Sunday, June 29, 2008

The Rainbow Wall Cloud

MORNING OF JUNE 29, 2008

I was on some sort of large boat or ship with many people. It wasn't a cruise ship, but perhaps was some kind of riverboat or other touristy-type vessel. My first memory is of the boat docking and all of us exiting. The boat didn't quite come all the way up to the dock, so we each had to jump about a foot or so to reach it.

She ship's captain was one of the last to leave. He was a slender, middle-aged black man with a gray beard, wearing a white captain's uniform. He was on the uppermost level of the ship, and he called out for everyone to watch him, as he was going to jump down to the lower level instead of taking the stairs. He jumped, and there was a sickening crack as one of his legs very visibly snapped when he landed on the deck below. You could hear many gasps and a few screams.

Some medical personal came to take care of the man, who was OK besides his leg. My friends and I began to walk around the streets of the tiny, quaint little town the boat had landed us in.

I remember there were constantly so many beautiful and unusual cloud formations in the sky. (That is probably because this week in real life I have seen some phenomenally beautiful skies). I was cursing myself for not having my real camera, but I tried to take cell phone pictures of the prettiest formations.

Suddenly, the wind began to pick up and it was obvious a storm was rolling in. All of the people who had come in on the ship began to head back to it (as though it would be the safer place to be if a bad storm was coming...).

I looked up and suddenly noticed a huge black formation that I thought was a tornado, but then I determined it was just an ominous wall cloud. There was a rainbow stretching across the sky, and it went through the wall cloud, so that it was intermittently visible behind parts of the cloud. This was such a simultaneously eerie and beautiful sight, I just had to get a picture. I couldn't get my cell phone camera to cooperate for some reason, and by the the time it was ready to snap a shot, the rainbow had faded.

Back on the ship, I went into a cabin below deck. My cousin was there playing a video game. We both began to play it, and that's about all I remember.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Bye from Bueno

MORNING OF JUNE 27, 2008

Richard and Jessica and I had been elected to something. I don't know if it was political or just some committee or what, but it was supposedly important and even a little urgent.

We had to travel to another city for official duties, and we were going by train. I recall boarding together and noting that the inside of the train looked more like a bus (exactly like a bus, even). Richard and I took a seat together, and Jessica took a seat nearby with a girl who was supposed to be a friend of hers.

Suddenly their daughter, Cailey, came on board, saying something like, "Hey, Mommy, Daddy, Andrew, wait! I've got to give you hugs goodbye!" Then I noticed that my cartoon creation, Bueno the dog, was walking calmly along behind Cailey. He was in "animated" form, interacting with his environment like unto Roger Rabbit or something. The mere shock of realizing what I was seeing was enough to wake me.

(Incidentally, this is the first time I can remember a specific one of my characters ever appearing to me as a living character in a dream. I've had many dreams of myself drawing or writing characters, or seeing them in products, but never seen one as an interactive character before now.)

Sunday, June 22, 2008

The Neighbors and the Party

MORNING OF JUNE 22, 2008

I was at what was supposed to be my friend Richard and Jessica's new house. They were showing me around. It was a nice place, but I remember it had some very strange, ultra-mod decor that I found an odd choice for them. Lots of abstract sculptures and such. They showed me one of the bedrooms and it even had abstract sculptures of human-like shapes in various compromising positions on and around the beds. Just very strange.

They told me they were throwing a huge party that night for lots of people they knew and told me I could come if I wanted. True to real life, I wasn't huge on the idea of big parties, but neither did I want to shirk the invitation. At any rate, the party wasn't until that night and in the meantime I had to go home for a while (I lived in a different house--and indeed a house not an apartment--in the dream as well).

The location of our houses was funny. In real life there is Chick-Fil-A restaurant right across the street from where I work. In my dream, my house was located where I work, and Richard's house was located where the Chick-Fil-A actually is.

I remember being in my house for a while, I think I was eating supper or something mundane like that. Then eventually I decided to go over to Ricahrd's party. It had already been going on for a while. There was a foosball game unattended, and I began playing it by myself (as though that's possible). Then some kid walked up and we played it together for a minute. There were other random interactions at the party, but it's all a blur in my memory.

Then I was going to go home, and I was saying bye to Richard's daughter Cailey. She wanted to come over to my house, and I told her parents they could bring her over after the party if they wanted. Then I went home and I was getting ready for bed. I remembered I had said they could bring Cailey over if they wanted, but I probably wouldn't hear them at the door if I was asleep. That's about the last of my memory.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Pirates on a Mission

MORNING OF JUNE 16, 2008

It's odd that this dream has a pirate theme when there was a pirate in my dream just a few nights ago as well. I haven't watched or otherwise partaken of anything to do with pirates very recently, so I don't know where they're coming from. Some other weird elements of the dream I can trace back to the novel I'm reading...but all of these pirates...who knows!?

Somehow I was personally dealing with some pirates. I suppose I was a pirate myself, as I seemed to be a part of their group, but all the details are lost to me now. We had some very important meeting that had to do with stopping our enemies, who were just about to steal some piece of treasure that would set events in motion that we didn't want to see happen. (Again, the details are mostly lost to me here...sorry!)

While still a pirate, I was in what looked like a pet store. There was an ornamental skull, about the size of a baseball, in the bottom of one of the large aquariums. I knew this somehow tied in to the treasure we had to protect from our enemies. Suddenly the skull began rattling and rolling around the gravel in the bottom of the tank, and then two eyes appeared in the sockets and looked at me! I was so freaked out I had to look away in fear. When I gathered enough courage enough to look at it again, I saw it was forming flesh over the skull to become a whole head. I fled the pet store.

Next I was back with the other pirates, and the lead pirate was explaining that the enemies had found their treasure, and the end result was that all these little skeleton ornaments--like the one I'd seen--were being animated to life and would soon all be coming after us.

The Nearly Lucid Dream With Those Two Entertainers

MORNING OF JUNE 14, 2008

The early part of this dream delves further into my personal life than I'm willing to go in an online dream journal, so I'm skipping it and joining the dream in progress:

Something that had happened in the early dream just left me totally nonplussed, and I couldn't believe I'd seen it. I reasoned with myself that surely the only way possible for such a thing to happen would be if I were dreaming the whole thing. As I sat there contemplating it, a woman (who I realize in retrospect looked like Richard's mother, though it wasn't supposed to actually be her) approached me.

She told me if I was dreaming, I should just tell myself to wake up. So I sat there for a moment, repeating to myself, "Wake up! Wake up if you're dreaming!"...and nothing happened. The lady and I were then both satisfied that I must not be dreaming, and so it continued on! (How very rare for me to come so close to lucidity in a dream and lose it to the dream once more.)

At this point I went into a room where several other people were gathered. It looked like we were at some kind of resort. I could see a body of water out the windows. We were waiting on something, but I can't remember what. I just know we were all very impatient, as though the wait had been long. There were two men, one black and one white, who stepped up to entertain everyone while we waited.

The duo just acted crazy and did all sorts of comedy acts for us. Most of them really weren't that funny, though a few bits were OK. Eventually people started leaving, including me. One man stopped me on my way out and informed me that it was considered good etiquette to tip the men who had been entertaining us. I didn't think this was fair, because no one asked them to entertain us, and they weren't even very good! And yet for some reason I now felt obligated to give them at least a small tip even though I didn't enjoy their work.

I had nothing smaller than a 10 in my wallet, so I found one of the two guys and handed him the 10. I told him it was the smallest I had, and said I hoped he and the other guy could split it for a tip. He said that would be fine. I walked off and realized I'd accidentally handed him a 20 instead of a 10...but it was too late now to correct that without seeming like a jerk.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

The Time Capsule and the Pirate

MORNING OF JUNE 12, 2008

First I remember a man hosting an interview-style TV show. His guest was a caucasian man who used a ventriloquist puppet that had a stereotypical Indian accent and style (along the lines of Apu from the Simpsons). The Indian puppet was very insulting towards the host, and the host got tired of being a good sport and physically attacked the puppeteer.

Richard and I knew of an old tree (I think it was in his back yard) that had a deep hollow in the trunk. We decided we were going to plant a "time capsule" of sorts into the hole for future generations. I can't remember much of anything we gathered to use. I do recall that I took a crumpled piece of paper and drew some crude caveman-style drawings of a stick figure placing items into the hollow of a tree. I told Richard, "This is so people of the future will have some grasp of our culture and of who placed these things here." For some reason we thought it was really funny.

Then Richard and I were in a car trying to use a drive-through ATM machine and it wasn't cooperating.

At some point I remember talking to someone (not even sure who) on the phone and they told me that they were certain their cat had killed a mouse in their house, but they couldn't find the mouse. I asked them, "If there's a dead mouse in your house wouldn't you be able to smell where it generally was?"

There was some sort of computer animated movie I was watching. The main characters were these nondescript blobs with faces. I think they were supposed to be aliens on another planet, but they had a society like human society. The main character was in a cafe one day when a regular human pirate who looked similar to, but wasn't supposed to be, Barbosa from Pirates of the Caribbean, walked in. (The pirate was flesh and blood as opposed to animated.)

The other aliens were scared of him. The main character talked with the pirate and, upon discovering he was "intelligent" because he could speak and read the print on the character's T-shirt, befriended him.

Then I remember it was I who was speaking to the pirate. I brought him into this room where people were playing board games. One man was playing a game that looked like "Risk" with a bunch of ladies (he was a real James Bond sort). I presented the pirate to him and he very excitedly said something like, "Oh, good, finally a worthy opponent!"

Then I remember sitting out in a baseball field with a friend, probably Eric, and we were waiting for other people--presumably other potential baseball players--to arrive. (This is all the more strange because neither I nor Eric are remotely inclined to any sport). The first people to show up were two guys of middle eastern descent (odd because of the puppet at the beginning of these dreams, but maybe not so odd because I'd already woken and thought about the puppet before resuming sleep and having this dream). The two others sat down in the grass beside us and we began discussing the difference of our cultures. Alarm goes off.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Puppies, Fritos, and Fires

MORNING OF JUNE 10, 2008

So much is going on here that it may have really been separate dreams...but it all feels like one, so I'm writing it as such.

I was staying at a fictional house one evening. At first I was there alone. There was an indoor patio where I found what was either a comic book or a magazine about comic books. I sat down on the steps that led to the patio and began flipping through it.

Suddenly I was aware of someone watching me. I turned to see a young boy of about 8 or 9 looking over my shoulder. I asked if the book belonged to him, and when he said it didn't, I told him nicely that it was hard to concentrate with him watching that way. I promised to hand it to him just as soon as I was through with it. He was fine with that and went away.

I have a vague memory of going into the hallway of the house and trying to find the boy to give the magazine to him. I found what was obviously a little boy's bedroom, but don't remember anything else about that.

Then I remember it being early morning and I was getting into a car with my parents. I was in the back seat where I found two or three very young puppies (I think they were labs, but I'm not certain). My mom gave me an explanation for their presence, but I can't remember what it was. They were incredibly cute, though.

Then my mom handed me a bag of Chili Cheese Fritos. I haven't had those in a long time. The dream ones tasted so good, I might have to get a real life bag of them soon.

Then I remember I was driving a car somewhere at night to meet my friends. I got to the fictional neighborhood I was supposed to be in. There were cars everywhere, lining the curbs, etc. I couldn't find a place to park. Finally I found a place in someone's front yard.

As soon as I parked, the sound of sirens alerted me to several firetrucks rushing up the street. Only then did I notice that both the house I had parked in front of and the one next door to it were engulfed in flames. I had to move my car again so the firemen could get in. Somehow I just knew no one was in the burning homes, but I still felt sick as I watched them go up in smoke.

Then I was with my friends...I know Richard and Eric were among them. There were others there--either fictional or otherwise--that I can't recall. We were inside a huge Wal-Mart-like department store. We saw an acquaintance from high school who I (and I assume all of us) haven't seen in years and he told us he was gay. I don't think anyone ever held any such suspicions, so we were all kind of surprised to hear it.

There was a little more to the dream that involved just wandering through this store, but this is about where any real memory ends.

EXTRA BITS:
Here's one image from a dream I had a few nights ago that I didn't think merited its own entry, so I'll stick it here: I was driving somewhere at 1:00 am, but the sun was out. (Visually it looked to be just before sunset.) I knew there was no mistaking the hour, and found it very surreal to see the sun...yet only surreal and not terrifying.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

The Poorly Executed Prank

MORNING OF JUNE 5, 2008

Another dream featuring characters from the U.S. version of The Office TV show. I was with Jim and Pam and Dwight and it was supposed to be very late on a Friday night. Jim had cooked up an elaborate prank for the three of us to play on Dwight that began with tricking him
into coming back to the office with us (only "the office" in this instance was the Dunder Mifflin warehouse--or something like it).

Somehow we had convinced him he had to go into the building to check on something that had been left unattended, and we were going to lock him in for the night and leave. But it ended up that we all followed him into the building for a moment and the door closed behind us and locked us all in together.

We tried to make the best of it. I have vague memories of just hanging out in the big, empty building with the three others. Mostly Jim and I talked, because Dwight was mad and huffy once he found out about the prank, and Pam was a little mad that we'd been locked in for the whole night.

At some point Pam found a mother cat and kittens hiding away in the building. I remember seeing one of those cutaway interview clips like are used in the show with her seated at a table, playing with the cats as she said something like, "Yeah...this is not really what I expected to be doing with my Friday night when Jim told me we had a date..."

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Callin' In Sick

MORNING OF JUNE 4, 2008

I was at some sort of dinner party in a hotel. We ("we" being all of the guests, including myself and whoever I was with) were all seated among several circular tables all elaborately prepared with nice food. There was a stage in the front of the room, and a man with a mustache was sort of emceeing the event.

The mustachioed gent introduced a lady to the stage She looked to be about 40-ish, and was attractive with short, dark hair. She was only wearing a bodysuit made of mesh/"fishnet" style material and high heels. She and the man began some sort of performance--something along the lines of a magician and his "lovely assistant"--but I can't really remember the specifics of the act.

WARNING: The next paragraph is probably a little gross. Queasy readers should skip to the next paragraph after (or forget about the dream altogether if you prefer).

I went to the bathroom. As I was sitting there I was suddenly stricken with nausea that induced immediate vomiting. I threw up all over the floor as I sat there. It was really graphic. Bleah. Sorry.

I came out of the bathroom, feeling a little better now. I was approached by an official-looking old lady who informed me I had two new roommates. In the waking world I don't know what the roommates set up was supposed to be really, but I accepted it as understood in the dream. My best guess based on the memory is that people were being paired up for the hotel rooms they were staying in, since this took place in a hotel.

So I was introduced to my roommates: two young, attractive girls (thanks, Subconscious!). We talked as we walked down the hall to our room. They seemed personable enough.

Once in the hotel room I decided to call in sick to work, #1, because after throwing up I didn't really feel like being there all day in case it happened again, and #2, because if I felt better...I had just been assigned two attractive young roommates! When I called in, I realized I was already an hour late for work and they probably were wondering where in the world I was to begin with!

Then I have a vague memory of my two roommates each lying on their respective beds, studying (the room had three single beds). I took out some paper and started to draw. (This is the best you could do, Subconscious? You started this out with so much promise!)

Monday, June 2, 2008

That Hideous Noise

MORNING OF JUNE 2, 2008

I dreamed that I woke up in bed in the middle of the night. I was in the bedroom I had as a teenager (the whole house was that house), but that was of no notice in the dream. Even though it's been some years since I had a TV in my bedroom, my little TV was in this bedroom just as it used to be. I couldn't go back to sleep, so I turned it on and flipped through the channels a bit.

I saw a moment of some info-mercial for some kind of device that you could plug into your wall outlets to make them better. I also caught a few minutes of some cheesy, live-action kids program. I thought it was odd that this sort of kids show was on in the middle of the night.

I turned the TV off and was going to try to go back to sleep. Suddenly, in the darkness, I heard the most horrible sound. It seemed like it was coming from downstairs. I can't describe it except to say that it was a high-pitched and nasally moan. It had almost the tone of a kazoo, although it was definitely organic in origin. (The kazoo reference is really flawed, because that makes it sound silly, but it was anything but silly-sounding in the dream).

This long, drawn-out nasally moan came once...then a second time. I was freaking out because I couldn't think of what it was! Given this was my teenage home in the dream, I first wondered if one of my parents were injured downstairs. Then I wondered if something far more sinister might be the source. At any rate, I scared myself awake.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

A Mundane Dream About Disney World

MORNING OF JUNE 1, 2008

This dream is terribly mundane, but I'm recording it anyway. If nothing else, it will prove to you people that not ALL my dreams are super-weird.

I was with my cousin, S., and it felt like we were kids again. In fact, he actually was a kid again, but I think I was my current age. At any rate, we were going to Disney World with our families.

I remember we were in the hotel room the night before we would actually be going to the park, and we were reminiscing about a past trip we actually did make together to Disney World several years ago. We were sharing in-jokes and just generally looking forward to the coming day. I had in my possession some action figures of some of my own cartoon characters (but mostly of characters from my old high school and college comic as opposed to more current ones), and I thought it was cool that there were such things in existence, but it wasn't the focus of the dream.

Then I remember several of us loading into the car in the morning. I had a backpack full of random things with me, and I was trying to get my camera out of it. My cousin L. was in the backseat with S. and I (she was her current age as well). She asked to see my camera, and I handed it to her. She began looking at the pictures on it. I suddenly realized I'd not given the camera a full charge the night before and hoped it had enough to make it through the day. I even remember wondering if I would interrupt the art posts on my sketch blog to post some of the pictures when I got home.

Told ya. MUNDANE.