airport security cars driving in a circle in the lot. I get suspicious. Something is happening, something that's changing the people.

Further along, there's a car sitting on the side of the road with smoke and fire belching from the engine. I'm starting to get very nervous by this point. Up ahead, three or four more cars are on fire, and their drivers are all standing in the parking lot, looking bewildered.

Suddenly, our car's warning light's start coming on. The engine temperature light and the low fuel lights are both on, and I know the car's about to catch fire, so I yell for everybody to get out. The moment we're out, flames start belching from the rear wheel wells, and then from the passenger compartment. My mother and I hurry over to the car. She gets the fire extinguisher while I try to pull our luggage out before it gets burned. Apparently, the stuff we were carrying was of sentimental value. I pull out some suitcases, then a pile of shopping bags, and finally, my mother's carry-on bag, which is on fire and burns my hand. Once we've got it all out, we hurry away from the car.

There are a lot more security cars driving up and down the parking lot. We make our way to an unoccupied area near the entrance to the terminal. Clearly, something awful is going on. The people in the parking lot are changing somehow. I keep getting the feeling that someone might pop out from one of the doors, so I start running as fast as I can back towards the occupied area, with my parents running behind me. We stop as we see a young man in a candy-stripe polo shirt being chased by a group of ten or so people in their traveling clothes. Whatever is wrong with these people, I know they're going to try to kill everybody else.

An old lady in the group stops and comes at me. She can't attack me, because she's holding what looks like an ice cream sundae. I grab it and push it back at her, smashing it on her face, then running for the security gates that lead out of the parking lot. I run up to the little booth, and press the button that's supposed to unlock them. The screen says something, and I know we can't go through that way. We'll have to go back to the parking lot where the crazy cops and people are, and get out via the public gates.

On the way, I see a little girl bargaining with a tall, fat man. She's one of the ones affected by the Signal, and she's trying to talk the man into giving her a penny for the gumball machine. Eventually, she gets one, and the fat man says:

"You know, people these days don't think a penny's worth anything, but now that you've got one, you've only got six hundred and ninety-nine to go before you have a dollar!"