The Mysterious Coffin Caper

MORNING OF DECEMBER 30, 2010

This dream started out as though I was watching a movie, but eventually it felt like I was taking part in the action myself. There was a team of police investigators led by a pretty, forty-ish blonde woman. They had located a mysterious, ancient-looking coffin with unidentifiable markings all over it, and were trying to discern where it came from.

They eventually got the coffin open to reveal the perfectly preserved corpse of an Asian man who looked liked he had lived centuries before. For some reason they loaded the coffin/body into an empty boxcar on a train.

As the train moved, the blonde investigator and I were the only ones in the boxcar with the coffin. She opened a book she had found and began reading a spell from it. The markings on the coffin began to light up, and then little tentacle-like wisps of glowing smoke began streak from them.

The smoke coils wrapped round and round the woman as she read, until finally she began convulsing and light shot from her eyes!

I took such a start that I woke up!

Squatters in a Hotel

MORNING OF DECEMBER 27, 2010

I was in a large facility that basically looked like a posh hotel, only it was very obviously abandoned and in the early stages of decline. Many people had begun living there like "squatters", and I was among them. There was a feel as though this were some sci-fi movie, and masses of people were being forced to live like this because of some tragedy or disaster.

I had met up with an ex-girlfriend among the throngs of squatters, and we were sitting on the floor in an area, just talking. Suddenly she confronted me, accusing me of being "an atheist", and really insulting me about it. Then an intercom announcement called me to the "office" of this facility.

I remember a long walk in which I took in the scenery of all the masses huddled around in this formerly fancy hotel. Apparently all of the rooms were filled, because a lot of the people had set up boxes or tents along the hallways. One group of people had a structure that looked like a big version of the old Fisher Price "Little People" barn!

There was very little light to walk by. Only the emergency lighting was on at this time. Finally I arrived at "the office" I had been called to. Some woman was in charge, and I had to wait to see her because she wanted to talk to me. About this time the dream simply changed.

Now I was in line to meet "Weird Al" Yankovic. At his table were a variety of watercolor prints featuring subjects like rain forests, toucans, kangaroos, etc. He was signing these for people, though they weren't his paintings. I couldn't figure out the connection.

iPod Animations

MORNING OF DECEMBER 25, 2010

My car was in the shop for some reason. My dad was supposed to have left his car at the shop for me to drive home after I dropped mine off. I couldn't find it, so I just started walking around. It was fairly late in the evening, and I was in a large city.

I was playing with my iPod as I walked, only it looked more like a futuristic iPod Touch rather than my real Classic. The menu screen had realistic animations of colored, polished stones. It's difficult for me to describe how it looked or seemed to work.

Finally I remember being in a hotel room. There was a huge animated wall display that simulated the "shiny stones" animation from the iPod earlier. Only there was also the silhouette of a dancing girl incorporated into the animation. And then, without any particular notice, the girl was in my room with me. We began talking a bit flirtatiously.

The Weird Indoor Playground/Games Area

MORNING OF DECEMBER 26

I remember the band Metric had released either a (fictional) new single or a new album called "Bastard". I was discussing it with some friends on Twitter, and intended to purchase it when I had a chance.

Then I remember leaving a hotel room with Lisa. We met some strange lady that spoke to us briefly, but I can't recall the conversation. On our way out of the hotel we passed through a gift shop. I saw a Metric T-shirt for the new "Bastard" song, and I also saw a cool T-shirt which featured a mash-up of "Scott Pilgrim" and "How to Train Your Dragon".

Next we were in a room that looked like an indoor playground. There were many tall slides, including one that was somehow designed to look like a scene from "Indiana Jones". At the bottom of the slide, you slid into a fake snake pit.

There was also a bowling alley in this area, only you had to slip and slide down the alley and crash into the pins with your body instead of a ball. It was bizarre! And at some point we were informed that this wacky play area was all owned by Snoop Dogg.

About this time I went to the restroom. Guys in their kept coming up to me and telling me they liked my "Fatback & Skinny McLean" comics. I sadly haven't given much attention to those characters in the past few years, so I wondered how these people were so familiar with them--and why every man in the bathroom seemed to be a fan!

When I returned to me friends, they explained that was a "gay bathroom" and Fatback & Skinny had become very popular in the gay community.

Eric and I went into a gift shop and they had holograms of pets! Just little semi-translucent projections of cats or dogs that you could interact with. They were really cool.

When we left the gift shop to return to the bowling area, we saw Richard was now trying it. He'd devised a special method for slamming into the pins head-first, and we thought it looked painful.

Ice Cream or Wrestling

MORNING OF DECEMBER 24, 2010

In real life there is a local "meetup" group I sometimes attend in which people meet up to go see a movie and have dinner. In my dream, I was in an amusement park with Lisa. We were debating whether to leave the park and go attend the movie meetup, or to stay in the park and have ice cream there.

We must have decided on the ice cream, because I remember buying two cones, and then I went back to where Lisa had been, but she was no longer there. It seemed liked I looked for her for ages, while eating my cone and trying to keep hers from melting all over the place.

Eventually I found her in a room that looked like a small gym. People were in wrestling gear (like the high school sport, not the WWE stuff). She told me it was the co-ed "wrestling meetup" and she'd decided to attend that group instead of the movie one. She was getting ready to go at it with some brunette girl.

Mangrel

MORNING OF DECEMBER 18, 2010

Apparently I was creating a silly superhero comic book. It was called "Captain Amazing" or something to that effect. I had just come up with an idea for a villain to use in the comic who was half man/half dog. I named him Mangrel (like "Mongrel"...get it?). In the dream I thought this was the funniest pun, and I immediately showed it to Lisa. I actually woke myself up laughing, only to realize it wasn't really very funny.

There was another dream later on: In real life I recently returned from a trip to Disney World with Lisa and friends. In my dream we were still there. For some reason I was alone in our hotel room at the Grand Floridian for a few minutes. I was trying to do something on my cell phone, but it kept shutting down and rebooting and otherwise acting strangely. Eventually I got a message on the screen saying that it had been infected by a virus!

Amusment Parks and Detective Work

MORNING OF DECEMBER 12, 2010

First I have vague memories that I had been talking online to a fellow cartoonist that I mutually follow in the deviantART community online. In the dream we had fictionally delved into a lengthy correspondence about some sort of topic I can't recall.

Next I remember being at an amusement park of some sort with several friends. I also saw and recognized the girl from the deviantART correspondence. I tried to say hello in person, but with all the crowds we somehow got separated.

Later I did see her and speak to her and she freaked out, calling me a stalker. Somehow she could not comprehend that I had just randomly seen her at the amusement park.

Some more vague memories of my friends and I doing things at the park, and then suddenly it becomes a crime drama. We witnessed a guy stealing a bicycle and a German shepherd somehow simultaneously, and we chased him.

Then my friend Eric and I split from the group and became detectives, searching the whole city (yes, the whole city, not the amusement park) for clues as to where they guy went with the bike. We eventually found him in a shabby apartment complex and arrested him.

The final memory of the dream was riding on a train discussing this caper with Mulder and Scully from The X-files. Mulder was amused, Scully was unimpressed.

The Sinking Ship Disaster

MORNING OF DECEMBER 11, 2010

In my first memory, I am on a cruise ship. I have never actually been on board one, so the dream environment is based on ships in movies, and is most especially comparable to the Titanic.

I was in a long line of people were standing single file against a wall in one of the hallways. There was obviously some kind of emergency and we'd been told to wait here for further instruction. A woman around my age was in front of me in the line, and we talked for a bit about our mutual fears of whatever danger we were in.

But I really had to go to the bathroom. An official let me step out of line and go do that, but then I returned to my place. Now, instead of being fictional, the woman in front of me was an ex girlfriend. We resumed talking and began to catch up with each other.

During this time we learned the danger was the fact that the ship was sinking. As my ex and I sat and talked, the hallway gradually began to tilt at an angle, with the part of the ship ahead of us going down and the part behind us tilting up. Even as this slow-yet-terrifying process continued, my ex and I were still talking.

We began to make amends for things in the past. I think neither of us really wanted to be back together, but it felt good to be able to "bury the hatchet".

Eventually, I had to pee again. This time there was a row of port-a-potties lines up against one of the walls near us. I went into one. By now the ship was sinking very deeply so the hallway--and indeed the port-a-potties--were tilted at an extreme angle. This made my business very daunting.

I returned to my place in line again, and my ex and I continued to talk. The lights went out. You could hear the sound of creaking metal, things breaking, and fellow passengers crying and praying.

In my next memory, my ex and I are running through the cabin where I was staying on the ship. It looked a lot like the bedroom I had as a teenager, but it was slanting and falling apart with the ship. I remember finding a model of something that looked like a "steampunk" version of Garfield, and a Curious George comic book was on the floor. It made me wonder how many kids were on the sinking ship.

After this, we ran outside, and were no longer on the ship but were coming out of the a building in the middle of a city late at night. Even though the sinking ship no longer factored in, there was still imminent danger. This is because the city was under attack from some sort of apparently alien force. They were giant and robotic--I remember thinking they looked like the "Transformers" in the movies.

The city was mostly on fire, and destruction was raining down. My ex and I saw a car parked in a driveway and jumped in. But instead of using it to attempt to drive to safety, we just huddled and cowered in the back seat. As though this car would offer and protection against the outside carnage, were it to make its way to our exact location.

Somehow, in what were probably our last moments, we began to make out. But we had only just started when suddenly a group of people in HazMat/bio-hazard suits approached the car. They told us to get out and ushered us to safety in a nearby garage.

Safely inside the garage, the bio-hazard suits came off and to reveal a rag-tag group of survivors, the leader of whom looked like Rob Lowe. Only the Rob Lowe dude was flamboyantly gay. They gave us the tour of the garage, which was outfitted to look like a beauty salon/barber shop.

The Rob Lowe character was explaining to us his master plan--when society begins to rebuild itself, people would need to get haircuts! Around this time, I woke up. I REALLY had to go to the bathroom. The end.

Doodles '96

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 30, 2010

Richard and I attended a "Weird Al" Yankovic concert. At one point I realized I didn't have my camera. I did have a bag with me that the camera, and other supplies, are often stored in when I'm on the go. But it wasn't in that bag, either.

My next memory is sitting alone at home looking through a pile of scrap paper filled with old doodles and sketches I had made. The art must have been dated, because I specifically remember associating it with 1996.

There was a separate dream in which I was watching "Lost" on TV and Jack and Kate and Sawyer had found an abandoned refrigerator that had some kind of power about it. I think they were taking turns stepping into it to gain some kind of power, or arguing about whether or not to do that, or something.

Neil Gaiman and Rescue Rangers

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 26, 2010

In real life, some friends and I went to see Neil Gaiman do a reading in person when he came to Alabama. In my dream, he had come back for another reading, and we were there. The odd thing was, the typically all-black-clad Gaiman was wearing a bright and multi-colored striped hoody (with the hood up) over his usual dark attire.

At the end of the reading I realized I hadn't taken any pictures and was upset with myself.

Next I remember being in a long line for something with Richard and Jessica. They had a hand-held Rescue Rangers (from the Disney Afternoon cartoon) video game, not unlike something you would really have found back in the 90's. You played as Gadget in the game. We were all very much consumed with playing this.

Then I found myself walking the streets of a huge city, not unlike New York. I once again saw Neil Gaiman, only this time he was wearing accessories from a bunny suit (the ears,fluffy tail, etc.). I followed him into a room and he asked if I could get any pictures while he had the bunny stuff on. My cell phone was all I had, and the pictures all turned out horrible because of the lighting.

We went to lunch together, and as we set there I felt mortified because I had no idea what to say to Neil Gaiman.

A Concert in Fake Germany

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 25, 2010

For some reason I was visiting Germany (I've never really been). I was surprised to find that everywhere you went, Nazi guards had to check your ID and papers before you would be allowed access. Sometimes checks would be performed on you at random.

Then I was walking through a public park (still in Germany) at night. An outdoor concert was taking place, and I was trying to find out where in the park it was. I could hear the music, but the area was so large and crowded I could not find it specifically.

Some young man, probably in his twenties crossed my path, and we supposedly had already met each other before during my time in Germany. He walked the paths with me and told me he could help me find the concert area. First I had to use the bathroom, so I excused myself to do just that.

The public restroom was very odd-looking. All the toilets were made in such a way that even males had to sit down to pee (I don't remember how one designs a toilet that requires that, but it was true in the dream).

When I left the bathroom, my guide was gone, and I was once again seeking the concert stage on my own. I could still hear it, and it was very frustrating never to be able to find the source of the music!

I did finally find the stage. When it was empty and the crowd had long dispersed, leaving being only empty cups, bottles, and other trash.

Next I was in some sort of mall. I realized I'd left my papers somewhere else, and was afraid one of the guards would ask for them. Sure enough, a beautiful-but-tough looking blonde female officer approached me. She was wearing a vaguely fetishistic leather Nazi uniform on. I am not even going to try to analyze that. But in the end, I somehow got away from her despite not having my papers.

I went into a book store, and there was a hardcover volume of old, vintage comics that I thought was very cool. The cover had a female character that looked a little like Betty Boop on it, dressed as the officer from before had been dressed. My dad was there and he thought it was "too sexy".

That Amazing Toy Story Art

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 24, 2010

I was visiting my parents' home. For some reason I was drawing a picture of Woody, Buzz and some other characters from Toy Story (specifically part 3). The art was coming along very well, and in fact looked better than I probably could actually manage in real life.

The next I remember, I was outside taking a walk near my own apartment. I realized I'd left the Toy Story art at my parents' and I was disappointed, because I had wanted to post it to my blog.

I walked into what at first was supposed to be my apartment, but it looked entirely different. It was a very shabby, run-down apartment, and John Flansburg and John Linnell from They Might Be Giants lived there together. I remember thinking it was odd that after all these years, they were "still just roommates in an apartment together."

Burning Buildings

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 20, 2010

Thanks to my recent real-life trip to Disney World, I dreamed that my friends and I were in one of the Disney resort hotels. We were shopping in one of the stores. There was a creepy, dark corridor in one part of the store, and a small girl approached us and led us around (creepy corridors and children leading you around them is never a good sign, if you didn't know).

At some point it became clear the place was on fire and we had to escape. I have vague memories of running through a maze of hallways until I finally seemed to have found safety in a small kitchen. I sat down at the kitchen table and began eating something, and was soon joined by a married couple. They looked sort of like a couple I went to high school with (they were dating then and are, I believe, married now, though I was never really personal friends with them).

The couple at the table were talking, and soon they began arguing and throwing about racial slurs. I was offended and so left the table. In the adjoining living room I was now on the phone with someone. I was barefoot and pacing as I talked, and soon noticed that the floor was very hot. Then I saw smoke coming from under the door and the doorknob was also hot. The place was on fire again!

The last part of the dream I remember is escaping the burning building again, and then driving my car up and down a local highway.

Waiting For Goldfrapp

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 13, 2010

A vaguely remembered dream. I was with a class on some sort of field trip. At some point we entered a large, gothic-looking building. It was obvious that a stage was set up for a concert of production of some sort. My class was led up a flight of stairs to a sort of terrace above the main level, where we sat on the stone floor with our backs against the wall.

The whole place was very dimly lit. This is when we were informed there was a power outage and that "the Goldfrapp concert would be delayed." (Ah, so this is what the concert was going to be.)

The delay seemed to last a long time. At one point Alison Goldfrapp herself began to walk amongst the crowds, apologizing for the power outage/delay. She walked past our row of students and said, "This will pass the time! Shout out random creatures!" And people would shout out the name of a random animal, and she would immediately shout it back. And so on and so forth. I have no idea what the point of this activity was.

She passed me and I shouted, "Triceratops" and she said, "Triceratops!". It was just...weird.

About this time, the "teacher" of the "class" I was with handed out test papers and we started to take our exam, just sitting there on the floor.

Girls and Children from the Comic Book

MORNING OF OCTOBER 25, 2010


I was reading a black and white comic book, drawn in the style of Scott Pilgrim artist, Bryan Lee O'Malley. It told the story of a young adult girl who wanted to be best friends with another girl. The scene I was reading featured the other girl explaining to the first one that they were not, indeed, best friends. She didn't really even consider her a friend at all.

There was another part of the comic that featured art of two Japanese children on the ledge of a skyscraper. One of them was breaking into a window.

At this point it ceased to look like a comic book and more like a live action movie. The two children made it into the window, which turned out to be to an apartment. They had some sort of remote control toy, and they were plotting how they would send it into the main room to give their parents a scare.

The Exhibit with Charlie Who and the Chicken Vendor

MORNING OF OCTOBER 23, 2010

I was visitign Atlanta with Lisa, Dean, the White family, and possibly others. We went to a large, fictional mall. One unfurnished storefront had been turned into a type of makeshift art studio. I soon found out that one my ex girlfriends lived there now.

The next I remember, I was talking to her, and she was explaining to me that she was a photographer now. The walls were adorned with her latest exhibit, which was all artsy pictures of German shepherds.

Next I remember being in a T-shirt shop that looked like a little hole-in-the-wall type of store. There were a lot of Peanuts-related shirts. I was particularly drawn to one that pictured Charlie Brown dressed as Doctor Who, with the text, "Charlie WHO?" beneath it.


After this I recall my friends and I walking into a parking deck. They custodian told us it would cost us $1 each to retrieve our car. First we had to gets dollar bills out of a type fo vendign machine. The bills it gave us were "new" dollar bills, with an entirely different design from actual dollar bills.

There was an old, black panhandler standign near the vending machine. He was selling strips of chicken for $1. I told him I'd buy some. He asked if I wanted "regular or buffalo". I told him I'd try buffalo. So he took out a bottle of buffalo sauce and just messily squirted it all over some of the plain grilled chicken, then handed it to me.


It wasn't that great. I noticed off to the side, a stuffy young man in a business suit was also eating some of the panhandler's chicken. Suddenly he began complaining because a fly had landed on it and now he had to throw it all away.

Dead 'Buster and Classroom Guy

MORNING OF OCTOBER 22, 2010

I heard the Jamie Hyneman, co-host of the Mythbusters TV show, had died. For some reason, I ended up attending the funeral. I remember seeing him lying in his casket, beret and all.

From this the dream turned into me in a large facility that looked like a TV station, but it was full of classroomsas well. I was sitting in one class people with several other "students" from high school days. There was one guy, a fictional character, who stood out to me in the class.

Before the teacher arrived, he was beign very loud and boisterous, trying to make people laugh. I "remembered" that I supposedly had not liked this guy in high school, and now I wondered why, because he seemed affable enough. At one point he was talking about some girl named "Mary Capacitor", and I wonderd who she was.

Then I began doodling in my notebook. I was drawing the flux capacitor from "Back to the Future", aswell as creating a cartoon version of the guy that kept talking. It gave me an idea for some new comic. I for some reason especially thought his clothes would translate well to a cartoon character (though I can't remember what was special about them now).

Amateur Photographers Circle

MORNING OF OCTOBER 17, 2010

I vaguely remember Lisa and I attending some kind of amateur photo shoot with several other people. A large group of hobby photographers were gathered in out in a field. They were each paired off with a model, most of them women,and the goal was to see who could get the best pictures or something of the sort.

The only imagery I clearly retain from this one is the group of photographers and models forming a huge circle in the middle of the field and calling out people's names. This is about the point when Lisa and I joined in.

Waiting in Line

MORNING OF OCTOBER 15, 2010

I only vaguely recall being at some sort of comic convention, likely DragonCon. Most of the dream was just tedious amounts of standing in line for one event or another. I just remember the realistic frustration of always waiting, waiting, waiting. The last line I remember being in was for food, in some sort of cafeteria or food court. There was a young girl in line near me with short, light brown hair, wearing a light blue T-shirt and jeans. She kept trying to catch my eye and was being very flirtatious. The problem was that she was obviously way too young to be acting this way towards anyone of my age, and therefore was making me very uncomfortable with her behavior, even just from a distance.

The Strange Little Church

MORNING OF OCTOBER 13, 2010

I heard that an old friend from high school and college had become a priest. Eric and I drove out to the tiny little church he was supposedly pastoring to say hi. We parked outside the church until the morning service was over, and only then walked inside to find our friend.

An older priest greeted us. I was wearing a "Back to the Future" T-shirt, and the priest chastised me. He proclaimed that the movie had "led many youth astray".

Another random man in the church saw my shirt and began trying to sell me a backpack full of random items. He was trying to convince me that the items would make "great accessories for your shirt". He was making no sense.

Then he tried to sell me an old, worn-out Bible that had a picture of a bear on the cover, and was inscribed with the name "Caybo" or "Cabai" or something like that (I can't clearly remember it anymore).

We next found ourselves in a little house next to the church where people were serving lunch. I overheard someone say that author Neil Gaiman enjoyed "farming yogurt cultures" in his spare time.

I never did see my old friend who had supposedly become a priest.

Joel and the Choir

MORNING OF OCTOBER 11, 2010

In real life I recently had to pass up the chance to see comedian/actor Joel McHale in nearby Atlanta. In my dream, some friends and I were actually at the show. When it came time for the show to begin, the auditorium was still mostly empty. Joel came out and said before he started, we all needed to move forward and fill all of the closest seats rather than being randomly spread out.

Once we'd all moved in to fill the closest seats, Joel came back on the stage and said a few things. Soon, though, he decided to leave the stage again, saying he'd "be back a little later."

Next, a black gospel choir took to the stage and began performing.

Masks, Crowds, Cats, Propoganda, and More!

MORNING OF OCTOBER 9, 2010

I was going with my parents to pay a visit to each of my respective remaining grandparents. It was a holiday visit--for Halloween, as though Halloween were a holiday traditionally celebrated with family get-togethers like Thanksgiving and Christmas more normally are.

At my grandmother's I remember going through some cereal boxes she had kept aside because they had templates for cut-out Halloween masks on the back panels. For some reason I cut out the masks, most of which looked like Jack-O-Lanterns.

At some point I walked out of her house which led into what looked like a huge public park filled with people. There was obviously some type of specific event going on.

One area of the park looked like one of the walking trails I often go on in real life. I went down the path for some length and was pleased to find that not many of the crowds were here. A small, dark cat--not fully adult but more than a tiny kitten--approached me and I petted it for a while.

Then I went into this one central building on the premises. It seemed to be filled with mostly elevators and escalators. I was reading a "You Are Here" type map on a wall when an elevator opened behind me. Out stepped a pastor and a small crowd of eager followers. The pastor (who looked rather "televangelist") was spouting a lot of political and end-times rhetoric, which his small flock here eating up eagerly.

The flamboyant pastor seemed to think Jesus was specifically coming back this very night. I wish I could remember all of the things he was shouting about--it was so very over-the-top and anti-everything.

I tried to get away from this little group. Even though the place was fairly crowded, I for some reason was afraid the pastor would single me out if he saw me. I didn't want to be mistakenly associated with his group.

I went back to the large outdoor area and was looking for my cat from before, but I could not find it. I saw an ex-girlfriend and told her about the cat, which very much interested her, but it was still nowhere to be found. While we searched, though, she told me that all of her cats had died and it made me sad.

I saw my parents among the crowd and asked if they had the masks I'd cut out at my grandmother's house earlier. My mom said she'd thrown them away with the "rest of the trash". It wasn't a big deal, but for some reason it made me feel a little bit sad as well. Almost like the loss of innocence or something.

My last memory is of walking into another building where some people were watching a supposedly recent episode of "The Simpsons" on a large TV. I recognized the fictional episode and asked the guy in control to find a certain scene that I had found particularly funny the first time I saw it.

As he began skipping through the episode, he suddenly came upon a very pornographic scene! It didn't feature any of the major Simpsons characters, but just characters in that style engaged in very explicit acts. I was surprised that it was almost a little exciting...but mostly I was just shocked and disturbed that this was in a real episode of the show!

Wolverine vs. Bear Cub

MORNING OF OCTOBER 6, 2010

I was with Lisa and we were on some sort of property out in the wilderness. There was a house and a crude road, bit it was mostly wooded or open, undeveloped area. As we walked alone one of the roads, we saw a wolverine rooting around in a ditch. We tried to stay well clear of it, but I immediately began trying to snap pictures of it with my cell phone.

Now along came a bear cub. It approached the full-grown wolverine and the two began to scuffle. I was afraid the cub would get hurt since it was so young and other other was so fierce, but it turns out the little bear easily defeated the wolverine and sent it running.

This I had to "tweet" about. My message on Twitter read, "Just saw Wolverine get pwned by a bear cub!" (I intentionally capitalized "Wolverine", so it would sound like the Marvel Comics character, and not the actual animal, had been bested by a cub. This was real humor in my dream.)

Conan and the Former President

MORNING OF OCTOBER 4,2010

In real life this past summer I attended the final date of Conan O'Brien's "Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television" tour in Atlanta, GA. In this dream, I was at what was basically that show all over again...except, of course, weirdly dream-like.

There was one point when Conan was on stage making a joke about something a former U.S. President had done. The joke was current, but it referred to "former President Adams" (I don't know which Adams.)

At this point, former President Adams entered the auditorium from a side door and began running around the arena crazily. The crowd went wild with laughter and cheers.

However, former President Adams looked to be a very old and decrepit man, and his running around was slow and feeble. There was obviously no way this behavior was good for his health. Nonetheless, he finished his cameo appearance and left again. Conan went on with the show.

A bit later, Conan made a joke about William Shatner, who then appeared and ran around the stadium in exact mimicry of former President Adams' previous act.

Later, I remember driving around downtown with the friends who had seen Conan with me and we had to stop for a huge funeral procession. We found out it was for former President Adams, who had over-exerted himself at the show and died.

In probably a separate dream, my mom wanted to go see a movie (very out of character for her). She asked me specifically about the "new Chuck Norris movie" (would be even more out of character for her to see that type of movie, if there were one.) I explained to her that it probably wasn't in theaters anymore because it had been such a box office bomb.

Sitting on the Bleachers

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 28, 2010

I remember attending what looked like a high school football game. I never even attended these when I was actually in high school, so I have no idea why one turned up in my dreams.

I walked to the very top of the bleachers where little known country singer Mandy Barnett (an amazingly random, out-of-nowhere appearance!) was seated, wearing a red dress.

My last memory is the two of us talking.

Commercial Interruption

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

I had this dream the night before the NBC comedy, Community (one of the few shows I watch), was to have its second season premiere. At one point in my dream I was in a crowded cafeteria with my friend Richard (it looked like our old high school cafeteria).

Actress Gillian Jacobs, who plays Britta on the show, stopped by and sat down across from us. She immediately began promoting the fact that the season premiere of Community would be airing at 7 central that evening!

This means that I actually had a commercial inserted into one of my dreams. The future is here, people!

There was a little more brief conversation with Gillian. She showed me some kind of photo of her standing outside of a Wendy's. For whatever reason, it was supposed to be funny. I took it from her and went outside and wrote "BLAM!" on the photo in block letters with a Sharpie, then I came back and returned it to her.

For some reason the "BLAM!" was so funny to her. It cracked her up! But shortly after this she left. Richard and I continued our conversation and that's about all I remember.

Generic Grocery Store iPad & A Horrible Kiss

MORNING SEPTEMBER 22, 2010

I was in a grocery store walking down the cereal aisle. At one point the shelf was stocked with devices that looked like generic iPads. I plated around with one and really thought it was neat. Suddenly I realized I had been standing their for a full hour! I looked and found out that the generic iPads were something like $10, so I put one in my cart. Unfortunately, I had some frozen goods in my shopping cart, and I knew they wouldn't still be good if I had been standing there for an hour, so, naturally, I returned them to the shelf!

For some reason I took the groceries to my parents' house. I unloaded them in the kitchen and then began playing with my generic iPad. It needed charging pretty soon, so I plugged it in and began preparing some type of cereal for supper. Then I was back on the generic iPad again, now chatting online with a girl I had been acquaintance-level friends with in high school. I'd kind of liked her back then, and in my dream she admitted she had always liked me as well and we should do something about it right now, even though she was married.

This whole conversation was interrupted when my parents called to check how things were going in their house (apparently I was house-sitting). As soon as I quit talking to them, I turned back to resume my online chat, but now it's as though the girl was actually there in person!

It felt really, really awkward (because she was married!) and I didn't want to be there. She insisted we kiss. So we kissed. It was a terribly awkward kiss. I was almost relieved--I thought surely she'd leave and end this weird situation because the kiss was so horrible. But she loved it! She exclaimed on and on about how it was one of the most amazing kisses ever. I had been there for the kiss, and I thought she was crazy for thinking this about it.

At some point in this dream there was a report on TV about Delaware Republican Senate nominee, Christine O'Donnell, who has been all over the news lately. Apparently the election was over and she had lost. She was literally crying on TV about how unfair it was.

The Jellyfish Has Mile-Long Tentacles!

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 21, 2010

I was at my grandmother's house for a family get-together. It seemed like probably Thanksgiving or Christmas. The TV was on in one room, and some cable network was showing an all-day marathon of a classic 80's cartoon.

The cartoon was fictional, but it was supposedly one I had loved as a kid. It featured little elf-like creatures, not unlike Smurfs, though they were normal flesh tones instead of blue. They lived next to the sea, and their greatest enemy was a giant jellyfish who wanted to wipe out their town.

I recall watching a specific episode in which the tiny elf creatures were in their tiny submarines waging war with the jellyfish. The cartoon ceased to be whimsical and started to feel really intense during this battle.

I left the room for a moment and it was as if I was standing in line at a cafeteria. I saw a girl I used to know, and I talked to her about the show I was watching. But then the cafeteria was my grandmother's kitchen. Someone was standing by the counter and I explained to him what dire peril the elf-people were in. "The jellyfish is huge--it's tentacles are each a mile long," I told him.

The man explained how "we" (I guess he was one of the elf-people, even though he was normal size?) had slowly worn the jellyfish down, so that it was not at full strength. He was confident it would be beaten.

My last memory is sitting in the floor putting away a bunch of Legos. Apparently the whole adventure had really just been constructed out of these building blocks. There were Lego people resembling many of the major characters.

We Were at the Halloween Party

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

My friends and I were all at Lisa's upcoming Halloween party (I didn't notice until after waking up that none of us were even in costumes). Everyone had brought favorite scary or otherwise Halloween-appropriate movies to the party and we were to pick the one(s) we wanted to watch.

At some point I left the party for a moment and went out to my car. There was a fictional, overweight black guy standing in the driveway and we ended up talking. He apologized to me if something had "offended me" (I don't remember what he was talking about), and I assured him it hadn't.

Sesame Street Workshop

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 18, 2010

It was late in the morning on a Saturday morning (which is approximately when I was having this dream). I was walking up a long street in what looked like a neighborhood I lived in as a kid. At the end of the dream-street, there was what looked like a university campus.

As I approached the "campus", I realized that I had only just crawled out of bed. I hadn't showered, I still looked a slob, etc. But I shrugged it off and went on my way. The campus turned out to be some kind of Disney amusement park. I have vague memories of exploring some of its attractions.

My next clear memory is that it was now early evening. I had ridden in a taxi to a building where a few other people were gathering. Kevin Murphy of "Mystery Science Theater" and "RiffTrax" fame was with me. He was explaining why his compatriot, Bill Corbett, wasn't there. Apparently we had been selected to work with some of the original Sesame Street puppets in some kind of workshop.

I remember some lady sitting us on the floor in a cleared-off area of a large room (other areas of the room had other groups, apparently doing their own workshops). She told us that someone would bring in our Sesame Street puppets shortly. I was so excited to get to see/work with actual Henson puppets in person! But this is all I remember.

Ladder Lady and George

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 17, 2010

I don't remember where I was, but a really pretty girl asked if I could come into the next room and help her. In that room there was a large "ladder" against a wall, only the "ladder" looked more like a giant camera tripod. It was several feet tall.

The woman climbed this tripod-ladder to the very top and began doing some kind of work near the particularly high ceiling of the room. She told me I could hand her tools as she needed them. The problem was, she was wearing an impossibly short skirt and had equally impossibly nice legs. And here I was standing below her on the ladder waiting for her to call for tools. It took all of my reserve to be a gentleman and not stare like a mindless zombie.

So I was looking down at the floor when suddenly I heard a male voice ask for a tool. I looked up and saw the woman was no longer on the ladder, but not it was George Clooney. This didn't even seem weird at the dream, except I remember feeling a little relived that I was no longer in the awkward position with the hot girl.

George now came down the tripod-ladder and walked with me over to where two or three of my friends were. he began excitedly telling all of us about a new cologne he was developing.

Improv, Recyclables, and Ice Cream

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 12, 2010

In real life a couple of friends and I recently took part in an 8 week improv comedy class at a nearby college. It was loads of fun. In my dream, several of us from the class were attending one of the shows the real comedy troupe performs, but they were supposed to be "full participation", in which we were expected to perform as well.

I remember some bit about Lisa and I having trouble finding a park downtown when I first got there, but we finally made it to the little venue before I was terribly late. At the beginning of the show, they divided us in half. The first group would perform while the second group had to go outside and wait their turn. I was in the second group, and I felt it unfair we couldn't watch the first half perform while we waited.

I remember some vague bit about finally seeing the performance, but my next clear memory involves me being in a hotel room. A pretty blonde girl was also in the room, and we were packing our respective things. We didn't know each other, and we were making awkward small talk.

There was some decision about who was going to "take the recyclables down to the train." (This made sense to me in the dream, because I could see in my mind a big train that came through town every few hours, and you had to throw your bags of recyclables onto one of the cars as it passed) I told her I'd do this, so she wouldn't have to fool with it.

She told me that we could hang out again later if I wanted to, because she'd really enjoyed our conversation. Only she was afraid she didn't have anything good to wear. I told her the same thing she had on now would be fine. I helped her take her bags out of the hotel and into the parking lot. The outside area looked like two or three gas station/convenience stores standing side-by-side. One of them had been converted into an ice cream store, which I quickly pointed out to the girl.

Two very hairy men ran the ice cream store, which looked more like a mechanic's shop. In retrospect, the guys almost looked like human versions of video game characters Mario and Luigi. They told me about their new ice cream shop. The only thing left for them to do, they said, was to create a cool sign for the building. They explained how they wanted to surround their logo in the sign with actual old hubcaps and tires and things.

It turns out this is just what was in the bag of "recyclables" I was supposed to be lugging to the train, so I told them I'd trade it to them for some free ice cream for the girl and I.

Al Remembers the Attacks

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2010

On TV they were discussing the anniversary of "Pearl Harbor", but I know my brain meant "9/11", as today is the ninth anniversary, and it's been all over TV in the past few days, of course.

One segment on the news was a story about how "Weird Al" Yankovic remembered the attacks! It had documentary-style interview footage of Al remembering how, on that fateful morning, he was reading to an audience excerpts from his then-just-published (fictional) autobiography.

Cut to footage from that actual event. Al is reading a humorously embellished memory from his book, when he gets news of the attacks.

Somehow, from this, I saw footage of singer Imogen Heap and a little girl who was supposed to be her daughter. They were sitting at a table making crafts and discussing the attacks and "Weird Al" Yankovic's book.

Clearly, I need help.

Kidnapping Service

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

There was a commercial on TV for a company that would "kidnap" you and hold you captive for a set period of time if you paid them too. The voice-over explained the concept over a montage of women and men individually locked in the small room where "victims" were held. In one clip, the "victim" was riding one of those little personal motorized scooter devices around the room. It seems like I saw a story online years ago about people who were actually trying to start a paid "kidnapping" service in some city. I guess that memory rose up out of the forgotten subconscious for this bit of dream.

Murder on the News, Music, and More

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 9, 2010

First I remember watching a news story about a man who had killed two people during a roller coaster ride at a theme park! Somehow there was grainy footage of the actual ride in progress. They slowed it down to where you could vaguely tell what was going on in each of the cars.

One man was calmly reading a newspaper as the other passengers were screaming, waving their arms, and going about typical roller coaster behavior. Suddenly, as the coaster was cresting a huge hill, that man sat up and nonchalantly shoved the person next to him out of the car, and then one of the people in the car in front of him. He then poured the rest of a beverage he was holding over the side.

So anyway, this story was all over the news as I went to visit my parents' church (which looked fictional) with them for some reason. There was special music by a father/daughter duo who played a bluegrass-y type of music. The music isn't my most preferred type, but the duo were very good at it. And the girl was rather cute.

After the concert, I was standing in the back of the building at a snack counter. I remember I was wearing a new T-shirt that I supposedly loved. It was dark brown with some kind of text on it, but I can't recall what it said. Suddenly the girl from the music duo walked up to get some snacks.

She was cute, though maybe not as cute as I'd originally thought. Also, she was way younger than I had expected (still an adult, but barely). We struck up a conversation and ended up talking for a long time.

We went outside and began to take a long walk in the woods as we talked. I suddenly realized I had on my regular shoes instead of my walking shoes. Apparently my parents lived just right across the street from where we were, and I knew I had a pair of good walking shoes at their house. So I asked the girl if she minded if I went and got them.

The girl waited outside while I went in to change shoes. The TV was on inside the house, and they were continuing to cover the murder from earlier. Now they had confirmed the man was apparently some formerly famous actor.

Then I was in what looked like a furnished basement, and I found a copy of "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" on DVD (in reality that movie isn't on DVD yet--it's only just, very unfairly, bombed in theaters). I love the movie, so I was excited. I started watching it immediately.

Suddenly, during the first scene of the movie, I remembered the girl was outside waiting on me and hurried back out of the house.

Substitute Autographs at DragonCon

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 2, 2010

In real life I'll be attended my first DragonCon in Atlanta this weekend. My nerdy self is particularly looking forward to some of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 / RiffTrax panels with those guys. Therefore we end up with this little snippet of a dream memory:

I was at DragonCon, waiting in line to meet Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy of RiffTrax/MST3K. They were sitting at a table together, but they wouldn't sign autographs when you met them. At the end of the table was a young woman who scribbled each of their initials on a scrap piece of paper. And that was your "autograph".

Even in the dream, I found this extremely weird.

Medical Cadaver

MORNING OF AUGUST 29, 2010

This one's disturbing. Oh boy...

I was at work and someone had brought a cadaver to work that we were supposed to film for one of our shows! It was supposedly a medical student's practice cadaver, and it was really unsettling.

More unsettling still was the fact that, at some point, I needed to cut off one of the cadaver's hands. I can't remember the exact circumstances, I just remember coming to that realization. And for some reason, I was able to summon the fortitude to do it! Really gross, and, again, unsettling. I can't use that work enough here.

The worst part of all is, when all was said and done (it's all just a vague lump of blur in my mind), it was left to me to dispose of the corpse. I wrapped it in a tarp and unceremoniously tossed it in the dumpster outside.

I went to my parents' house for something after this and apparently stayed the night. I apparently had my own room at their house, and it looked similar to one of the rooms I really had during my teenage years.

I was rearranging things in the room. I had a large, glass-fronted display frame hanging on one wall. In real life I do not follow any sport in any way, shape or form, but in this dream I filled this display case with Alabama football memorabilia. Most notable a jersey and a baseball cap with the team logo on it.

My mom came home and asked if I'd left anything in my car, because there was a strong odor coming from it. I suddenly "realized" that I must not have really ever put the cadaver in the dumpster--I must have forgotten and left it in my trunk!

Now I was terrified that someone would find it and not believe me that it was a medical cadaver that I had been asked to dispose of. Even if I could prove that, did laws against abusing a corpse apply to medical cadavers? I was trying to scheme how to get it to a dumpster discreetly.

I'll be fine if I don't ever have this dream again. Really.

*I once, years ago, very briefly dated a medical student who would enthusiastically describe the cadavers she got to work on. I'm thinking those stories might have churned up in my subconscious and played a part in this. Mixed with whatever terrifying psychology.

The Malfunctioning Door

MORNING OF AUGUST 27, 2010

I was staying at a hotel with my parents. I remember the three of us driving up to the parking deck after being out-and-about with whatever activities. The entrance to the parking deck was blocked with a huge, iron door featuring a yellow and black striped "warning/danger" pattern in chipped paint.

You had to swipe your hotel card in order to make the iron door slowly rise to permit entrance. For some reason the swipe was on the passenger side, and my mom was trying to make it work. Upon some swipes the door would not respond at all, and on other swipes it might make some sort of lurching, half-response, but it never opened.

Eventually we swiped the card so many times that the door began to malfunction. It would raise halfway up, then go back down, then halfway up, and so on and so forth. All the while it was making a hideous grinding noise. It seemed as though it would fall to pieces, if not explode, at any moment.

To have apparently broken/malfunctioned this huge door mortified my parents, but for some reason I thought it was so funny. I laughed and laughed as they drove away and parked in some other, distant location. As we walked the long trek back towards the hotel, I saw a crowd--including the fire department--gathering around the malfunctioning door.

Sheriff Woody and the Mall

MORNING OF AUGUST 22, 2010

I was designing artwork to submit to a "Create A Toy Story T-Shirt" contest. My design was a simple drawing of Woody, standing there with his arms crossed. Next to the picture there was text in a block-letter font that read, "Sheriff Woody". That's all there was to it. And I somehow felt confident it might actually win the contest!

The desk I drew this at was the old desk I had as a child and teenager. On that real desk there used to be a little fluorescent desk lamp, and I can specifically remember looking at it in the dream. I was also arranging little items on the desk, some of which really used to be on it, and others were random dream items.

Finally I was in a huge mall. It was all indoors, but it looked like a small town. All the storefronts were fully realized, with sidewalks and benches and everything outside them. Truly, only the roof over all of this kept it from feeling like anything less than an outdoor shopping experience in a city.

Lisa and I walked and walked and walked in this mall setting, and it never seemed to end. Eventually a fictional gay guy joined us. He was nice, but really talkative an annoying. He hung out with us for the rest of the dream, offering his opinion of everything in the mall.

Eventually we reached a place where all the stores were off-white in color and just drab and featureless. I saw an Old Navy sign above one of this colorless, featureless stores. The gay guy explained that this was the part of the mall that wasn't finished yet. It had only been "conceptualized".

War Games

MORNING OF AUGUST 15, 2010

I was at some sort of large park or outdoor area with friends. There was a nearby body of water with piers and boats and the like. For some reason, we and several other people had engaged in a war game of some sort. We had been assigned teams, and were going around trying to "shoot" each other to see who the last man/team standing was.

It was much like a child's game in that "shooting" someone was just done by making a gun with your fingers and saying you'd shot them without them somehow making a case for having blocked it.

One of my friends and I got "shot" early on. I remember lying there for a while, dutifully playing the "dead" part, and listening to and watching the other players carry on the game from my vantage point.

Later, when I assumed the game was almost over, I got up. Suddenly an enemy team member who looked like Ana Lucia" from "Lost" sprang on me with her finger-gun at the aim. I tried to explain that my friend and I were already out, but she wouldn't hear it and marched us as war prisoners down to one of the piers.

I was tired of the game, so I decided to end it with a big cop-out move. I suddenly declared I was wearing a bomb and if anyone moved, I'd blow the whole park sky high. No one knew just how to react to this, or if it was allowed. I just went ahead and "pulled the pin", then made a huge explosion sound and declared the game over for everyone.

As we walked away from the park, I looked back and could see actual explosions and fire as though it had been real.

We (meaning my friends as well as all the park patrons) had to pass through a building to get back to the parking lot. At this point I specifically remember being with Lisa and Dean. We suddenly realized the building we were passing through was supposedly the White House.

The carpet had ornate designs of old cartoon characters on it. It had supposedly been there since the earliest days of the White House, though many of the characters had a similar appearance to classic Disney, Warner Bros., and Hanna Barbera cartoons.

I pointed out these similarities to my friends and we talked about. I overheard someone in the crowd shout, "Oh, it's Harley!" and I noticed one of the cartoon characters in the carpet was Harley Quinn, from the Batman universe.

Touring the Theme Park

MORNING OF AUGUST 14, 2010

I was with friends at an amusement park that seemed to be a cross between Six Flags and Disney World. There was one ride that was similar to a roller coaster in that it ran on tracks high over the park, but it went at a slow, even pace and simply toured the entire park from a bird's-eye view.

One evening we all rode this ride and enjoyed it very much. It seemed especially nice at night when everything was lit up. We were all staying in a hotel nearby, and agreed to come back and ride this ride again the next day.

At the hotel, we all split up and went to our different rooms. I was sharing a room with a girl who looked like Mary Elizabeth Winstead's "Ramona Flowers" character from the Scott Pilgrim movie. (I had just seen this movie the previous evening, as well as having read all six volumes of the graphic novels throughout the week.)

She was wearing the generic hotel white bathrobe as she was preparing for a shower, and we were talking. We began to get flirtatious, and soon we expressed our desire for each other.

Next we're all back at the park and "Ramona" and I are trying to keep our new-found attraction secret from the others for some reason. We all wanted to ride the roller-coaster-tour ride again, but they told us it was closed.

"Ramona" and I went looking for something else to do, when a man who looked like the guy who teaches the improv comedy class I'm currently taking approached us and said he gave ground-level tours of the park as an alternative to the other ride. We agreed to go on one of his tours.

He began looking for his assistant to help him get one of his tour buses ready (these buses looked like the red double-deckers in London.) His assistant looked like another member of the improv comedy troupe, and for some reason the two of them seemed to be very eager to help us with this tour, but somehow unable to get themselves promptly organized. It became very much a Three-Stoogish kind of display of incompetence.

Pilgrim Girl and the Scary Movie Trailer

MORNING OF AUGUST 12, 2010

I was going to some kind of event with some friends. One of them was a girl. I was thinking of her in my head like a girl i briefly dated several years ago, but she looked different. In fact, in hindsight, she looked like a human version of a character from the Scott Pilgrim comics which I've been reading (specifically the comics, not the movie adaptation, which hasn't quite come out at this time). She didn't so much look like a specific character as just having the general appearance of a character Bryan Lee O'Malley would draw.

I remember we were seated in an old, classic-looking theater waiting for a show to start. I remember her showing me some recent pictures of herself while we waited. They were really pretty. Finally, pre-movie trailers started. We saw one for a supposedly suspenseful/scary movie about a couple that had a car wreck on an isolated road, and then for the rest of the movie apparently the husband goes crazy and chases the wife all over the countryside. Sort of a version of The Shining, I guess.

So next, the girl and I apparently visited someone's big house. It was late at night, and at some point we came to realize the crazy husband from the movie trailer was actually in the house stalking us. It was a little scary, though I can't really remember anything else about it.

Being Rude to a Classmate and Launchpad McQuack

MORNING OF AUGUST 10, 2010

In real life I've been taking an eight week improv comedy course at a nearby University, just for fun. This dream was from a night following one of the classes.

The improv class and I were on what appeared to be some sort of camping trip, or similar outing in nature. I believe we had just been eating at picnic tables when one girl from the class and I went to go retrieve something for the others.

I recall the two of us walking a fair distance and talking. I got a text message and read it and responded to it, and then I saw someone had "tweeted" something specifically at me and I responded to it. Obviously, dream-me was being pretty rude by doing all of this instead of communicating with my companion on this walk, and she suddenly let me know it in no uncertain terms.

I apologized and we finished our walk, somehow ending up back with the group having never actually obtained any kind of obvious goal on our journey. I still felt embarrassed for having been rude.

There was some other dream where I lived in a very tiny, fictional apartment. One of my friends stopped by. They showed me a statuette they'd found of the "Luanchpad McQuack" character from the old Duck Tales cartoon. He was possibly my favorite character on the show as a kid, and so this foot-tall figure really piqued my interest, nerdy collector that I can be.

I don't think the friend gave me the statue, but they left it with me. I began looking for a place where I could display it.

Barely Lucid in a Desert

MORNING OF AUGUST 8, 2010

This dream ended up being mildly lucid as I was lying in bed this weekend morning, enjoying the opportunity to sleep in.

I was a fictional girl and we were walking through the downtown area of a small town. We were trying to get "home", or to some specific location, but we kept getting lost.

Though it was daylight, the town seemed deserted, as there was no traffic and no visible people. We cut through an alley and over some train tracks. The girl repeatedly wanted to turn back but I kept urging her that we'd find our way if we just kept going.

We did run into some people near the train tracks. I vaguely remember having a very tense interaction with them, but we were able to continue on our way unharmed. After walking down the train tracks for a certain distance, we came into what looked like a vast, desolate desert.

My last memory is sitting with this girl at a small-but-fancy table for two in the middle of this desert. Suddenly, the DeLorean from Back to the Future sped by across the sand, right past our table, and off over the dunes into the distance.

This seemed to be the last straw for the girl, and she started to freak out and really wanted to leave. I calmly told her it was a movie, and I knew what Doc and Marty had been running from. She asked what, and I nodded to indicate she look back over her shoulder.

At that exact moment, the sky lit up as a mushroom cloud rose up and filled the horizon. The cloud for some reason was vibrant purple. I explained to the girl that Marty and Doc had simply time traveled to the testing of the A-bomb. For some reason, this didn't do anything to calm her nerves.

It didn't matter, because my ability to have predicted the exact moment of the A-bomb blast without knowing it, combined with all the time travel and Back to the Future references, finally snapped me out of sleep.

Swarming Baby Chipmunks & A Few Cameos

MORNING OF AUGUST 7, 2010

I was with Lisa. She kept several pet chipmunks in her garage. There were two adult ones, a male and a female, and very many little baby ones. The parents lived in some sort of habitat, but all the babies stayed in an old shoe rack Lisa had set up against a wall. It was filled with old shoes, and the babies would just crowd into them to sleep.

The most surreal thing is, the babies, which were each only about the size of a quarter, were trained to run into and out of the shoes at the clap of your hand. I remember Lisa first taking me into the garage to show them to me. She clapped her hands, and this super-fast swarm of little baby chipmunks just flowed out. We fed them, let them play a while, and then another clap of the hands sent them swarming back into the shoes. It was surreal.

We went back into Lisa's house, but it was really big, but at some point it became a movie theater instead. We walked down one empty hallway and bumped into Steve Carell as he came out of a door. He was very affable, and kept referring to the situation as if he was "making a cameo". Then Paul Rudd came out and spoke to us, and we talked about his "cameo". (These Carell and Rudd are in a current movie together, so I guess that explains this, though I haven't seen it).

I said something to the effect of, "Well, now all we need is a cameo by 'The Rock'!" And at that time, "The Rock" came out of the door, but he walked on by without speaking. This is the last I remember of this dream, as I began to wake up. I think all these "cameo" references was a light form of the dream becoming lucid, finally being broken when the third cameo made it too surreal.

Jumping Like the HULK

MORNING OF AUGUST 5, 2010

It was as if I was taking my morning walk at the track, only the "track" here consisted of a circular dirt trail in a clearing in the woods.

At one point, it began to lightly rain. I decided I should hurry and finish the lap I was on, as not to potentially caught in a downpour. So I began to lightly jog. Then I decided to try jumping forward...

I discovered I could leap like the Hulk! With next to no effort, my bound sprang me high into the air and propelled me forward a few yards. This felt exhilarating! The remainder of the dream consisted of just running and leaping, and the feeling of almost "flying" around the track as it rained on me.

In another dream I was walking down what was supposed to be a different local walking track that also doubles as a "nature trail". For some reason I saw my mom there, and for some reason we each had our cars on the trail (it's only a foot trail in reality). So we got in our respective cars to leave, but soon came to a point on the trail where several sea turtles were trying to cross the road.

We each got out of our vehicles and herded the sea turtles across into the water to make sure no other cars would come by and hit them. I also saw some ducks and geese.

Improvising Vampires, Editing Cartoons & Jenn & Bueno Dolls

MORNING OF JULY 31, 2010

In real life a couple of friends and I are taking a summer improv comedy class at a local college. The first few classes have been a lot of fun. In my dream, we were at one of those classes. We had the same teachers, but there were more students than there really are. Also, there were a couple of the members of the actual improv troop from which this class spawned.

In one of the exercises we did, the first coupe of people to start the scene were acting like they were in some sort of creepy house, or perhaps a haunted house, or something long those lines. When I saw an opportunity, I chose to jump into the scene acting like a vampire who secretly lived in the house. Only I chose to be a very effete vampire with a "Paul Lynde" sort of voice. I wasn't interested in hurting them, but I was so glad to have company.

For some reason this really worked well. People laughed and I felt good about it. There was another exercise in which I had to wear a blonde wig for my character. I tried to create a silly girl character, but didn't feel like I did as well with it as I could have.

There was another dream, perhaps a later part of this one. I staying in a house with another family. The grandfather of the family was supposedly a famous cartoonist of a newspaper strip. (As far as I can remember, the strip itself was fictional.)

He gave me the original art for one of the strips. For some reason, I had to censor or change what was in the final panel. I remember being in the floor, whiting out part of his original art, and I felt horrible about it. One of the cartoonist's grandchildren came in the room and asked why I was doing this. I told him I was going to hang the art in my apartment, but my apartment was smaller than this house, so I had to reduce the size of the art in the last panel so it wouldn't look cluttered. And this made perfect sense to me.

Suddenly Bill O'Reilly (??!!??!!??!!??) came into the room. He told me I was a "patriot" because thousands of people everywhere enjoyed my "Jennifer & Bueno" cartoons. I tried to explain to him that he was wrong; that only the tiniest handful of people anywhere knew who Jennifer & Bueno were (reality). He wouldn't listen to it.

He went on to describe how hundreds of Jennifer and Bueno dolls had been shipped out to our troops overseas to boost morale. As he explained this, I was seeing in my mind's eye, like a video clip, a bunch of Barbie-sized Jennifer dolls and little Bueno figures to go with them. It was so cool that they existed, but I wondered how they got made without me knowing it.

My New Assistant

MORNING OF JULY 28, 2010

I was with Erin from The Office TV show. Apparently she was applying to be my "assistant" (I don't have the sort of job or lifestyle where I need a personal assistant). She was spending a lot of time with me, so, naturally, we ended up making out a lot.

Ultimately she got the job. We were sitting in an office waiting for official papers for her to sign. In the meantime, she began going through some of my "files". My "files" were simply pages and pages of my doodles and sketches (for anyone reading this who doesn't follow my other blogs, I'm an amateur cartoonist). She began to harshly but constructively criticize what she considered the weak parts of the drawings.

I respected her for not just telling me what she thought I wanted to hear. When I told her that, it was obvious it hadn't even occurred to her that she might have said anything different. We started to make out some more.

Suddenly this was all taking place in a large break area with several snack and drink machines. One of them was decorated with promotional art of some professional wrestler. I put money in it to get a drink and nothing happened, so I was trying to get my change back.

Wizards at a Ren Faire

MORNING OF JULY 25, 2010

Some type of festival, probably a Renaissance Faire, was apparently being held at a park. The area was filled with tents and pavilions full of people. At one pavilion I saw a group of three or four men and one woman, all dressed in bright, medieval-type clothing. I came to find out they were all wizards.

These wizards were very rude and boisterous. I soon came to learn that they planned to use their magic to destroy everything at this festival, just for fun.

I spent the rest of the time in the dream trying to warn other people. A few took me seriously, and tried to help me mount some kind of counterstrike against the wizards, though we didn't know really what we could do.

All my memories of this are pretty vague. In the final scene I remember the motley crew of people I'd gathered with me were now approaching the tent where the wizards were staying.

Disturbing "Back to the Future" Ride

MORNING OF JULY 24, 2010

My friends and I were supposedly at Universal Studios, Florida. The "Back to the Future" ride was still there (it's one of my favorite rides ever, and I still can't believe it doesn't exist anymore). In my dream, the ride was a whole different experience.

A handful of people were selected from the line to enter the ride each time. Once you entered, you followed a realistic holographic projection of Marty McFly as he gave your a tour of Hill Valley.

On my "tour", I specifically remember us walking through the empty halls of a high school. Marty was reminiscing about the time he spent attending this school.

Suddenly, Biff Tannen, also a hologram, appeared and started chasing Marty and the rest of us. We just had to run on foot, trying to escape him. Without warning, Biff, still just a projection, changed into an over-sized head which continued to float after us.

It was rather freaky being pursued by a giant, jeering, flying head. A couple of times I can even remember it bumping against my back. I was afraid it might bite.

The next thing I know, I was all by myself, running through the neighborhood my parents live in now. Even though it seemed I was no longer on the "ride", I kept looking out for that giant Biff head. I was very nervous.

Eventually I entered into a large room full of people sitting in chairs. It looked sort of like a college classroom. I recognized this to be the area where you exited the "Back to the Future" ride at the end. One of the people in the room was Lady GaGa.

Chocolate Vanilla Wafers and Fires

MORNING OF JULY 23, 2010

I was in some type of restaurant. Olive Schnook (Kristin Chenoweth's character from the defunct TV show, Pushing Daisies) was with me. She was mixing up a huge batch of banana pudding, and it looked really good.

She asked me if I liked vanilla wafers, and I assured her I did. She poured a few boxes of them into a pan and told me I could it as many as I wanted, because she had extra. I began snacking on a few, and then she asked me if I liked "chocolate vanilla wafers". I told her I'd never heard of them, but I'd like to try them.

They weren't anything like regular vanilla wafers. They were little chocolate cookies that were crunchy on the outside, but had moist, creamy chocolate in the center (more like an icing, really). They were so delicious! I felt like I could have eaten a hundred.

The next thing I know, I was riding with a small group of people, mostly friends and family, up to the house my cousin used to live in when he was growing up. We were apparently all staying there overnight.

I ended up assigned to a room with Chely Wright, the obscure country singer who made headlines a few months ago for "coming out" . There was only one, full size bed in our room. She explained to me that she didn't like the fact that we had to share a bed, because I was a man.

I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth as I got ready for bed. My cousin was brushing his as well, though he seemed to be close to the age he was back when he actually lived in that house. I specifically remember noticing that my toothbrush was my normal one, and not the little travel-size one I usually have when spending the night somewhere.

I went back to the room I was sharing with Chely Wright, and now the bed in the room had an odd mattress. It was a giant "U" shape, having just an empty area in the middle. She explained that we could each sleep on one side now, without touching in the middle part. The bed was as physically awkward and uncomfortable as the entire situation.

At some point I got up and looked out the window. There was a small brush fire that seemed to be growing rapidly and approaching the house. I alerted everyone that we should call 911.

My aunt soon said she had called for help, but she didn't seem very concerned at all about the possibility of her house catching fire. She went into the bedroom I had been in to look out the window and see the flames for herself. They were indeed increasing in severity and proximity. She just lay down on that pitiful U-shaped bed and went to sleep.

The rest of us were trying to gather our things and exit the house in case it caught fire before the fire department arrived.

Comics and Outdoor Game Shows

MORNING OF JULY 22, 2010

I was in a comic book store, though it was quite a bit larger than your average such store. In real life I have not kept up with regular, monthly comics in a few years, though I used to avidly do so. In my dream, I discovered the owner of this comic shop had still been putting aside all the comic titles I had requested each and every month. I had a box stacked high with comics!

Obviously there was no way I could afford to buy these, but I felt so guilty that I wanted to at least buy a few, even though I don't regularly collect anymore. So I picked out a handful that seemed to be of the most interest to me and got them.

Leaving the store, I next remember being in a random, open field. My friend Richard was there, and he was hosting a game show! There was a semi-circle of maybe eight or ten podiums, not unlike those the Jeopardy contestants stand behind. Each podium was populated by a different person, most of whom I did not recognize, though Richard's wife, Jessica, was among them.

There was no audience for this game show, as it was simply being done for fun (I didn't question why, then, Richard was needed to "host" it). Richard urged me to join in, but for some reason I just wasn't in the mood to play a game and couldn't be swayed.

Orange Creature and Gorilla-Men

MORNING OF JULY 19 2010

It was night and I was in the mostly-empty parking lot of what looked like a cross between a church and a hotel. Two toddler boys were riding their tricycle and Big Wheel around in the street. I, along with other onlookers, were concerned for their safety in the traffic.

The Reverend Al Sharpton was leading a group in the parking lot who protested that the little boys had every right to ride in the streets if they wanted to. At some point I got on a bike of some kind and followed them down the street. They led me down a hill and into another parking lot.

From here we entered a building, and the scene changes. Now this building is like the home of a young family, a mom, dad, and one of the little boys that had been riding in the street. Upon entering the house with them, we discovered that the place had been ransacked.

Naturally the family was very shaken and upset. They immediately began searching the damage as though looking for something specific, though I can't recall what. I was helping them look, and in so doing I walked into an adjacent room.

I couldn't find the lights for the room, and it was pitch dark. I tried to fumble around as best I could with the light coming in from the door I'd left open behind me.

Suddenly I stepped on something that felt very squishy and organic. It let out a horrible, inhuman moaning sound. Sort of like a cross between a calf and a cat. I looked down, and in the limited available light I saw a deformed creature, about the size of a large-ish dog. It's limbs were at awkward angles and it was covered in patches of orange hair. It had a generally slimy and puss-covered appearance.

For some reason the combination of the inhuman sound and the freakish visage disturbed me to the point of waking.


A second dream felt like watching a movie, though I was actively taking part in it. I was in a fancy, ornate theater (the old-fashioned performance kind, not the modern-day movie cinema or concert hall). The place was overrun with gorilla-like creatures. I suppose they were similar in appearance to the Planet of the Apes characters, though they were a little more "gorilla" and a little less "human".

These ape-like creatures were very good, but were being attacked by humans in the theater, trying to round them up. I was a part of the random theater patrons who sympathized with the gorilla-men.

I vaguely remember a struggle between the opposing forces. The one clear scene I remember is two of the human bad guys, a man and woman, went fleeing down a corridor. A large silverback burst through an adjoining wall and soon returned with their unconscious bodies slung over his shoulders.

About the time it seemed the gorilla-men had won, a businessman walked in through a side door and asked for everyone's attention. He led all of us regular human onlookers into a conference room where he made known that he had a special announcement for us.

At this point, film director James Cameron entered the room. He told us we'd all just experienced the next generation in movies--FULLY IMMERSIVE ACTION MOVIES! He was trying to explain to us why it was better than 3D when my alarm went off.

Little Lost Kitten

MORNING OF JULY 16, 2010

I vaguely remember being back in school, in a classroom. Some friends were in the class too, but we had assigned seats so we weren't sitting together. The teacher's lecture was so boring that I kept drifting off. I even remember putting my head down on my desk.

Next I was walking through some woods when I found a little white kitten. It was white, but very dirty and matted from being lost in the woods. The kitten followed me home and I took it inside, where I very conveniently had a bunch of canned cat food in my kitchen.

Updating Old Comics

MORNING OF JULY 13, 2010

For anyone who doesn't follow my cartoons and comics but ends up reading this dream, I'm afraid it will be of little use. But I'm transcribing it anyway, because I enjoyed it.

In real life, I have sadly not used my characters, Fatback & Skinny McLean, with much frequency since the early 2000's. Prior to that, they had been a regular staple in some form or other for years. In my dream last night, I had decided to bring them back in a big way.

I began be re-posting a few classics from years past (though most of the "classics" in the dream were just fictional). One of them was a two or three page short comic. I can't remember the topic, but I remember the final panel (a large, 3/4 page panel) featured an analog television set behind Fatback. Seeing that, it struck me just how much has changed in society in only the past few years.

I decided, before re-posting this old cartoon, that I would enhance it a bit. With Photoshop, I would add art to the currently blank TV screen, to make it look like something was airing. I decided to make it look like a commercial for HD TV:, COMING SOON! I noticed the old TV was also visible in an earlier panel in the comic and added a commercial on the screen warning about Y2K!

For some reason my dream-self was very amused by going back after the fact and adding "prophetic" technology references to the old comic.

Mostly Just Lost or Problem Solving

MORNING OF JULY 11, 2010

I was in some sort of big Wal-Mart-esque department store. I remember one aisle with a large shelf full of poster-sized frames. Someone asked me to make room on that shelf for some other items that had arrived, but to keep the frames on display, as well. So the dream was simply me trying to figure out how to make room for both. I finally found a shelf at the end of the aisle where I had room to carefully slide in the poster frames. Problem solved.

Then I remember it was time for my lunch break at work and for some reason my dad had come to pick me up and take me to lunch somewhere on this particular day. We drove for quite a while, going somewhere out of town. Every time I asked where we were going, he told me it was a surprise.

Finally, we got to some new pizza place in a city several miles from where I work. I thought it was a nice thought, but after the drive my lunch break was already almost over, and we hadn't even gone into the restaurant yet. My dad just assured me he'd explain it to my boss and all would be well.

I have vague memories of being inside the pizza place at least for a moment, but next real memory is being back in the car with dad. Now we were driving through heavily wooded areas. I think we were lost. We ended up stopping at some place in the woods that had a circle of winding dirt trails, and I assumed it was a place where they must have dirt bike races or something of the like (where this got into my subconscious for tonight I'll never know).

There was one other dream that my late grandfather and I were watching VHS tapes of old cartoons I'd found. (Not based on any real-life memory, but just a very random dream sequence.)

Glasses, Russian Remakes, & Donations

MORNING OF JULY 8, 2010

I was in a thrift store of some sort looking at a shelf displaying drinking glasses. Most of them were of the sort of licensed character glasses that fast food restaurants often offered in conjunction with kid friendly movies back in the 70's and 80's.

Some of the glasses were the actual "Camp Snoopy" Peanuts glasses that McDonald's really offered at one time, several of which I still own in my Peanuts collection. The ones in the dream featured the same artwork, but different phrases being said by the characters.

There was a mug on this shelf featuring a very amateurishly painted Christmas scene. Closer inspection revealed that it was not just printed on the glass, but had literally been painted there by hand. A signature on the art revealed it had been done by a passing acquaintance/friend from high school (who was never known to be an artist), who I now know only as an acquaintance on Twitter. I decided to buy this mug so I could show it to him on Twitter.

Somehow I was suddenly watching a small, analog TV set inside this store, and it was showing what looked a lot like a scene from the first Back to the Future movie. The scene was the one in which Doc and Marty are testing the DeLorean in the mall parking lot, only closer inspection revealed it was different actors, a cheap set, and the whole thing was in Russian!

Someone explained to me that they were producing a Russian remake of Back to the Future, and this was early preview footage.

Somehow from here we reach a point where I am in contact with an African American woman on the Internet. She's made it clear that she wants to be artificially inseminated with my child. I have no idea how or why she chose me. I also have no idea why I agreed to do it!

I scheduled a time to meet the girl to further discuss things. I drove to a parking lot and saw her getting out of her car. There were two young kids in the back of it! I wondered why she was so desperate to be artificially inseminated if she had two kids already!

There was some other dream, or part of this dream, in which Kate Winslet made another cameo dream appearance (this one being unfortunately G-rated). I can't remember everything, but we were sitting at the foot of a bed, talking, waiting for some person to come into the room.

That Young Actress

MORNING OF JULY 5, 2010

There was a new movie based on a graphic novel I had read. I can't remember much about the plot, but I vaguely recall watching the movie with my dad in a theater and being disappointed that it didn't capture the spirit of the book at all.

A fictional young adult actress starred in the movie. She was really cute--slender and pale with short dark hair with pink streaks in it. In the dream, I "remembered" that she had gotten her start as a character on some show for "tweens" such as what the Disney Channel airs all the time these days.

It turns out the actress was attending our screening, because I saw her a few rows back from us. Nothing ever came of this, it was simply incidental.

My next memory is that I received a post card in the mail. It was from that actress. She had written a brief message on the back of the card that was flirtatious in nature and suggested she was sorry I hadn't approached her at the theater that night.

I wrote her back with some plans for meeting her again at the next screening of the movie. I remember going back to the theater and watching the movie (I think I'd brought one of my friends who wanted to see the movie.) I looked all over the theater for the girl, and couldn't find her.

After the movie, we went to some hold-in-the-wall type of restaurant near the theater. A lot of people were milling about on the sidewalk outside the eatery. I kept hoping to find the girl out there.

Eventually I spotted her. She was wearing some type of sundress and striped stockings and other accessories--a very unusual outfit. Her pink highlights were now blue. I kept trying to approach her now that I'd seen her again, but she was surrounded by people and I could never get her attention.

On the Run From the Bad Man

MORNING OF JULY 2, 2010

I was in a room with a man who I understood to be a very bad person. I was in fear for my life. We were sort of having a stand-off with each other, but somehow I had ended up with his gun--a shotgun (I know nothing about guns). I was holding him at gunpoint as he stood in the corner of the room.

I instructed the bad man that I was going to leave the room and rejoin my friends now, and he was not to leave this room for 30 minutes after I left. If he left the room anytime before that, I would come back and kill him. He had to stay in that corner for exactly 30 minutes after I was gone or else!

I ran back to where my friends were and explained to them that we had exactly 30 minutes to escape before our enemy caught up to us. We all kept talking about getting "back to the island" before the man could stop us (obviously some kind of subconscious Lost reference).

A large part of the dream centered around everyone hurriedly packing their bags for a trip. I seemed to know we'd be traversing part of the ocean in little canoe-type vessels. I was a little intimidated about the journey, as well as about living on an island to hide from this guy.

I do specifically remember packing bath towels and my tooth brush.

There is a vague memory of travel of some sort, but my next clear memory is that we ended up in a very posh hotel. Out of our big group, Eric and Richard and I were checking into one room together. I kept explaining how I had thought we'd be roughing it on an island, and did not at all expect to find this nice hotel at the other end of our journey.

Then we saw the bad man stalking the hotel lobby and we knew our troubles were not over after all, though I can't remember anything after this point.