I · talk · in · a · daze, · I · walk · in · a · maze...

I know it's been a while, but all my dreams of late have been for the most part either disturbing to an extent I won't write down, or so boring they don't necessitate comment. Laundry is not exactly entry-worthy material...unless it is the epic laundry quest through zombie-land to fetch the magic peach which will cure all my clothes of dirt and enable them for internet. Right.

One fun part though, from a while ago, for an amusing change: fencing with bread rolls, and the line "you are not the pants ninja!"

I think one of the issues is I've gotten nowhere near enough sleep...onward then, in the hopes this may change...

Some time ago I had a discussion on dreams with my friend and her boyfriend, in which I described my alternate universe dream...some months later he decided that he wants to write a graphic novel based on it, called Riverside, which is the name he has assigned to the city our narrator lives in.

I want to steal his brain...the expansions and backstory he's developed based on what I've said is a marvelous framework and though it has some diversions, it fits the general atmosphere very well. Excitedness!

So, back when I lived in the Harem (old apartment, for those who don't know), I dreamed that there was a large tree growing out of one of the walls of our kitchen, where the table was.

A man named Bob had decided to climb this tree, but unfortunately for him, many leaf-shaped camoflage bugs lived on the tree, and wanted to eat him. They crawled over him and stuck him to the tree by injecting him with venom to make him unable to move--despite this, he didn't suspect a thing, because they pretended to welcome him to the tree as a guest: they had made a banner saying "Congratulations, Bob!" and strung it across the top branches, and so he was rather complacent about the whole business. Allesy and I knew different...we tried to save him by prying him off, or failing that, by prying the leafbugs off him, but we couldn't find anything quite the right shape or leverage in the kitchen. Eventually we settled on chopsticks, but even still our efforts were unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, Don Lot observed us from the living room and gave occasional advice, but otherwise did nothing to help.

I suspect Bob got eaten.

So, I had to do a sleep study a few weeks ago for insurance purposes (long story), and it involved many electrodes and monitors and wires, plus camera and intercom, and what with the promise of waking me up at 6:30 because the facility is technically closed on the weekend, it's a wonder I got any sleep at all. But I did, eventually, and afterwards they had me fill out a worksheet on how rested I felt, how many times I thought I woke up, etcetera. The last two questions involved whether I dreamed (yes) and if so, could I describe my dreams. There was about an inch of space provided, so I just drew a big arrow and wrote "see back."

There were random parts that didn't really fit in within a narrative, involving going down the elevator in a multi-story concrete parking structure along with a woman carrying a pile of fabric, and showing someone at the bottom my leather gloves. Also I was sharing the room with another study participant, who knew one of my coworkers on Battlestar Galactica, who was always the wild one in her family. The main plot, though, had me standing on a street corner with several children, and all of us were dressed up because we were waiting to meet with a rich and powerful man who would help us by giving us money. It was ironic we were dressed the way we were, said a girl in our group, because then he wouldn't think we needed any help in the first place. It became obvious after a while, however, that he wasn't coming, and we were hungry. Another group of children came towards us--they were dressed in rags, and appeared to live on the streets, but they were all carrying small paper bags full of food. We decided to trade with them, but we didn't have any food of our own, so we traded the yellow dress that the girl was wearing. As it was her dress, I ended up with the job of finding food for her first. I looked through the bags, and found pizza all squished up, meanwhile the girl hovered over me saying "no, give me salty!" until I found her slices of sausage off the pizza. "Yes, just like that!" she cried, and so I kept looking for more sausage.

There was something about a birthday party, but currently it eludes me. And then it was 6:30, and I was not pleased.

Ah, I have neglected this quite a bit. So, before I can forget them entirely, dreams to be written up:

-kitchen tree/Bob/Don Lot
-Alessy's snapple modeling/government regulations
-sleep study: street corner, food trade, party
-california driving contest?

-Kendra and I, having finished our exams, are driving to California from one of the middle states. Amanda is with us, for the purpose of finding a runaway girl in San Francisco. She insists on riding in the trunk, saying that we shouldn't worry; she'll be just fine in there. Note: when I told the real Amanda what dream-her had done, her reply was, "Yeah, I'd probably fit in the trunk," so in this case, her dream-self was perfectly in character.

-Two poltical candidates (a left-wing one and a right-wing one) are walking along a beach, backwards (like tour guides), leading crowds of their followers. They're walking in the same direction, and I'm trying to follow the left-wing one, but I accidentally walk up a wooden ramp and get stuck walking behind the right-wing politician, who is shouting about sodomy and bestiality and sin, and I try to tell the person next to me that I don't belong here, I belong on the sand, and they agree and say that they should be down there too, but there's a wall in the way and we can't go back through.

So, I've been a lazy thing and not updated, and there'll be a snippets post to follow about those dreams I can't remember all the bits of, but first, the product of last night, I present:

( Mutants! Lord of the Rings! )

Today while having my wisdom teeth out, I was under some lively (apparently) anesthesia, as my head was full of dreams of orange. There were orange pillows on an orange bed in a tiny orange room, and for some reason, floating strands of orange muscle and veins in the air. And then I woke up and flailed around a lot, so now I get IV marks on both arms. People will think I'm a heroin fiend. Ah, all for some silly teeth.

I'm trying to figure out this dream-within-dream phenomena, as it seems to be a common occurrence, if media and personal experiences are any judge. It seems to appear, in many cases, to be related to the type of situation portrayed--usually stressful, or would be to the person were it really happening. Last night, for example, it was all "job interview? what job interview? But I thought..." even though I do already have a job, and possibly all times during finals week when I keep thinking I've woken up to take them but I haven't. Other times, of course, we get complete random, relaxing or puzzling ones, like several years ago, when I was sleeping over at a friend's house. I had a dream involving apples in some way, woke up and told her about it, and then woke up from waking up to tell her about it, after which in real life, I promptly told her what had happened.

Point two of dream-real life intersections is when sounds that are really occurring intersect dreams--suddenly an alarm goes off, or there is knocking, for example, but it's only people/electronics trying to wake you up. I mention this because I'm still confused, this morning, as to whether there really *are* loud french people outside. There are certainly construction workers outside, as the loud sawing would indicate, but I dreamed that I heard a loud french conversation outside my window, and was telling Alessi, who is french, about it. And then she reminded me of my job interview. Oh well, tis a mystery.

Random bit of a dream from earlier this year:

Someone says to someone else: "I'll kill you like an Oscar Wilde novel!"

"What's an Oscar Wilde novel?" they ask.

Now we see two men in 20s-era suits riding a 20s-era motorbike, one on the seat and one in a sidecar. They both have bowler hats and flowers in their lapels, and they drive by and shoot the person with tommyguns.

This is one of the longest and most involved dreams I can remember. And absolutely true.

( In which I am Samuel L. Jackson, the reporter... )

before I get on with the large-scale recap, here are some snippets of dreams that I couldn't quite remember the rest of, but which are amusing nonetheless...all names refer to people I know in real life.

-I am sent on a quest for coconut-flavored jelly beans
-Jackie and I are trying to smuggle milk, which we extract from a computer
-I'm in the dorm hall. Ryan rushes out to tell me that there are men with guns who are going to kill us. Matt comes out of his room and says, "They don't have guns. They have oatmeal." I say: "Yeah, a big bowl of oatmeal."
-I'm up in bed, and Ryan is saying there's a rat--there is, and it's crawling up the curtain. Colin, who's sitting down below on a chair, grabs the rat, puts its head in his mouth, then takes it out and says "Go away." to it. At other points, there is a powder that boils water and Matt calls me a dragon.

...and we are the dreamers of dreams, and thus my journal was created, so the infinite strangeness that is my unconscious mind might be shared with the world! To catch myself up, I'll start by posting some past ones, and from then on, we're hopefully in the same boat of anticipation as to what's going to happen next. Whee!