screaming into a pillow

I will probably die from this.

2007-08-29T16:55:00.000-07:00

Holy Crap, I have really got to get a grip on this sleep apnea thing.
They say that, over time, sleep apnea can do a lot of damage, and not just to relationships (I have yet to meet a man who thinks waking him up, gasping for air with a purplish tint and tears running down my face is cute). I guess the idea is that reducing oxygen to the brain, even if it's just for a minute, can have a cumulative effect and will eventually cause heart and brain damage...awesome.

That said, it probably has a lot of power in determining the theme of some of the dreams I have. The whole drowning, suffocating, monster on my chest, panic that I experience during non-waking hours just might have less to do with the enormous and constant stress I am under than some biological or psychological dysfunction I have picked up in the past two years which causes me to stop breathing.

Or maybe elves are sneaking into my room and trying to smother me in my sleep...I'm not really sure...

I had somehow managed to get a job as a school counselor. I don't think I applied for or otherwise sought out this job, because I was decidedly not into it. I was getting a tour of the school from the principle or something and we were walking through the cafeteria, filled with obnoxious and very loud middle school aged kids. I just wanted to take the damn tour, but the principle was determined to make me interact with the little monsters and I ended up taking over "lunch duty". I was helping the little bastards clear their trays and trying to calm them down to human levels and all the other glamorous activities that go along with the position of "lunch room professional".
I was really not into it.
not at all

After the not-at-all-fun tour of lunch duty, I went up to the office to fill out paperwork and was introduced to the other "mental health professionals" (read: social workers. bless their hearts) who would be showing me around for the rest of the day. It was a big school.

We walked through the school as a group with some weird social worker man as our fearless leader. He was a snotty queen and did not speak to me. Actually, none of them spoke to me. So not only did I feel a great sense of dread regarding the craptastic job that had just fallen into my lap, I felt out of place and unwanted. Again, awesome.

Guess what? the school was apparently housed in the same building as the jail in which I did my internship (a waking reality, though there is no school there). As we were walking through the hall that connected the jail and the school, I saw some women that (waking) I had sort of worked with at the jail. They were getting on an elevator so I decided to ditch the douchy social work gang and I launched myself onto the elevator just as the doors were closing. The two women were really happy to see me and were all huggy and stuff (in real life I would never touch them. I don't hug). I was actually pretty glad to see them too--genuinely, not just because they represented an escape from the group I had been with.

We rode down on the elevator and were catching up and all that perfunctory crap, when a voice from the elevator's speaker said hello to me. It was one of the men from the jail. we talked for a minute and then he (who was controlling the elevator) decided to screw with me.

this is probably when I stopped breathing

He dropped the elevator really fast. really really fast. I was holding on to one of the women I was with because I was afraid I would be thrown around the elevator. I felt like I was going to pass out because the pressure was all wonky.

Then the shape of the elevator started to change. First, it started shrinking. Then it went from the traditional cube-like elevator shape to a spherical, submarine vessel thing. You know those little round observation shuttle-y thingies with the bubble-y windows that look like they belong on fast food restaurant playgrounds? No? well figure it out, because it was just like that.

One of the women I was with started yelling at the elevator controller guy, "STOP!!! TOO FAST, TOO FAST!!!"

We finally stopped dropping and one of the women quickly ejected herself through a little hole in the ceiling. I guess we were all going to exit the elevator that way because the other woman I was with went over to the hole like she was going to exit, too. Unfortunately, there was water leaking into the elevator-submarine-thing and she couldn't get out. She shouted to the controller and he was able to fix the problem (no idea how) long enough for her to leave.

Ah, poor little me...it was too late.
I found myself stuck on the elevator (which was filling with water) alone. Even the controller guy wouldn't respond to me.
I wasn't even struggling as the elevator filled. i just stood there until the water was over my head.

then I woke up.

alive.

and blue.

x

sure, I'd love to go for a swim in your bedroom

2007-06-04T14:42:00.000-07:00

this one's short and foggy, but it seemed significant.

I was living in a big, super awesome house. The bedroom was upstairs and really open, if that makes sense. there was a lot of space, you know? It was a nice night out so I decided to move my bed out to the deck. Actually, I am only calling it a deck because I was able to roll my bed out to it. It was probably the roof.
I don't remember all the details, but I remember the feeling that I had in that space. It's hard to describe, I guess...it was...mine? peaceful? nonthreatening? hell, I don't know...I felt free to move around in my house without hesitation; and if we are to assume the house to be symbolic of something bigger, that freedom is not commonly encountered in my waking hours...
.it was good.

I woke up and found that there was about two feet of standing water on the floor (roof) and it was starting to soak my bed. I also realized that I had been completely bound in spider webs as I was sleeping. They were really thick and sticky so I couldn't move very well. Think big sticky mummy--but cuter. It was weird, because everything was all gauzy and I could hardly see, but I knew what was going on.

Surprisingly, I wasn't freaked out or anything; I just started tearing my way out of the spider webs. It was tough. The webs around my legs were the first to tear and once there was a good rip in the web I was able to peel the rest off.

.weird.

damn waiters

2007-05-28T00:41:00.000-07:00

There were about 15 people staying at my house. I know most of them from various places of employment but several auxiliary members were there as well. maybe half of my house guests were sleeping in my bed with me, including this boy that I had a "thing" with almost a year ago.
the boy and I waited until everyone fell asleep and decided to make out...heavily. OK. I'm not gonna lie; just about everything but actual intercourse was involved in the interaction. It was a very detailed dream...
Someone started opening my door (yes we were in my bed with about 6 other people) so the boy hid under my blanket. My boss (who is presently incredibly pissed at me) walked in and gave me a very accusing look. She said, "what do you think you're doing?" and pulled back the blanket. She yelled, "HE WORKS IN A F*ING RESTAURANT!" and stormed out.

sodomy trophies and car crashes

2007-05-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

this may be the longest posting ever...
sorry.

I was asleep in someone’s basement and I was really tired. I knew that someone was trying to wake me up but all I wanted to do was sleep. Finally I realized that I was going to have to get up and face the waker in person, but I didn’t want to do so until I had gone to the bathroom and gotten ready. I tried to get upstairs without being noticed, but the route was blocked and I couldn’t find a good way out.

I got upstairs and saw that my entire family was there-ENTIRE family; people I couldn’t name but to whom I know I am related. My aunt was there and she was pressuring me to go somewhere with them. I was very resistant to leaving- I didn’t feel like interacting and I wanted to go back to bed more than anything.

I went into my aunt’s bathroom and instead of using the toilet I decided to pee on the rug.
I immediately felt bad about it but it was too late to stop. So I didn’t.

The family somehow succeeded in convincing me that if I did not go I would be the worst person ever so I got in a weird SUV thing and with my aunt (not the one I peed on) and 3 kids who are marginally related to me. As we were driving to some restaurant my aunt was unloading on me all of her psychological problems and begging me for a diagnosis. I didn’t want to diagnose her with anything and I kept saying “you’re fine, you are fine”. Eventually, I grew tired of her begging and started asking her diagnostic questions, “do you sometimes…?” type questions. She answered no to all of them except the last which involves self harm.

It was through the self-harm questioning that she revealed her true answers to the previous questions and that she did, in fact meet all the diagnostic criteria for this particular disorder. I was annoyed.

There was a lot of traffic out the night we were driving, and as we approached an intersection, I noticed the traffic was moving really fast and that all the cars were very close together as they went around the corner. We were stopped at the light behind a bunch of cars, in the center lane. Traffic going the other direction started moving just as fast as the others had. I saw a car facing my direction (but turning left at the intersection) flying down the street and I knew it wasn’t going to stop.
I didn’t see the crash, but I heard it. When the traffic cleared I saw this silver sedan completely crushed on the driver’s side. I knew that whoever had been driving was now either a bloody dead mess or a bloody live mess but either way he/she was f’ed up. Throughout this I was saying “no no no”. over and over. I wasn’t yelling and I wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, but I was very upset about the situation.

We pulled over to wait for the police so we could give a statement and just happened to be right outside the restaurant to which we were headed. My aunt started to get out an I planned on getting out of the car to talk to the police, but she told me to take the smallest girl we had been riding with and head into the restaurant. I (annoyed again) obliged and picked up the little girl.

The restaurant was set up for an awards–banquet type deal, with really odd trophies and cakes and stuff. The place was huge and full of people. My old dance teacher was there but I did not say hello (she hates me now; long story). There was a big empty stage in the front of the room and a really long curtain divider over to my right. I asked my pee-aunt what the hell was going on and she told me only that one of the honorees was not there to pick up his award.

I somehow figured out in my own that the awards represented different types of (socially) stigmatized or (socially) immoral acts that were often committed by the honorees. As I looked at the trophies, I saw that they were statues of things like gay sex and powerful women. There were about 6 that I paid close attention to and tried to figure out what they represented but I can only remember a couple. There was nothing indicating who would be receiving the awards. I mentioned to my aunt that “I think dancing is considered a sin in Alabama”. She agreed.

Just then the song “New York, New York” began playing (Sinatra, not some angry dead rapper).
Now, for 20 years I fancied myself a dancer, and this song was one which I danced to many times. It was one of those dances my former company performed every three or four years and it was good.
I was hit with the urge to start a kick line and do the dance. So I did. I looked over to my right, where there was the dividing curtain, and saw that there were about a hundred girls in costumes doing the dance along with me. I knew 3 or four of them from when I used to dance, the others were a lot younger.
The girls I knew were wearing the same costume that I wore the last time I did New York-all purple and gold and pretty- and the girls I didn’t know were wearing costumes for other dances I had done throughout the years. It was kinda neat, they were pretty age specific, for example, the 10ish year olds were wearing costumes that I wore when I was 10, etc. the one that sticks out most in my mind was this yellow monstrosity with feathers. I don’t want to talk about it.

After the song was over I went back behind the curtain to say hello to the girls I know. I had a hard time finding them, as I had to wade through a sea of sparkly children, but I finally found them. I was talking to a girl, Nichole (made that up) about the state of the company and telling her how great it was that she was still dancing. I asked her if she still had the yellow costume too. She said, “yes, but (the teacher had) turned it into something else”. What was once a shirt was now an accessory or something. She asked how I was doing and I got about 2 words out before I interrupted myself and, crying, said “I miss dance” I put my head down on a chair and cried for a couple minutes, unable to get any words out. I decided to suck it up and said, “oh well, what can you do?”, in a really sad defeated tone.

That was it.
I need medication.

I really hate tomatoes. A lot.

2007-04-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

crap, I don't know if I can make this clean enough to post.
I don't know if anyone could.
self-censorship blows.

OK, here I go...

So I was standing on what appeared to be a television studio set. It was just me and the two actors (?) in the scene (?).

I was probably about ten feet away from them and they couldn't see me watching.
To tell you the truth, I am not even sure they knew that they were acting in a scene--I don't think they did.

While I was clearly in the room with them, there was a sort of separation like I was looking through glass or something (but I wasn't).

The room was set up with a big, low platform bed and not much else. The man and woman were (I just puked a little) lying next to each other in the spot light.

(it gets so bad)

He was probably naked and half under a blanket and she was wearing a bikini. Really, it looked like half ruffly lingerie half swim suit. You know the little tutus that the hippos wear in fantasia? It was sort of like that. It was all flowery and ruffled and f*ing horrible because this was not an attractive woman. Big and dirty are the best descriptors I can think of right now. The man wasn't particularly attractive either. I don't want to go into great detail...

god this gets twisted.

I really shouldn't post this.

.screw it.

So the big icky man is lying behind the big icky woman and he keeps reaching over her to get food off of a plate (also on the platform bed-I should stop right now).
Every time he reaches across her I notice that my own...um...christ...
OKOKOK
I know that there is some sexual penetration going on because I can feel it.

jesus christ

I am still watching the event and I am not participating in any way except I can feel everything that this woman feels. really bloody weird and not particularly pleasant.

So this goes on for a while and the woman (thankfully) tires of the activity which I have somehow been experiencing as my own.

So the guy decides to make this giant sandwich. It is the most elaborate creation ever- it's on one of those round loaf-y roll things the size of a medium sized cat. He put every topping ever on this giant sandwich; lettuce, meat, cheese, onions and really thinly sliced tomatoes, among other things.

What does this creation of my troubled brain do with the sandwich???

ugh.

He decides to put his (what's a good word?) junk (?) in it.
Yes, he did make a penis sandwich.
He gave it to the hippo woman and she leaned in to take a bite.

(i just puked again. it's fine)

SUDDENLY I am looking through her eyes and I see this giant sandwich coming toward my face. I know that I am not this woman, I am just experiencing everything that she experiences.

I didn't take a bite out of it (and I wouldn't say if I did), but the last thing I saw, before I woke up in a cold sweat, was a bunch of really thin, seedy, over-ripe tomatoes sliding out of the grossest sandwich ever and then I felt them land on my face.

I shouldn't have posted that.

That was 2 days ago and I still feel a little dirty and extremely confused. I don't know what any of that might mean and I am pretty sure I don't want to.
not ever

x

It's an ancient Navajo word. It means "stop".

2007-04-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

So I was having a talk with dear old mom in a very small room about how she was going to move away. My primary concern, of course, was not that she was leaving, but what was going to happen to her old house. She hadn’t been living there, but apparently she had been renting it to some family. I decided I might want to buy it back and live there.

I got in my car to go look at the house and found a bunch of random papers that belonged to someone else. I started reading through them to see hat the hell they were. It was quite a process because they included weird things, like bank statements and email print outs and a letter from someone who had apparently been reading my blog and wanted to meet me about something. Thing was, all the names were in code. Don’t really remember what the signature said, but it wasn’t any real name. Something like "Super Cool Douchbag" or... something... ok, it probably wasn't Super Cool Douchbag.

At some point I realized the owner was a guy I know who I absolutely adore but in a non-dream world would probably not stalk me with bank statements.

I hunted him down and asked him to come look at my mom’ s house with me.

We went to my mom’s house and found that it was, in fact being lived in. I got inside and saw that whoever was living there was taking good care of it. It had been repainted and all the old furniture that had been covered with tomato soup stains and cat hair had been replaced.

I went into my mom’s old room and got her blanket (I have no idea) leaving the gentleman to entertain himself and started watching Young Guns 2 in the living room.

Now, I don't know why I would want to watch Young Guns 2 on a stranger's couch and I don't know why I would pick 2 over 1, unless it's the whole Balthazar Getty/Christian Slater combo thing...

.I don't question it.

After a while I went to look around the rest of the house. My mom’s room was about the same; furniture and paintings and stuff. In my head I was deciding what I would keep and what would have to go-totally redesigning the place.

I went upstairs where my old room used to be and saw that there were 2 children living there. Both of the rooms were immaculate and all LauraAshley-esque. In one room there was a lot of my old stuff, only it wasn’t personalized anymore. You know, my old picture frame with someone else's pictures in it, that sort of thing-kinda creepy when you think about it.

I went out back and was talking to the man about how I wanted to add on a room to my mom’s old bedroom. I was looking at the flowers which included hyacinths and some weird black and purple fly-trap looking thing, thinking about what I was going to plant next.

IT WAS WEIRD.

Then the whole thing shifted to a sort of stuff you have to do tomorrow dream and the fun abruptly ended.

Yeah, I know it's kind of shitty, but hey, it's the first one I've had in a while and I will not entertain bitching about content. Let me get my sea legs back, k? .k.

Oh Holy Crap!!! I have a blog???

2007-04-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

So 8 months, huh? I guess that's not too bad...for me. Who has time to spill the contents of a tired brain when they're rocking back and forth and crying in the corner? I do, apparently. Not having time to sleep has hindered my ability to dream lately but I'm sure there's other crap going on to entertain the bored masses. I'll get to work on some super cool new stuff, k?

.ok.
x

Red satin is neat

2006-08-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

I was harvesting stuff from my garden. Of course, I can't just go out and pick stuff, I have to do it in some weird, dreamy way. I harvested my garden Mah Jong style. What? Oh yeah, I matched plants and when I picked two that matched they disappeared. I don't question this crap.

So after I got the goodies picked I decided to wrap the garden to kill off all the weeds and grass and stuff so it would be all ready for the next planting season. I didn't wrap it in mulch, though, that would be too easy. I wrapped it in red satin.

It was really important for me that the strips of satin that I used be exactly the same. As I was cutting the fabric into strips I took great care to make sure that the ends matched and they were of equal length.

I was sitting in my livingroom getting ready to cut a third strip when I realized that my garden was actually in the center of the room and was only about a 3 foot square area cut out from the hardwood floor. I had way too much fabric and would never need all 3 strips.

livin' it up diner style

2006-08-24T08:55:00.000-07:00

I had another “stuff I want but can’t quite have” dream, well, series of dream vignettes, I suppose. I can only remember one, though. It dealt with my living situation and what it could be. My son and I had moved back in with my mother, in the old house that I dream of often, and were taking up residence on the second floor where I lived when I was younger. Usually when I dream about the house it is different in the dream than it truly was. This time it was exactly the same as real life, except I had all my current furniture with me. My son and I were setting up a little apartment in the upstairs. One room was his and one was mine.

In addition to my pretty purple couch (a real life entity) I had acquired a set of tables and booths from some restaurant (I really, really want them). The tops were painted metallic red and the booths were metallic red vinyl. Beautiful. I was just getting the furniture set up, which is the only good part about moving, and we had to leave for some reason.

When we got back to our apartment my mother had gone through everything and left a big mess. None of the furniture was where I had left it and everything was scattered on the floor. I tried to move it back but I wasn’t strong enough.

Another part involved a boy; ‘nough said.

Tribble cookies

2006-08-24T08:50:00.000-07:00

A male friend of mine was smitten with a girl and he wanted me to help him make her cookies. I figured that, since I was already making them, I would make some for me too. I made about 10 different kinds of really elaborate, gourmet type cookie creations. I didn’t like this girl very much and I didn’t want my friend with her so I waited until I made her “special cookies” and I put a whole bunch of salt on them. Not enough that she would get sick, just enough that she would think they were gross and lose interest in my friend. I made a plate for him and a plate for me, putting the salty ones on the bottom.

My friend took off with his plate of salty goodness and I went walking down the street with mine, looking for a gas station so I could buy cigarettes.

An old jeep pulled up next to me. The passenger door opened and inside was karate teacher that I don’t know outside dreamland. He was really, really fat- giant and he had removed the passenger and back seats so there would be room for his big fat ass. He was kind of pissed because I wasn’t in class and he told me to get in. I told him that there wasn’t room for me and that there was only one seatbelt. He leaned over and pushed the inside of the jeep, making it wider. He said we could share a seatbelt. I got in.

In the car I was tempting him with cookies. I was using every peer pressure method in the book to get him to try one-just one! He kept refusing because he was “on a diet”. I told him that some of them were really thin and would be fine for his diet. He wasn’t buying it.

I ended up back at my mom’s house. I was in her bedroom, sitting on her bed talking on the phone to my friend about random bullshit when I saw something unusual on the floor. I watched it for a while, trying to figure out what it was.

It was very flat but it had silky hair, sort of a cross between a Tribble, a Lhasa Apso and a Skate-not the rolly kind, the skim the ocean floor kind. It was really weird but it was so cute and it moved really fast-it was into everything.

I watched as it floated along the floor and rolled its self up to look like a conch shell and this iridescent white color. Then it unraveled and sort of slithered around the room. I called for my mom to come see. She answered that “it better be good” because she was eating dinner. It slithered up into her book shelf and started hissing.

I told the friend I was going to send him a picture on his phone so he could see and he said, “Make it a good one”. My mom came over near the bed where the thing was and I took a picture of it and her feet.

Ahoy, my floppy eared matey

2006-07-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

I was working in a theme restaurant; pirate themed, I suppose. It was on a ship but it wasn’t on water or anything. The main dining area was on the main deck (I don’t really know pirate terms, so forgive me) but there was also a small dining room in an elevated part (crows nest? I don’t know).

Anyway, I arrived for my day shift and went up to the upper dining room—I’m just going to call it the crows nest, I don’t know—and my tables started filling up. It was also the middle of a shift change, so I had to take over tables from the other server but I couldn’t find her and I had absolutely no idea what was going on. What followed was a typical waitress dream; customers moved around, they changed their orders, I lost tickets, some of them wanted to order food, ALL of them were angry and I didn’t have time to ring anything in. It was chaos.

Finally I started to get drinks rung up but I couldn’t go down to the deck to get them because I kept getting sat. The other server ran upstairs with a tray full of drinks and just left them on the stairs so I had no idea what was what. I got most of them passed out when I looked over and saw some man with a leaf blower blowing sand and sawdust off the floor…and right into the drinks that were still sitting on the stairs. I was pissed.

I should describe what this man looked like because it could be significant or just entertaining. He was a little bit older than me, late 30’s or 40’s. He was wearing a green polo shirt and he had the biggest ears ever. They weren’t like big old man ears, they were like beagle ears; really long and floppy, the left one was longer than the right. It was weird.

So I followed this guy into the basement (?) of the ship, cussing and screaming all the way. I even threw a couple of drinks at him; I was so angry that he had made my hard time even harder by messing up my drinks. I tried to explain how bad he screwed me up but he just kept saying, “get another one, I don’t care, I don’t care”. After I yelled at him a bit I felt sort of bad; I knew it was an over reaction. I tried to apologize but he wouldn’t hear it. Now he was mad at me for being a bitch. I wanted him to understand my reaction and forgive me but he wouldn’t listen, even with those big ol’ ears he wouldn’t hear me.

He said, “Why don’t you just go shopping? You just come in here with all your new stuff it doesn’t matter if you work or not”
I was enraged. I said, “How dare you talk to me like you get it? I don’t have anything! I can’t shop! I don’t have any money; you don’t know what you’re talking about! You don’t know anything about me!”

We went back and forth for a while until I finally decided it was pointless and I went back to the dining room to wait on my tables. I ran back up to the main deck and as I ran around the corner I almost crashed into a family coming down the ramp. One of the little boys (11, maybe) took my picture as I turned the corner. I was startled and I screamed. I looked at the picture and it was pretty good so I asked him if he would email it to me. He said yes and I took off running again.

I got to the bar where the other server was picking up drinks. She said, “I hope you know you’re waiting on all the ‘shrimp people’ tonight.” I said, “I hope you know I am leaving in about 15 minutes.”
I looked up at the clock and I realized it was a lot later than I had thought, it was 6:30 and I needed to pick up my son by 6:30…I was going to be late. On closer inspection I saw that the clock was blurry and it was actually 7:30.

I dropped all my stuff and raced out to my car. I was going to call the daycare on my way.
I ran across the street and I noticed a police car had been parked diagonally across it. I was getting into my car when a man got out of the police car. It was clear that he was going to be robbing the store nearby because he had a bandanna tied around his face. I mentally decided to call the police on my way to the daycare.

As I was driving away I felt a breeze. I looked over and saw that both passenger doors were open; someone had been in my car. I reached over and pulled the front door closed but there was nothing I could do about the back one. It didn’t look like they had taken anything, but the inside of my car was kind of disassembled.
Um…that’s it.

movin' on up

2006-07-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

I was moving to an appartment. I was moving back home (although I live there now) from someplace else and I was looking for a place to live. I went to a bunch of really nice appartments and I didn't know how I was going to afford any of them. I was also concerned about storage but my aunt reminded me that my mom was close and she could keep some of my stuff if I didn't have room for it.

At least two of the buildings we went to had problems with the elevators. We would push a button and go past the floor. Sometimes it would stop at the right floor, but as soon as I took a step towards the door it would close and move again. This went on for a long time. We were trying to get off on the third floor but the elevator would only let us off on the fifth.

Finally we both got off on the fifth floor and took seperate elevators back down to the third floor. My aunt's seemed to work fine, but mine would not let me on.

In one building I was spending the night-sort of like a test drive, I suppose. I was laying in bed kind of half sleeping and I heard someone moving around in the alley below. I looked out the window and saw a man pulling a flute out of a case. He started playing it.

When he saw me watching him he motioned for me to come down. I didn't say anything but I nodded. I put on a jacket and a hat and I started down the stairs.

Since I didn't really live there I didn't know exactly how to get to the alley. After a lot of searching I finally realized that the only way was to go through the basement of my biulding and the one next door. I had to go through a series of tunnels and I had to climb and crawl in some spots. Finally I made it out there, where I was joined by a friend of mine.

My friend said he was there to make sure I was OK, he didn't hang out with us, he just sat a few yards away and watched.

The man I was going down to meet had also been joined by a few friends. I asked him if there was a better way to get to the alley from the building. He said that there was only one way (the long way I went) and that pretty soon they would be closing it off because there was some kind of construction being done to the second building. I wouldn't be able to come back.

Sleep-away camp

2006-06-30T20:46:00.000-07:00

I was working at a summer camp; a performing arts camp for adults. I wasn't just working there, it was my camp--but nobody knew it. Other people ran it and that was fine. Even though I was there I didn't really participate, I spent a lot of time walking around the small colorado town that housed it. My parents were both there. Waking, this would never happen, of course, because they hardly stand each other, but hey, I wasn't awake.

A girl I used to dance with (she was much better than I ever was) was teaching there as were some other of my super talented friends. Most of the people there were my age (25-35) and nearly everyone I have ever known was a camper. Instead of dorms or cabins or whatever camps usually have, everyone was living in this big house...my house in my dream, my mom's old house in real life only much bigger. No one knew it was mine.

On this particular day I was walking through the town with someone else, not sure who and it was all uphill. I had to be back to the camp soon. I didn't think I would be able to make it up the hill so I crawled as fast as I could.When I got to my house I saw that the other people living in it had completely trashed it; there were clothes everywhere and it was dirty. It was a complete mess and I was really upset.

The campers were really mean to me, I kept thinking "if they knew this was my camp they wouldn't treat me like this", but I still didn't say anything. I was trying to get into a room and the people in there wouldn't let me in. Finally I got in but none of them would leave me alone and more people wanted in. They were really pushy. A couple of them were yelling at me and arguing with me; one of them broke a section out of the door.

I was talking to my dad outside about how he was going to let some girl move into his house with him and his wife. She didn't have much money and he needed help with the rent. He said that 2 Sundays a month he would be going over to someone's house to help her build coffee tables.

Every day the performers did a different kind of show and I always watched but I never participated.

Everybody ate lunch together in this big caffeteria. There were no lights but there were big windows that let in just enough light that we could all see. On this day I was eating a sandwich and I was about 3/4 of the way done with it when I realized that it had both ham and salami on it (2 things I do not eat), I tried to get it all out and I was left with a piece of havarti cheese and bread.

It was really, really hot in the caffeteria and I kept saying, "I don't think I can do this, I don't think I can do this" over and over. There was trash everywhere and nobody was doing what they were supposed to and nobody was paying attention to the mess they were making. There was a broken toy on the floor and I got mad and kicked it. I walked up to my dad and I said, "Dad, I do not think I am going to last three weeks here". He said, "I know, I wouldn't expect you to."

(At this point I noticed that I had identical lavender tattoos on the insides of both my forearms)

I walked up to one of my best friends who I love dearly and I sat on his lap and I was hugging him (even though we were both really sweaty and gross because of the heat) and kind of rocking back and forth and I was begging him, "let's just go to Denver, please! Please let's just go to Denver. Just for a few days, let's get out of this place."

x

I get ignored in my own dreams

2006-06-30T00:57:00.000-07:00

I was in the library and this man I know called me. Rather than answer my phone I decided to go to his house which was, conveniently, in the same building as the library; I figured he was really close and I wanted to talk to him in person. I went into a bedroom which I suppose was his, although I have been in his bedroom while awake and this one was much nicer...Anyway, he and this girl who I have met a few times were there. She was kind of poking around and messing with stuff and he was lounging on the bed playing on a laptop and talking on the phone.

I had something important to say but every time I tried to tell him he picked up the phone and said a few things to the person on the other end. This went on for a while. I could sort of hear the other person on the phone, you know, like when someone has the volume turned up rediculously loud. It wasn't a normal conversation; he only picked up the phone every once in a while.

Since he wasn't listening to me I decided to write him a note, because I thought what I needed to tell him was terribly important. I didn't have any paper but I did have a photograph of myself so I decided to write on that. It wasn't just an ordinary photo, though, it had an elaborate scene painted on it and parts of it were raised like those puffy stickers from when I was a kid.

The problem was that the picture was too small so I used a machine to enlarge it. I couldn't seem to make it big enough. I made a bunch of copies because I kept trying to get it perfect, but every time it came out of the machine something was wrong with it. Finally I settled for version that was "ok", it was acceptable and it was close to being as good as I wanted it to be. I was pretty disappointed though.

As I was doing that I overheard his end of the phone conversation. He was talking to his parents--one at a time of course. I guess he was going to be going on vacation to visit them because he said they would have to leave Friday night and drive through the night in order to get there in time. During his weird phone thing I was busy trying to make him something that I thought would be cool.

When I started to write my message on the picture I realized that most of the picture was very dark and there wasn't room on the light part for everything I needed to say. If the area wasn't almost black there was something pretty on it and I didn't want to write over that. I looked all over and found a light yellow-green gel pen to use. It showed up, but the more I wrote the more it leaked and smudged and broke. I ended up with a big pool of ink all over the picture and my note was illegible.

I was trying to make this thing for the girl too because I thought it would be pretty and I thought she would like it but I just couldn't get it right.

He talked to me a little bit but he wasn't really paying attention. While he was pretending to be engaged in our conversation he was also talking to some girl on his laptop and it was really frustrating that he wouldn't pay attention because I thought what I was saying was important.

x

Needles and yardwork

2006-06-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 4:03 pm, 6 hours after I had to be up. I rushed to a friend’s house. The house was full of that horrible wood paneling and it was quite bare. I looked at the clock on the wall and noticed that it was only 1:03 and I wasn’t as late as I had thought. I soon noticed that all the clocks were wrong and it was, in fact, only 11:03 and everything was fine.

Next thing I know I am in a girl’s car on my way to a photo shoot with a bunch of other girls. Again, I was starting to worry that I would be late. It was dark, and though we knew where we were supposed to be, a little place right off the highway, we couldn’t figure out how exactly to get there. We were following another car of girls and they turned off the highway too quickly for us to keep up, we had to go way out of our way to find an exit or a place to turn around.

Finally we got into the parking lot and got out of the car. The girl who had been driving asked me if I would mind if she snorted something, I said no, it was fine. Then she pulled out a needle and was going to shoot something. She wouldn’t tell me what it was, but it was electric blue. She asked if I would like to join her. I really seriously considered it for a long time but decided not to.

I was in my yard only instead of being my yard it was huge--almost plantation-like. I was working but it was clear that I was of some higher social status than the other workers. One of the workers, my “employees” was an older woman with a sincere smile. I noticed that she had totally cleaned up my formerly disastrous garden and had started planting things. She was telling me about how she wanted to plant climbing roses on the back couple of rows. I was filled with gratitude that she had wanted to do so much for me. She was all smiles and quite happy. I didn’t know how to thank her so I gave her a handful of cash. She tried to refuse the money but I wouldn’t let her. Before I got into my car and drove off we made plans to plant together soon.

x

subconsciously manifested anxiety

2006-06-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

Characters:
Paul: my 7 year old son
Delilah: a professor in my department at school
Babs: Chair of the department
Willy: super-cool mentor type
PCU: my current university
PU: the university where I got my B.A.
Bastard: the ex
Whore: his current girlfriend (there was overlap)
Shelly: My aunt who lives in NY; I see her about 5 times a year
Carol: My aunt who is a professor of graduate education at a local university; very much a mentor
Jesse: My older, screwed up sister

I was living on PCU’s campus. It was huge and included within it an entire neighborhood. There were four main buildings. There was the building where I lived, which was also set up to be an administration building, my mother’s old house, my old apartment that Jesse was living in, a dark shadowy building that the dream began in.

Carol, Shelly, my mother, Paul and I were sitting on couches in the shadowy building, talking about family stuff. I realized that it was very late and it was time for Paul to go to bed. He was already in his pajamas so I told him to go on home and go to bed. If he left out the back door, it was a lot quicker getting home than if he left out the front door; there was a short cut or something. He started walking home and my mother soon left too, out the front door.

I was talking to Carol and Shelly about a meal that I was to have prepared for some family function. I looked up at the calendar, which was completely full and marked up and realized that the date of the function had come and gone and I had completely forgotten about this meal. I was suddenly struck with a feeling that I should go check on Paul.

I looked out the window because I could see his bedroom window from where we were and I saw that his light was still on and he was not in his room. Even as I was doing this, though I wasn’t completely sure if it was his room I was looking at. I decided to go check on him. I hugged Shelly and Carol and left out the front door, taking the long way.

I walked through a very nice neighborhood that was also on campus. As I was walking past a house, a man was leaving, yelling at someone inside. He walked with me for a bit. He seemed to be, very obviously, hitting on me. When we got to the administration building where my home was he said “I have to tell you something, I am a professor at PCU, I teach math” he was telling me this because of the university’s policy on dual relationships. I told him that I was done with all of my undergrad stuff and wasn’t going to be taking any more math classes.

Babs, Willy and Delilah were getting out of a car, having just gotten back from some conference. They were all dressed alike. Willy approached me and told me that she needed to have a meeting with me about something. I asked her if it was alright if I checked on Paul first. She said, “of course”.

I walked past Delilah and Babs on my way to his room. I noticed that Delilah was wearing a dress (very uncharacteristic). As I walked past, she told me that we needed to have a meeting.

I had to pass through a bunch of students who were watching some sporting event.
Roxanne (a girl I dance with) was there watching too. She note that it was funny that PCU had a team of killer fish (actual fish) participating called “the sharks” I told her that PU had one too, called the rays, but I never went to a match.

I finally got to Paul’s room and he wasn’t there. I tried not to panic but I was having a lot of trouble breathing. I made my way back to the faculty lounge. There I told Babs to please call 911. Instead she called my phone so I would have her number and she would have mine. I left to look around town.

I looked in Jesse’s house and Paul was not there. Outside I ran into my dad and told him what had happened. He wasn’t too concerned but I wasn’t breathing. I was in a full blown panic but was trying to conceal it. I asked him to call 911 but he could not work the phone.

I went on, running through the streets shouting Paul’s name. Finally I leaned against a fence and imagined what I would do if he were gone forever. I decided that I would cease to exist, that if I didn’t find him that night it would be my last night on earth. I was shouting his name as I passed my mom’s house and she came out and said, “See, when you yell like that sometimes you wake people up and then you get what you want” I looked to see Paul sleepily walking down her stairs. She didn’t feel bed at all and didn’t understand why I was upset that he was with her. Paul was mad at me because he wanted to stay with his grandma that night so I let him go back in and go to sleep.

When I got home after being gone all day I found Bastard and Whore asleep on the floor next to my couch. Before Bastard woke up I went over and sat next to Whore and put a pillow over her face. He woke up and stopped me. He told me that they had been going home and couldn’t make it so they decided to sleep at my house. We sat on the floor for a while and talked about stuff. Some of it was pretty personal relationship stuff, I said I had been unhappy for years, and a lot of it was what he was doing at work. Every once in a while I would reach over and hurt Whore; I would pinch her or slap her. When Bastard expressed to me that he didn’t like me hurting his girlfriend, I told him, “at least I didn’t break her face, and I wanted to”. He said, “Why don’t you then?” I said, “Because I’m better than her...” They both agreed.

X

*All names have been changed, to protect…myself.*

monotony with a splash of interpretation

2006-06-17T07:02:00.000-07:00

I dreamed about this boy all night, over and over he was just...there. There were conversations that I really can't remember but I don't think they were too important; the important thing was that he was there. Here's the splash: I know that in my waking life it could never happen. I know that, though I want it, there's no way he could ever be what I would need him to be. I've accepted that...except, perhaps, when I'm dreaming. Maybe my dream was my subconscious throwing me a crumb and letting me experience what I probably never really will...

After I was done with the boy I was walking through a thrift store with a friend of mine. They were getting ready to close and I was determined to make it to a back room where they made keys. I needed to copy a key to my house (as I do in reality). When I finally found the room where keys were made I was looking at the key display when I realized my ex had not given me a key to the house yet and my mission was pointless.

x

sex and kittens

2006-06-15T06:11:00.000-07:00

I was living with my mother again (not sure what the deal with that is) and also my current roommate. There were about a million cats living in the yard. Roommate and I already have 2 cats and I can't do another one, even though I would like to. Anyway, the cats that lived in the yard were of an odd assortment; sizes, shapes, colors, and roommate and I were choosing one each to live with us in the house.

He picked one that I am pretty sure was a baby lion or something, It had a very large, almost rectangular head. I petted it and I was sure it was going to bite my hand off...it didn't. I was playing with this little kitten that didn't have any back legs--not even stumps. It kind of scooted around and it was clear that this injury was pretty new. I thought it was the sweetest kitten I had ever met. Though nothing (that I remember) particularly special happened during out encounter, I somehow formed a connection with the two legged kitten and I LOVED it. It was my friend.

I didn't know this kitten was an option, so I didn't pick a cat to come live in the house. When I told my mom about it shw asked why I didn't bring it in. I told her that I didn't know I had that choice. I looked outside and the kitten was gone. I was, naturally, really upset about this. Instead of comforting me, like a good mother would have done, mine started trying to convince me that having an amputee cat would have been a bad idea anyway. She said things like
"where would it have slept?"

"in my room in a cage"

"but without its legs it could never make it up the stairs"

I could have carried it"

"it was a bad idea"

that's that.

Later I had a sex dream about my son's karate instructor. Yeah, he's hot, but totally not my type, except that I like to look at pretty men. After we, um, got bouncy, he told me that they were moving the karate school to Argentina. I was really upset because I was paid up through the entire year and I was afraid of losing all that money (ninja training is expensive). I kept trying to get his attention long enough to ask him what was going on and if there was a different school we could join that would honor our arrangement but he was too busy with all the soccer moms who were coming into the school. These chicks were basically decorating the school with banners and streamers and crap like that. When I expressed how upset I was that they were moving the school one of them looked up at me and (in the snottiest soccer mom voice ever) said,
"well, it's not like you guys ever come anyway"

I replied,"I have been trying to come, I left 3 messages for (the man I had just banged) and he never called me back"

"oh, well you should have come in, I guess, too bad"

Not sure about any of that, either.

x

Bag o' cousins

2006-06-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

Here’s another one that took place at my mom’s old house. I’m not really sure what that’s all about, but if 3 of my last notable dreams involved her house or the neighborhood, there must be some significance, right. This must have taken place several years ago, as my son was just a baby and the little kids that lived down the street were probably 3 and 8 years old (they’re probably in high school now).

I was in the house with my mom (my son was asleep). It must have been very early in the morning. We were standing in the kitchen when my mom told me that she had just killed two of her cousins because they wanted to hurt my son. I don’t know if she had chopped them up or what, but they were in bags on the kitchen counter. I realized that they were going to begin to stink soon and I would have to bury them. As I looked out the window into the back yard my mom told me that burying them would be my job. She said a good place would be underneath the big tree in the back yard. I was suspicious that maybe she had already started burying them in the garden, but she assured me that she had not.

I took the bags o’ cousin out to the driveway, right in front of the garage. I was to put the bodies in a big box that a rocking horse had come in. So I had the box, the rocking horse, the bogs of bodies and assorted decorative things spread out in the driveway. It was a Saturday morning and I could hear the spider man theme song playing on the TV in the house. I thought I would have some privacy because the neighbor kids would be watching cartoons too…but they weren’t, they were playing in their back yard right in my line of sight. I quickly filled the box with a layer of white tissue paper and the bag of cousins followed by another layer of tissue paper. At that time the kids came over to see what I was doing. I tried to close the box as best I could and told them that I was wrapping a present for my mom’s cousin. The little girl (the older one) said “oh, but the present isn’t in the box”. I confirmed this but didn’t elaborate. Because the rocking horse was still sitting nearby I pointed to that and suggested that it was the present. I decorated the box and got out a can of brown spray paint. The box was made of some sort of foam, you see, and I thought a layer of paint might make it sturdier (it was a dream, blow me). I started spray painting the rocking horse with the brown spray paint when their mother came over to see what was going on. I tried to act as normal as possible. The little boy (probably 3 years old) kept getting closer and closer to the horse until he ended up getting paint all over his clothes.

Thoughts?

x

this is what I get for eating sushi twice in one day...

2006-06-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

My dream started off in this restaurant that I worked at very briefly, but had taken the place of a place I had worked at for many years which I absolutely loved. In addition to the hundreds of new servers and staff that I didn’t know, there were several from the current restaurant that I know and many from the original. There were some that I didn’t even really like when we worked together, but having been through so many years together, I still have some sort of fondness for them. I was not working there, I was just in to say hi, but there were so many of my old friends that I stayed for a long time. Anthony, who was sort of a manager from the first place and was a really good friend of mine was there and I spent most of the time with him, but he was pretty busy with work stuff.. I somehow ended up attending their morning line up (there were literally hundreds of servers) and I watched them all having fun with each other. We somehow got our cell phones all mixed up and I was looking for mine. When I found it I gave it to Aaron (who we called useless sac, long story) and asked him to put his number in it. After he took it, I couldn’t find it for a while. I had what I thought was my phone, but when I picked it up and started going through it to see if he added any offensive crap I realized it was someone else’s and found some really disturbing text messages.
In my dream, the current restaurant had for some reason decided to open a new branch in this woman’s house. Background: Sandy, the homeowner, is the mother of a friend of mine who I have known since I was 4. There were 3 of us in the neighborhood and it was almost like we shared families. It was a weird situation but whatever… her daughter Paige (not really) was one of my best friends growing up and yet somehow, we never talk anymore. It’s more than a lost connection, though, because it is almost like we don’t like each other anymore, a fact that doesn’t really bother me even though I think it is most unfortunate and I don’t really understand why.
So I’ was sitting in this “restaurant” which is in a house that I haven’t been in for almost 10 years but it looked exactly the same. There were servers running all around and apparently, sleeping in the bedrooms but there were no tables in sight. The company that I was with was mostly old friends of mine from the 2 previously mentioned restaurants and also Paige and the other girl who lived on the block, Becky (not really). Beck I am still friends with and I love her dearly but we only see each other or talk about once a month. So we were hanging out in the living room and I asked where all the business was. Becky explained to me that the tables were actually in the garage. I thought that was hysterical and kept laughing and saying “but I used to pee in there!” (I don’t think I ever really did, though). At this point Paige was nowhere to be found, probably doing something in another room and the only people there NOT working were Becky, myself and a couple of old friends of mine. For some reason the topic of our mothers came up and Becky and I ended up in a pretty heated argument over which one of our mothers was more abusive when we were kids…it was not a great time. This little exchange ended up with both of us crying on each other’s shoulders for some time. Then Becky said something about how Sandy was only getting 350 dollars a month rent from the restaurant. At that point I freaked out saying that if they were in a real building they would be paying at least 4 times that and that they were taking complete advantage of her. I was outraged and said that she was all of our mothers and how could they (Becky and Paige) do that to her? Her response was “she likes the money; she doesn’t mind that it’s only 350.00”. This prompted a screaming fight between the two of us. I didn’t understand them taking advantage of her especially because the restaurant didn’t have a license and if they got caught it would be Sandy, not the shitty company, who got in trouble. At some point, Paige walked in from the kitchen and heard what was being said. She immediately took Becky’s side of the argument and told me to leave and that she didn’t want to see me again. I said “fine, Paige”, I didn’t have any fight left in me by that time and as I was leaving she hugged me and said that she missed me and needed me. I woke up literally sobbing and couldn’t stop for a good five minutes.

Pretty crazy, huh?

rem recovery

2006-05-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

They say that when you are sleep deprived, or rather REM deprived, upon getting a full night's sleep your brain will move rapidly into REM sleep and will spend more time there "catching up" and processing...this is when you experience the most vivid dreams.

I should sleep more...

Last night my dreams were many and disturbing. There was one gentleman in particular that made several appearances throughout the course of my REM rebound. This is unfortunate for me, because as I was getting ready for bed I was trying very hard NOT to think about him and had essentially decided that he was taking up WAY too much of my time and cognitive space.

The first dream that I remember involved my mother's old house which was serving as a restaurant (fedora, most likely, as the creamers and most of the staff were the same). I walked into some sort of brunch that I was supposed to be working and a raging mess in the kitchen that I had to clean up. Incidentally, the kitchen looked the same as when I lived there, right down to the green paint on the walls. I was supposed to be waiting tables but instead I was put on coffee duty and spent a great deal of the dream trying to find enough creamers and warming coffee cups with hot water.
Where the dining room used to be was a super long table with about 20 angry customers sitting at it. I don't remember who they were, but when I woke up from the dream I remember thinking there was some significance.
That was that...just lots of coffee and cream and a sense of urgency that I don't function well under.

I had a lot of work dreams last night... Another involved the previously mentioned man and the restaurant that he was working at (restaurant people suck, in case you didn't know). Apparently, I had decided to pick up a shift at this restaurant ... It was a weird (dream-like, I suppose) location as the building itself was located in what looked like the parking lot of a miniature golf course. I drove to this place with this guy and really didn't want to work but felt some sort of sick obligation. We went inside and I was being introduced to people and when I realized how slow the evening was going to be I left him waiting at the door and went outside to smoke. I don't remember much else, but the general feeling ws annoyance.

In another I was in florida and was looking for something. down town Orlando was completely different and was connected by a series of tunnels (disney? yeah, most likely) I was with the same person as before and we went into a restaurant, not to work this time, but to actually eat. It was a weird long john silvers type menu (I would never go there, by the way) and all the booths were themed in some way. One was a bath tub, I remember. We couldn't find a place to sit. All the tables were either taken by customers or employees on break. There was a feeling of danger and we walked aroung a balcony looking for something. Back outside I noticed that there was a storm coming and it looked bad. Not really knowing my way around the city (because the whole thing had changed) we decided to take a cab for a while. There was a stadium that obviously didn't belong and while he went in I found a hole and crawled in it. It was an underground tunnel but it somehow went up and I found myself in a small bubble type room (kind of like the end of one of those mcdonald's playland things, you know, small and plastic with big convex windows). that's about all I remember of that.

Anyway, it was a weird night full of weird dreams that shared themes. I didn't like it much.

X