Subconscious Serenade

Wiig, Ancient Egypt, and TMBG

2012-01-24T10:36:00.006-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 24, 2012

Eric and Brandon and I were in what looked like some kind of mall. We were talking about a new TV series that starred comic actress Kristin Wiig. I could "see" the show in my head as we discussed it. The theme was sort of a comedy-adventure, very much in the style of Indiana Jones, with Wiig as the main character.

One kiosk in the mall sold calendars, and we saw a calendar based on this show. Every month had a pin-up style, sexy picture of Wiig (some of them even a bit racy). Don't get me wrong, Kristin Wiig is an attractive woman, but she was abnormally sexy in this pictures, much more so than in real life.

At another kiosk, a man was selling custom crafted watches and jewelry that were made to look like ancient Egyptian relics. He said these, too, were inspired by this new TV show, because some of the characters adventures took place in Egypt. The man showed Brandon and I one clock in particular, an especially large pocket watch with a casing that looked like a giant insect fossilized in amber. When he wound it up (I can remember how dirty his hands looked), the timepiece made a loud clacking noise and the bug seemed to come to life inside the amber. It was a little unsettling. We also found it odd that, despite being hand-crafted, these watches were only around $13-$14 each.

Finally, we all ended up going to a bar inside the mall where we knew my favorite band, They Might Be Giants, would be performing. I remember sitting down at the actual bar (not something I'm accustomed to, as I don't drink), and TMBG performed standing right behind it, where a bartender would normally stand (don't ask me how they fir the whole band back there).

Zombies by 2:00

2012-01-23T09:24:00.006-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 23, 2012

I was in some kind of large, public area, like a mall. Everyone was panicking, because we knew that at a certain, exact time (say, 2:00 PM), zombies were going to come to "life" all over the world and start attacking.

Someone explained to me that the zombies that were in movies and TV shows are the ones that would be made real, and the only way to prevent the impending zombie apocalypse was to destroy every single copy of every zombie movie ever made. (I believe the concept was that the number of zombies in any given movie would somehow be transferred from each disc that contained them and placed in the real world.)

Several of us approached an otherwise empty warehouse or hangar in which carts full of DVDs had been brought. We immediately got to work destroying the offending discs, though for some reason we were trashing them individually instead of just mass-burning them or something. Randomly, one of the people near me during these efforts was Andy Richter. The two of us tried to make a video clip of ourselves breaking DVDs, because for some reason we thought it would be funny.

Before long everyone realized that trying to destroy every copy of every zombie movie ever made before 2:00 PM was an exercise in futility, and we resigned ourselves to our fate.

My next memory is that we were all outsides, walking down a trail in the woods. At this point we were aware that the zombie apocalypse was underway, though we didn't currently see any. Another troupe of survivors approached us from another trail that intersected ours. They explained to us that the zombies had been defeated and everything was safe once more! Behind them were several large carts, like the ones all the DVDs had been in before, only now they were all filled with zombie body parts.

The Extra Room

2012-01-22T20:23:00.003-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 22, 2012

I had somehow come to acquire a new room...I'm uncertain if it was supposed to be an addition to my apartment, or it if it was in another location. I remembered it was entered by coming down a flight of stairs, and it had the appearance of a furnished basement.

I was decorating this "basement" with a lot of art and paraphernalia pertaining to my various geeky interests. I remember one cork board that I had covered with Muppets-related memorabilia. I kept re-organizing its appearance. There were also posters and collectibles in the room representing Disney, various movies, even Conan O'Brien.

Apparently New Year's was approaching, and I wanted to invite several friends over to have a party in this new room. I walked up the stairs and exited the room onto what looked like a boardwalk or causeway near a body of water. An elderly man was talking on a payphone, but he turned his attention to me once he saw me.

Though a fictional character I recognized the man, but wanted to avoid him. He was a little crazy and frazzled. Somehow I ended up inviting him to the impending New Year's party, just to get him to leave me alone. Free of him, I immediately began trying to decide how I could reverse the invitation. And that's about all I clearly recall.

In another dream, I had a weird bump or rash or something on my stomach. I wanted to see a doctor about it, but it seems for one reason or another I kept getting delayed. When I finally got to see a doctor, it was revealed that the bump on my stomach had developed into a third nipple! It was extremely disconcerting, to the point that, as the doc and I began to discuss how I could have it removed, I woke up.

Cons, Minatures and Old Rooms

2012-01-21T11:31:00.008-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 21, 2012

I was attending a comic book/pop culture convention of some sort, probably Atlanta's Dragon*Con, which is the only one I've been to in real life. I was standing in a line to meet Matt Groening and some other people associated with The Simpsons. Instead of signing a picture or book or some other Simpsons-related paraphernalia, they signed a Styrofoam lunch tray.

I carried my Styrofoam tray, already a little cracked and damaged on one side, over to another area where I began waiting in another line. I recognized the guy in line in front of me from a local improv troupe. He and his friend were trying to come up with cool nicknames for each other, and they randomly turned around and gave one to me (I can't remember what it was). My last clear memory from the con was seeing that Pixar employee and Toy Story 3 director, Lee Unkrich, was going to be doing a Q & A later.

In another dream, I was in Wal-Mart or some similar store. Some other people were there with me, including Cailey and her parents. We were in the toy section looking at sets of collectible, miniature action figures (for lack of a better term). The sets were totally random, and I believe the point was to make kids and collectors buy as many sets as they could in attempts to collect them all. They mostly just looked like little monsters, but I remember thinking one looked like one of the pigs from "Pigs in Space" from The Muppet Show.

Next I remember being in a really old-looking, rustic bedroom. Everything in it was very dusty. I found an old box with a broken lock and looked inside, where I found some of those miniature figures from before. I was surprised that they'd been around that long, because the box obviously hadn't been disturbed in years.

I believe there was a sort of flume-style amusement park ride off to the side of this bedroom. You would see and hear "logs" full of people shoot by periodically. Then a storm woke me up.

Odd Choice for a Book Signing

2012-01-18T10:06:00.002-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 18, 2012

George R. R. Martin, the author of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" book series (a.k.a., "Game of Thrones") was going make an appearance and sign books in nearby Atlanta. I wanted to attend, but, since I own electronic Kindle copies of those books, I realized I would have nothing for him to sign!

The logical solution in the waking world would be to go buy a physical copy of one of the books and have him sign it. In the dream, however, the obvious choice was to pack all seven hardcover "Harry Potter" books from my shelf into a duffel bag so that he could sign each of them instead!

My final memory is actually waiting in line at the book signing. I could see GRRM sitting at the table. As I waited, it finally occurred to me what a ridiculous idea it was to bring the Potter books.

In another dream, I was taking an improv class. I really took a class offered by a local improv troupe a little over a year ago, and they recently announced a level two class will be offered in the spring--so this is no doubt where this dream comes from.

In the dream, one of the teachers told me I should have brought my camera to document the evening. I told her that I had my cell phone, and we could at least take pictures with that. She agreed that would work well enough, and immediately began sorting through prop items--wigs, hats, and the like--that were spread out across a nearby table. I vaguely remember the two of us talking a little more, though I can't recall any more detail.

A Random Church Visit and a Watch

2012-01-15T12:42:00.005-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 15, 2012

I was visiting my parents and was supposed to visit their church with them. As I was getting ready to go, they kept telling me I was going to be late. I was certain I had plenty of time, so I didn't worry about it. Somehow, I ended up actually running late after all!

Next I remember speeding down the interstate, trying to make up for lost time. Traffic was so frustrating that I parked my car on the concrete median between lanes and began walking. My phone rang and I answered it. It was Eric, telling me that I needed to move my car because I wasn't supposed to park it there.

Then I was in a church of some sort, though it wasn't my parents'. Eric was there with me, as was our friend Melissa. She gave me some sort of greeting card, and then left the room. I opened the card, which I think was a birthday card or something similar, though I can't remember it clearly.

There was another part of the dream in which I saw Melissa in one of the other rooms of the church. I think we spoke, but my next clear memory is being back in the sanctuary with Eric.

In a later dream I visited a watch shop. The old man who ran the shop showed me a new "Neil Gaiman Watch" (as in the author). I'm not sure what it had to do with Gaiman, as the face of the watch seemed to have some sort of New York city skyline on it. The maker of the watch was "May Fire", which the proprietor explained was the maker of especially fine watches.

Shortly after this, a middle-aged woman entered the room and showed me another watch. The old man introduced the woman as his daughter, "May Faire". I noticed the similarity to the "May Fire" watchmaker name, and then realized the brand name on the watch box had changed to "May Faire" as well.

The Conan Bathroom

2012-01-14T12:32:00.005-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 14, 2012

I was staying in some sort of hotel, and my first clear memory is returning to my room after an evening out. The bathroom was entirely decorated with a Conan O'Brien motif. The shower curtains, wall art, even the toilet seat all had decorations in the style of the "Conan" show. There was even a TV mounted on the wall that constantly played clips from the show, peppered with occasional, original segments obviously produced just for air in the bathrooms.

I noticed there was a dispenser of those plastic covers of the sort people place across public toilet seats before sitting. These also had Conan art, including a picture of his face. One of them had been left on the toilet by the previous occupant, but Conan's face had been carefully torn off of it. As I saw this, a clip played on the TV behind me in which Conan opined, "That person had to remove my face from that picture before they would put their ass on it. I don't know if that's a compliment or an insult!"

A Book, A Tee, and a Morning Walk

2012-01-09T09:35:00.003-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 9, 2012

A new book had come out and was creating quite a buzz in the media. Apparently it was especially embraced by women, and was considered very inspirational. While I was aware of the hype, I hadn't paid much attention to it until my parents informed me that they were going to attend an event at which the author would be speaking, and they wanted me to attend.

The event was held at a local bar, looking very much like the atmosphere in which you'd attend a small concert. I couldn't believe my very conservative parents were willing to enter a bar, even if it was just to hear a speaker they were interested in (for that matter, I was fairly surprised they were interested in this book/speaker). Predictable, I think my dad did have second thoughts and leave, though I really don't remember much about what happened once we got there.

In another dream I was in a large department store and saw a display of T-shirts inspired by the Who Framed Roger Rabbit movie. One of the designs looked very similar to a Roger Rabbit tee I actually used to have as a kid, when the movie was current. The display had all the shirts hanging from a clothesline that kept them just out of reach.

I was trying unsuccessfully to reach one of them for closer inspection when a man came up and started speaking to me. He looked a lot like one of my uncles (perhaps it was even supposed to be him, I'm not sure).

And, in a final dream, I thought that I was actually awake and getting out of bed to go to the track for my morning walk. I was dressed and almost ready to go out when I noticed I'd put on my "real" daily-life clothes instead of just the old "morning walk" clothes.

Consoling the Girl in the Cabin

2012-01-07T12:36:00.003-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 7, 2012

There was more story to this dream than I can now recall, but my first memory is that I had been staying at some kind "resort" out in the woods with several other people . We were all staying in facilities that had a sort of rustic cabin motif.

At the point of my first memory, we were waking up on our last morning and everyone was preparing their things to leave. I got out of bed, got ready, and went into one of the common rooms. A fictional woman I recognized from the dream, a blonde around my own age, was in the lobby looking sad. I knew that something really humiliating had happened to her earlier in the trip that had ruined things for her, and I felt sorry for her.

I went up to the girl and we spoke. She was on the verge of tears. I embraced her and said something encouraging. I don't know my exact words, but they were something to the effect of just reminded her that even though it seemed really embarrassing now, people had shot memories, would get bored with laughing about it, and would get bored and move on to other things in no time.

Whatever my exact words, they came out more eloquently than anything I'd normally be able to articulate on the fly, and the girl seemed to really take it to heart. She thanked me and we had sort of a "moment" together. There was also a matronly black lady nearby who had overheard, and she thanked me for being kind to the girl everyone else had been so cruel to.

It seems a few more things happened after this. I vaguely recall finishing up packing in my room in the cabin, etc.

Inadvertant Time Travel

2012-01-06T13:52:00.005-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 6, 2012

This may be the first dream I've had in which I so overtly and vividly time travel. You'd assume it would come from my love of Back to the Future or even Doctor Who, but I think this dream most likely comes from my recent reading of Stephen King's newest book, 11/22/63.

I was walking through downtown Anniston (a small, nearby city) one afternoon. I knew there was an underground "shortcut" to get through Anniston to get to the next town, Oxford, which is where I meant to go, so I found its entrance and made my way beneath the city.

Underground Anniston was, naturally, a dark place, compiled mostly of concrete pillars with rubble and dirt littering the ground all around. The ceiling, mostly old pipes and wires sticking through concrete, was just high enough that the average adult could walk standing upright, only occasionally having t duck.

I was the only person traveling through this subterranean wasteland, and it didn't take it long to begin to feel creepy, though I was too fascinated to care. I found the entrance to an old building barely exposed in one of the walls. There was a huge, floor-mounted plaque at the entrance. The inscription indicated it was to dedicate a bank in the early 1950s (I think 50 or 51 was the exact date inscribed).

As I read the plaque, I noticed it was in remarkably pristine condition to be 60 years old and lying in a dark underground ruin. And that's when I noticed that I was actually standing inside the aforementioned bank, fully restored and full of life! Somehow I had stepped through a portal that had actually transported me back to 1950s Anniston!

I mildly panicked, mostly because I was wearing my 21st century clothes and I assumed they'd make me quite suspect in this bygone era. A couple of attractive, retro-looking ladies came walking around a corner and I ducked into a restroom and locked myself in.

The room was incredibly small and claustrophobic. I just stood there, looking into the little mirror over the sink, trying to calm myself as I heard the conversation of the women outside. How did this happen? Was the entrance I walked through a portal? Was there some magic about reading the old plaque that transported you? Most importantly, could I get back to 2012?

This is about the last part of the dream I recall.

There was a different dream in which I was in a large bookstore, sort of like a Books-A-Million or a Barnes & Noble. I saw an acquaintance from high school whom I now only know as an acquaintance on Facebook. We spoke for a moment and he drew my attention to one of the merchandise displays in the center of an aisle.

One item featured on the display table was a basket with several deflated balloons attached to it. My friend inflated the balloons, placed some sort of plush toy into the basket, and then released it so that it floated away. My last memory of this scene is simply the slightly surreal experience of watching the balloon-basket floating across the crowded store.

Sketching An Interview

2012-01-06T13:43:00.005-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 4, 2012

In the dream, I was thinking about the comics and characters that I used to draw back in high school. I started sketching some of the characters from memory. I drew one picture of myself interviewing one of the characters, The Cat. It was designed to look like a job interview, with The Cat looking to become "employed" in comics I would draw again. Instead of a regular desk, I had sketched myself seated at a school desk, which was supposed to be a nod to the high school-era creations I was pondering.

The Costume Dilemma

2012-01-03T11:58:00.003-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 3, 2012

In real life, my most recent Halloween costume was Doctor Who (the 11th Doctor). In my dream, I was supposed to attend a party somewhere in costume. For some reason I first decided to go as either Jon Stewart from The Daily Show or Stephen Colbert from The Colbert Report. I seldom ever even catch these shows, so I have no idea where this came from.

I ultimately decided those would be pretty boring costumes (what, just a suit, basically?), so I decided to re-use my 11th Doctor costume from Halloween.

The rest of the dream consists of vague memories of being at the party, which seemed to be held in some sort of empty gym, like at a high school or something. For some reason I wasn't wearing my costume when I arrived, so I put it on in the bathroom once I was there. I remember talking to various people, and my friend Eric was there specifically.

Toward the end of the evening, I realized that I was wearing my glasses. Doctor Who does not wear glasses, and I had meant to wear contacts with the costume. As the night was nearly over, I decided it was pointless to make the change now.

The Disney World Mall

2012-01-02T12:56:00.003-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 2, 2012

My friend Brandon and I supposedly worked together and were apparently planning a trip to Disney World with some other, fictional co-workers. I remember I got there first and was supposed to meet the others later. I kept walking around inside what looked like a big mall, though it was supposed to be Disney World.

In this mall there was a store that sold nothing but Disney-related watches and clocks. One of the clocks displayed on the wall had a picture on its face of the really old-school black and white Mickey Mouse looking very angry. The clock was circular with a silver frame. For some reason, I especially wanted this one.

Eventually I knew it was time to meet one of the fictional coworkers who were supposed to be joining me here. I went into an area of the mall that resembled an airport and found him. He was about my age and behaved very strangely. He was obsessed with martial arts and swords, and this seemed to be the main thing he wanted to talk about.

We then met up with Brandon and continued walking through the Disney-mall. One attraction we passed was designed to look like an old-timey movie theater. Guests would sit in the seats, which were attached to a rotating platform. The platform would move the seats under a spotlight, which somehow made all the people in the seats appear to be dressed in clothing that made them resemble people from the early 20th century. A souvenir picture was taken, and that seemed to be the sole point of it all.

After observing this for a little while, we moved on to other areas. I can't remember exactly what happened for the rest of the dream, except that it began to feel more and more like a movie, like we were part of some actual adventure. It seems we did something to stop a villain of some sort. The last scene in the dream actually was of a movie, which I was sitting in a theater watching. A character--a CG groundhog of some sort--announced that the main villain had not really been defeated, but was preparing a counter-attack. It ended with "to be continued" on the screen.

Annoying the Neighbor

2012-01-02T12:51:00.003-06:00

MORNING OF JANUARY 1, 2012

Ashely and I were in her apartment on night when she said she wanted to show me something outside. We stepped out the door and around the corner where there was a large window which looked in on her neighbor's living room. You could clearly see a man sitting in a recliner watching TV. Ashley began tapping on the windows and making noises, then hiding out of view whenever the man would look out the window to see what said noises were. For some reason we found this greatly amusing.

Harley & Ivy on Campus

2011-12-13T07:20:00.005-06:00

MORNING OF DECEMBER 13, 2011

I remember signing up for a class at a fictional local college. Eric was going to attend with me. We arrived on campus one day to find it unusually empty. As we traversed the sidewalk between two buildings, we came upon two girls who were fighting.

Rather than attempt to stop the fight, we just watched. And it wasn't a "sexy" girl fight, but a real, genuine, nasty fight. One girl was shorter, with auburn colored hair and the other was slightly taller with blonde hair. It occurred to me that the girls looked and acted a little like the Batman villains Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn in street clothes. This being a dream, they more or less took on those personae after this point.

Before we got to class, I remember a professor stopping us and telling us that he was a professional dog trainer who would be offering classes. I told him I didn't have a dog, but my parents' had just gotten a new puppy (which is true). When he found out their dog was a cockapoo, he explained to me that they were supposedly very smart and trainable, and recommended I attend the class for free.

I vaguely remember entering the huge classroom, which was mostly full. The seats and desks were in the elevated "stadium" style, and I had to sit in the floor near the top. Even then, people were still filing in.

My next clear memory is after the class. Eric and I were in some kind of gift shop on campus. I heard a commotion and found the "Posion Ivy" and "Harley Quinn" girl were in a new argument. Ivy was trying to apologize for the earlier fight, but Harley wouldn't have it. She pointed out that Ivy was holding a silver hammer, and she didn't trust her, though Ivy swore the hammer wasn't for her.

Harley grabbed the hammer away from Ivy and walked over to return it to some nearby shelves where many types of tools and hardware were displayed for sale. Ivy sneaked up behind her, grabbed a length of chain from the shelves, and suddenly began choking her with it!

About this time Eric walked up, trying to tell me something. I just shushed him and directed his attention to the nearby commotion.

Artistic Insecurity

2011-12-12T18:02:00.004-06:00

MORNING OF DECEMBER 12, 2011

This dream is the most transparent manifestation of my creative insecurities that one could ever imagine. I'm sharing it anyway.

Someone was publishing a book of cartoon pin-up art which would consist of submissions received from various cartoonists on the internet. One of the art communities I take part in heavily promoted it, so I sent in three different submissions, hoping one might make the book.

I received confirmation that indeed all three of my submissions would be used! I felt very happy. I remember going to a bookstore inside a mall to purchase my copy the day it was published. The clerk behind the counter said something snarky when I told him I had work in the book, but I can't remember what.

Then I sat down and looked through the book. I recognized many of the artists whose illustrations were featured. I found the three I had drawn, only to realize they had been re-drawn by another artist. The concept and general composition were the same as what I'd turned in, and indeed I had been credited for the ideas in their respective descriptions, but a much better artist had re-drawn it. Every single other piece of art in the book had been drawn by its original artist. How discouraging.

There was another part of this dream where I was walking a track at dawn, much as I usually do, only this track was sort of an amalgamation of all the ones I normally go to. There were one or two other people on the track as well. In real life, I only walk, but in the dream, I started jogging. I was amazed that I was holding up really well, and could keep jogging for many laps without a break.

There was a house across the street with an old man sitting on the porch. He began shouting out at the joggers and walkers, mocking us all.

Crick Circle

2011-12-04T00:38:00.004-06:00

MORNING OF DECEMBER 3, 2011

There was an old, dirt road out in the woods. It came out in a sort of open field where it circled into a cul-de-sac. Around this cul-de-sac were a small handful of old, colonial-style houses. The whole area felt so ancient and deserted.

Some friends and I had parked our cars outside and were exploring one of the houses. There were a lot of random items inside, as though this had once been a general store or something similar. I specifically remember there were a lot of old, creepy toys.

At one point I took out my phone and was skimming Twitter. I saw a Twitter post from twitter-comedian Kelly Oxford that simply read, "I HATE Crick Circle." I immediately recognized that "Crick Circle" was the name of the dirt road these old houses were on. She'd attached a picture to the tweet which showed the outside of the very house my friends and I were in.

This creeped me out well and proper, but for some reason I stayed in the house, now trying to take pictures of things to tweet about it. I remember on old, tin "Snoopy" toy that started to move on it's own as I tried to get a good picture of it. Scary.

In a different dream I was dating a girl. I remember bits of an awkward date in which we attended a local, live show. There were folding chairs all over the room, but for some reason the two of us kept getting up and trying to find new seats in a different area. We were never satisfied with our seats. We ended up outside, standing beside one of our cars, talking.

Biscuit

2011-11-30T07:24:00.002-06:00

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 30, 2011

I arrived to work one morning with a biscuit I had purchased for breakfast. I was really anxious to eat it, but for some reason kept getting distracted by things that demanded my attention and kept having to put it off.

My boss was telling me we needed to schedule singers to come sing Christmas music. Then I was in a room where author Neil Gaiman was supposed to come and introduce some new cartoon based on his work. I was very excited about this, and couldn't believe I'd not heard of it before now.

Next I remember watching what was supposedly an old tape of a failed pilot for a 90's sitcom. It was called "Forgetting (girl's name--can't remember what)". Henry Winkler had a cameo in the pilot. The show was really bad, but had such a feeling of sincere earnestness that I felt kind of sad that it had never been picked up.

As I watched this pilot, I realized I'd never had my biscuit. Now it was almost lunchtime.

The Strangely Religous Restaurant

2011-11-28T07:14:00.001-06:00

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 28, 2011

Eric and I were seated at a table in some sort of small-but-fancy-looking restaurant. The character Daryl from The Office (or perhaps just actor who plays him) was sitting at the table closest to us. He began reading Christmas-related scriptures from an ornate Bible.

As he read, I walked up to a buffet line to get food. There was all types of food on the buffet, mostly American, home-style things. I noticed there was graffiti in one place on the sneeze-guard. It said something about the need for "Americans" to get along with Muslims.

A lady, much like a typical high school "lunch room lady" plopped a big wad of pizza-like substance on my tray and I returned to me seat. On my way back by, I noticed that "Daryl's" table held, in addition to his ornate Bible, many books about Wicca, and other spiritual tomes.

Stealing Annie

2011-11-27T15:42:00.003-06:00

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 27, 2011

This dream will be nearly impossible to explain, as it only works in the world of dream logic. But I will try my best.

I either lived or was staying in a very old house in the older, "downtown" part of some city. There was a similar house next door, and the two were connected by some sort of screened-in porch that served as a sort of vestibule between the two.

One night I was all alone in the house, and it felt rather creepy. I recall stepping out onto the screened in porch and watching the dark city streets around me, only the occasional car driving past.

I looked through the windowed door into the house next door. The house was being used by the city as some sort of art museum, but I don't think it was currently open to the public. It very much had an "under construction" appearance. The room I could see into was some sort of lobby, which looked entirely empty and dark. Over by a window, I could see what looked like a doll.

Now, in real life, the TV show Community, of which I am a huge fan, aired a Christmas episode last year which was done entirely in stop-motion animation. I realized that the "doll" I could see was the puppet of the character, Annie, which was used in that episode.

For some reason I decided it would be no big deal for me to break into that room and take that prop for my own, so I pried open the door between my house and the museum and walked in. I realized there was a security camera, but I somehow was able to get past it. I felt very nervous when I got close the doll, because I thought a passing motorist could potentially see me from the street.

I don't remember what happened next, as my next memory is of being in a bedroom where two parents were putting their toddler-aged daughter to bed for the night. I noticed the same Community prop doll was lying beside the daughter's bed and I once again began devising a way I might could take it.

(I don't know what my obsession with this doll was in the dream. In real life the show has recently been placed on hiatus, which means there's a good chance it will be canceled. I am very passionate about this show, and want it to be saved. I think my obsession with stealing this prop in the dream may possibly be born of my desperate desire to save the show, in spite of the apparent wishes of those who control it.)

In a different dream, I was watching a movie. It was a western, and I think dream-me knew it to be directed by the Coen brothers. The opening scene featured a poetic monologue by a gritty cowboy. Then there was a scene in which Indians attacked the cowboys. The Indians were, however, dated, offensive caricatures. The battle, too, was over-the-top. It felt like watching a live-action Looney Tunes cartoon, except for there was blood and gore.

In a final dream, someone had told me I should design postcards to promote my art. For some reason I designed the card with a cartoon girl on one side and a cartoon horse on the other. My dad saw it and said, "This will make people who see it think of women in the mall." I replied, "Well, it will make of them think of horses in the mall, too."

Huh?

The Dark-Haired Girl

2011-11-27T15:41:00.003-06:00

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 26, 2011

I went on a date with a pretty, dark-haired girl. I only vaguely recall it, but I know it was somehow cut short, much to my disappointment. We scheduled another date, and my first clear memory is arriving to meet her for that excursion.

For some reason we'd agreed to meet at a convenience store/gas station, where one of us one of us would leave our car so we could ride together. I got there early and thought I'd have to wait a while for her to show, but she was already there. She got in my car and we were on our way. I remember her telling me about her day at work as we drove. We saw a movie and held hands during it.

Next I remember being at my parents' house in the guest room that I sleep in when I visit them, only it was as though I actually lived there and that was my bedroom. I was cleaning things in the room and putting clean sheets on the bed when suddenly the dark-haired girl showed up at the house.

She walked into my room and I was embarrassed because I hadn't expected her to come over at that time. I was completely unkempt, just wearing sloppy around-the-house clothes and a baseball cap that I had quickly thrown on to hide my "bed head". But then I noticed the girl was dressed in a very similar, sloppy manner and I didn't feel embarrassed anymore.

Dave's Anti-Pizza Campaign

2011-11-21T18:05:00.004-06:00

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 21, 2011

I was in a crowded auditorium at some sort of conference. A speaker was announcing the winners of "last year's Create a Commercial contest". It turns out the winners were my friends and I.

Apparently we had conceived the winning idea the year before, and in the months since, a professional commercial had actually been produced from it. They debuted this commercial on a large screen on the stage.

The commercial featured Dave Thomas, founder of the Wend'ys restaurant chain, much as their ads really did when he was still alive. He was holding up a slice of pizza with a look of disgust and asking, "Why would anyone ever want to eat more than one piece of pizza? You'll want to eat more than one of our burgers!" My friend Eric and I, huge pizza enthusiasts, feigned incense when we heard him make this proclamation.

After the commercial was over, I remember a general sense of confusion as to how Dave Thomas, long dead, had appeared in this new ad. It didn't look like computer graphics, but we assumed surely it must be. The earlier suggestion that we had written the idea for all of this ourselves no longer seemed to play a part.

I vaguely recall another dream. A couple of friends and I were preparing to leave a They Might Be Giants concert late one night (I have no memory of the actual show in the dream). My car was one of the last ones in the parking lot outside the club they had apparently performed at. We were just sitting in it, not going anywhere for some reason.

Then we saw the band members step out of the club. They just stood on the sidewalk talking in the lamplight. At one point John Linnell approached our car and just nonchalantly got in the back seat. We then conducted a brief interview with him, as if for some sort of print publication. He then stepped out of the car and rejoined his band mates on the sidewalk. Even in the dream it felt rather bizarre.

Running On Air

2011-11-20T14:33:00.003-06:00

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 20, 2011

Not to be gross, dear reader, but the dream started out with me in the bathroom. I twas very early in the morning and I was supposed to be getting ready for work. I was very concerned that being in the bathroom was going to run me late.

Indeed when I finally left the bathroom, I was quite late. For some reason I was literally running down an unkempt trail outdoors which I think was supposed to take me to work. I was wearing an orange vest-jacket like the one Marty McFly wears in the Back to the Future movies (I have one of those which I've worn as part of a costume before, so I guess this was supposed to be it).

The speeds at which I was running were insanely, inhumanly fast. So much so that, at one point, my vest jacket flew off of me. I quickly changed direction and turned back to retrieve it, but I was going so fast that I had already covered a huge distance since losing it.

As I ran back towards the jacket, my speed was so great that I began to lift off the ground. I was literally running on air. I found I had some degree of control over my flight, depending on exactly how hard I ran. It was such a freeing and exhilarating feeling.

I slowed down enough to float back to the earth and pick up my jacket. I don't remember much after this point, other than the euphoric feeling of being able to move so fast and to fly.

Celebrity Charity Benefit

2011-11-19T13:06:00.006-06:00

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 19, 2011

Apparently the place where I work was hosting some sort of celebrity event to raise money for charity. We were going to be filming it and broadcasting it on TV. I remember the celebrities began to arrive and I, as my other responsibilities allowed, would help to greet them as they walked in the door.

At one point I remember greeting Tim Allen and Tom Hanks, which no doubt appeared in my dream due to my love of the Toy Story movies. Then someone came up to me and told me that Bill Murray had just arrived in the parking lot. This really excited me, and I hoped I'd get the chance to greet him and speak to him when he came inside. Because, let's face it, he's Bill Murray.

The person warned me that he did not like to be approached or addressed, so I shouldn't say anything to him unless he spoke first. Fortunately, I was at the door when he came in, and he shook my hand and spoke to me as he passed by. that was enough for me. I could say I'd shaken Bill Murray's hand, and I was happy.

I have very vague memories of seeing the actors on the stage hosting the event, touting whatever unspecified (or at least unremembered) charity this whole thing was for. Then I remember the event ending, and I went outside to where there was a huge gift shop.

Now I was with an ex girlfriend as we browsed the gift shop and we discussed the event we'd just seen. I remember seeing a lot of cool, vintage-looking Peanuts memorabilia in the store.

Somehow this part of the dream morphs into another dream in which I'm walking through a grocery store rather than a gift shop, and rather than being with an ex girlfriend, I'm with a fictional girl who is supposedly my new, current girlfriend.

I remember the two of us just filling up a shopping cart as we made our way through the store. When we left and went back outside, someone picked us up in a van. The girl and I sat in the back of the van and told the driver about a trip we were supposedly just now returning from, like we'd been on a vacation of sorts.

I was unpacking and organizing a duffel bag of belongings as we rode along. I had a T-shirt adorned with an illustrated graphic of the U.S. Constitution and a couple of other trinkets which were supposedly souvenirs from this trip.

Neil's Such a Drag

2011-11-03T07:18:00.002-05:00

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 3, 2011

I vaguely recall watching a late night talk show on which author Neil Gaiman was making an appearance. For some reason, though, he was in full drag and acting very flamboyantly. It very much brought to mind Frank N. Furter from Rocky Horror Picture Show.

There was some other dream in which I was dating a girl who was a fellow cartoonist like me. I think we'd met though the deviantART artist community. Things were going well. It seemed very vivid, though I can't recall much about it now.

The Art Class Prison

2011-11-01T07:22:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF NOVEMBER 1, 2011

There was a middle aged woman who taught a "continuing education" sort of art class at a college which my friend Eric and I were apparently attending. The teacher dressed really well, and seemed a little haughty and forceful in her manner.

The desks in the classroom were arranged so that certain ones were stacked on top of each other, like a sort of desk/bunk bed combo (it made sense in the dream). One of our fellow students was a flamboyant gay man who reminded me of Jim J. Bullock. This fellow was always dramatically complaining about everything.

For some reason the harsh teacher would not let any of us leave the classroom, claiming we were all her prisoners until so-and-so goals were reached. Tempers began to flair and students began to panic--especially the Jim J. Bullock guy. Somehow Eric and I found a way to blast a hole in the wall when the instructor wasn't looking, which gave us all a way to escape through the adjacent room. I can't really recall anything more.

Alien Invasion

2011-10-29T12:58:00.003-05:00

MORNING OF OCTOBER 29, 2011

I was eating lunch inside some small restaurant one afternoon with friends, Eric being the only one I can specifically recall. At one point a middle-aged man burst into the restaurant demanding we come outside and look. He seemed all in a panic.

In the parking lot, we looked up to see a UFO hovering in the sky. It was very clearly a spacecraft of some kind, and was near enough to the ground to appear quite large. We could hear the loud hum of its engines, and feel the ground vibrating around us.

At one point the image of the UFO began to sort of skip in and out, like bad reception on an old analog TV set. Then, suddenly, it winked out of view entirely, and all was silent again. It was a very eerie feeling. We all felt kind of scared.

I believe some more things happened in the dream, though my last clear memory is that my friends and I were looking up into the night sky later that evening, while still discussing the UFO. Suddenly, the skies lit up with laser beams blasting down the ground. The were all in the distance, so we weren't in any danger ourselves at the moment. But we could see huge explosions on the horizon where the beams were hitting. We knew the aliens were attacking earth now. It was fairly terrifying.

Really Big Leaves

2011-10-28T07:20:00.006-05:00

MORNING OF OCTOBER 28, 2011

Apparently my parents were packing to move from their house, although this house looked more like my grandmother's house. I was there helping them pack. The family dog, Einstein, was also there, though he passed away earlier this year in real life. He was running around sniffing things, and he eventually kept drawing our attention to something he smelled near one of the walls of the house. It turns out, there was a hidden crawlspace there were my parents had stored a lot of their old belongings. They had forgotten all about this space, but were exasperated with Einstein located it, because it meant even more things for them to pack for their move.

At some point I went outside and was walking in the yard. There was a tree with huge leaves--they looked like maple leaves, but they were huge. Each leaf was probably a good solid foot in circumference. The tree had normal-sized leaves interspersed with the large ones. I noticed that some of the big leaves even had darker spots in their color that were perfect silhouettes of the small leaves, as though the small leaves had shaded the sun from that place. Like removing a long-hanging pictured from a wall.

I went to find a camera to take a picture of the big leaves, but by the time I got around to trying, they were all brown and crisp, and most had fallen to the ground.

Imogen and Goldfrapp

2011-10-26T07:23:00.006-05:00

MORNING OF OCTOBER 26, 2011

Supposedly I filmed a local TV show in which Imogen Heap was the main guest. After the show, she invited my friend Eric and I to have lunch with her and we agreed. There was a little bit of time to kill before we'd be meeting for lunch, so Eric and I went to our respective homes to freshen up a bit.

While back at my apartment, I, for some reason, changed into a gaudy Hawaiian shirt with a Mickey Mouse pattern on it.

Then I arrived at Chick-fil-A, which is where Imogen had requested we all eat lunch! Eric wasn't there yet, so Imogen and I went ahead and ate and talked while we waited on him. She told me she liked the Mickey Mouse shirt, though the went on to inform me, in a rather grave manner, that I should normally never wear Hawaiian shirts (and in real life, I always heed this advice).

Eric was indeed very, very late. Eventually Imogen and I ran out of things to talk about and it started to feel awkward.

Then I have a memory of filming the same show from earlier in the dream, only now Alison Goldfrapp was the guest (must have been the night for female British musical artist cameos). During the interview, Goldfrapp announced it was time to release the birds.

The next thing I remember, a huge mass of birds was released from the studio into the sky outside. I stepped out into a little vestibule to discover that many of the birds and become stuck there and were in a panic. I opened all the doors and windows (apparently this was a vestibule with a lot of doors and windows) and tired to shoo them all out.

Once all the birds were free, I noticed the room I'd been in was actually someone's office. It was obvious from the decor that it was a police officer's office. I hoped I wasn't' in legal trouble for entering the office without permission or for the damage all the birds had done.

Hotel Chipmunk

2011-10-25T07:18:00.007-05:00

MORNING OF OCTOBER 25, 2011

I know my dreams are always weird, but the NyQuil I was taking for my cold at this time made them seem even more confusing and strange.

I was staying in a hotel with my parents. It was apparently a Sunday morning, and they were in church. I knew I was supposed to meet them in the hotel room and be ready to check out and leave as soon as they returned. A large portion of the dream consisted of me trying to make my way from my apartment to the hotel (why was I staying in a hotel with them if I was within driving distance from home, I'll never know). Every time I got to the hotel room I realized I'd forgotten to pack something. I'd have to go back, get the item, come back to the hotel, etc.

I vaguely recall what the hotel room looked like. It seemed fairly old and dilapidated. There was no wall separating it from the neighboring room; only a thin curtain. There was another family staying in that room, as was fairly easy to observe.

I in the hotel room packing some clothes into a suitcase when my mom returned. As she entered, she drew my attention to a network of wires and strings that criss-crossed each other along the ceiling. An improbably large chipmunk, more the size of a chinchilla, was scurrying to and fro on the wires. I got out my camera to try to take a picture of it as it paused, apparently chewing on some kind of nut. It was making unusual chirruping sounds. And then I noticed it started pooping, and the poop was falling down into my open suitcase!

I shooed it away.

There was some other dream in which I was watching what was supposed to be an old episode of the short-lived 90's cartoon based on the Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure movie. In the dream episode, Bill and Ted had been shrunken to a tiny size. They were chasing down mill worms as large as themselves, with the intent of eating them. Then I was with my cousin, and we were the ages we used to be when the real cartoon used to air. We were discussing the mill worm episode and how gross it was.

An Unusual Disney Trip

2011-10-22T11:40:00.008-05:00

MORNING OF OCTOBER 22, 2011

Another Disney World-based dream. Only this time, Disney World looked like a cheap "budget" version of the parks, almost more like a Six Flags or something.

My first memory is that one girl there--clearly based on a girl I've met in passing in real life, but don't really know--casually told me she was going to kill me at some point while we were there. She told me "It's part of the ride! It's better if you kill someone!", though she couldn't understand why I didn't agree with her enthusiasm fort the idea. I spent a lot of time trying to stay as far away as her as possible on every ride, so she wouldn't kill me. (Note: In real life there was a brief period of time when the real version of this girl made it annoyingly clearly she wanted to date me and I made it clear I didn't share the interest. I think this part of the dream was some psychological throwback to that even, even though it's been a couple of years.)

I vaguely recall riding some sort of old wooden roller coaster with Richard. After that, he and Cailey were going to one specific event, but there was a different attraction that I was in a hurry to get to while it was still open, so I went there. This attraction was something like a theater, where you watched something on a big screen in a type of auditorium.

When I got there the line was still fairly small. The attendants, all ladies, asked me if I was there by myself. I told them I was doing this particular attraction alone, and they acted like that was so sad. One of them, a middle-aged lady with glasses (who actually vaguely reminds of someone from my past, now that I think about it), said she'd find someone to sit with me for this feature. I told her she really didn't have too--but she was off. I think someone said she was going to find "Rapunzel", who would sit with me, but I don't--possibly unfortunately--remember exactly how this part panned out.

In my final memory of the dream, I was back with Richard and Jessica and Cailey in a room where it looked like a birthday party was being thrown for Cailey. Some of the characters were presenting her with a cake and such. I got really frustrated because every time I tried to take a picture, my camera wouldn't actually take it, no matter how hard or many times I pressed the button. Eventually I threw it down on the ground and woke up.

Motorcylces and Ice Cream

2011-10-22T11:38:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF OCTOBER 20, 2011

In real life my dad occasionally rides a motorcycle, though it's really not that often. I haven't ridden on one with him since my early teens, yet that's what was happening in this dream. I had gone to visit my parents, and he and I were heading out for a bike ride. Because it was a dream, we were able to have casual conversation and actually hear each other over the motor of the bike as we rode.

At one point we passed some beautiful countryside, and I even spotted an old cairn that I recognized from the book I'm currently reading (it wasn't strange to me to recognize a fictional landmark within the dream). Dad said something about stopping to get ice cream or some kind of dessert. I said I didn't think I should, because I had already eaten a lot that day and I didn't want to overdo it or something. But then we stopped in my parents' garage--as though it were somewhere along our way rather than the destination we had originally left from--and my mom was standing there. She gave each of us some kind of chocolate coated ice cream on a stick, like a Eskimo Pie. She said they were fat free so we were allowed to have them.

The Comedy Festival

2011-10-12T18:05:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF OCTOBER 12, 2011

Some random old high school acquaintance that I don't really even know or talk to sent me an event invitation on Facebook. It was for some kind of all-day comedy festival they were having in Birmingham. Many famous and not-so-famous comedians and comedy troupes would be performing all day. I decided it sounded like it could be fun, so I thought I'd go check it out.

I have vague memories of watching comedians perform, mostly on outdoor stages at different venues. I can't recall specific performers or jokes. At one point, I went back home, only it looked like my grandmother's house and my mom was there. I ate some cold cereal and announced I was heading back to see more comedy at the festival (admission included a colorful wristband, so you could come and go at leisure).

Having returned to the festival, I was no seated in a theater of some sort, waiting for another act to take the stage.

Basketball Glory Days

2011-10-10T07:14:00.006-05:00

MORNING OF OCTOBER 10, 2011

My dad didn't play basketball in high school or college, but in my dream he was reminiscing about his days as a star on his high school or college basketball team. He was with a friend who had supposedly been on the team with him, and they were reliving their glory days.

At one point the two of them were watching old video clips of one of their games. They apparently had nick-names for each other at the time, "T-Rex" and "Gator". As they watched the footage, they kept talking about "T-Rex vs. Gator!" The most surprising things about this video was to see my younger dad doing all kinds of fancy Michael Jordan-style moves on the basketball court. In the waking world this seems even more crazy.

There was another part of the old video, I guess shot during halftime, which showed a tub of water being placed under the basketball hoops. Then one of the players grabbed a scrawny nerdy guy from the crowd and slam-dunked him through the hoop down into the water. The nerd was in total shock, but when he realized he was unharmed he seemed ecstatic!

In another dream I was apparently in some kind of movie or play. It seemed to have a "Sherlock Holmes" sort of theme. I was supposed to be trying to solve a mystery, looking for clues and such. My mom was there, and at one point someone tossed her a piece of bread and she began eating it.

I immediately yelled, "Cut!" and informed the apparent director of this scene that my mom would never eat bread some stranger had touched with their hands and tossed at her, and there was no way I could stay in character having seen that happen!

In yet another dream I was watching TV. There was a special on the religious channel in which a televangelist was driving around in his car with "Weird Al" Yankovic in the passenger seat. The two were having a discussion on faith, but it was obvious that Weird Al didn't really want to be there. This was supposed to be a legitimate show, and not some kind of spoof.

I have one other vague image in my head in which I was loading corn on the cob (fully cooked) beside a fireplace hearth as though it were firewood.

The Parchment Wiki and the Crazy Hobo Agent

2011-10-09T10:45:00.007-05:00

MORNING OF OCTOBER 9, 2011

The first memories are vague. I was at someone's house at night, and a lot of people were there, so I guess there was some type of party or something. There was a long parchment where people were writing down little bits of facts and information about the Harry Potter books or movies. It was almost like people were editing a Wikipedia page, only it was a physical piece of parchment. I remember adding something to it as well.

Also while in this house, someone told me that there was a RiffTrax for Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World. For some reason I was especially excited to see the riff of this one, even though I haven't seen that movie since it was in theaters and remember little of it.

Finally, I remember my boss (my bosses are a married couple, this was the wife), telling me I needed to go pick up her dog from someone. I was to meet them in the parking lot of some store a couple of miles away from where I work, so I headed that way.

When I arrived at the mostly-empty parking lot, four people approached my car. Three were in their thirties to forties, two men and one woman, dressed like secret agents or Secret Service members or something. The fourth was a slightly older, bearded man, who looked almost hobo-ish, but was obviously part of their group.

The three younger ones immediately got into my car, one in the passenger seat and the other two in the back. I was freaking out a little bit about this, but not as much as the bearded man! He kept yelling for them yo get back out there! He swore that he knew what we were up to! Through the open passenger-side window, he began grabbing at that guy, trying to pull him out.

Then the man produced a rifle or shotgun, ran to the front of the car and aimed it at us. I threw the car in reverse, backed up a ways, put it back and drive and slammed on the gas, running over the crazy man as I rammed into the wall behind him.

I guess we got out OK, because my next and last memory of the dream is re-telling this story to someone.

Recognizable Snoopy Art on a Tee

2011-10-06T17:48:00.001-05:00

MORNING OF OCTOBER 6, 2011

In real life, as I was growing up, my grandparents kept a set of "Snoopy" tumbler/glasses which I usually drank from when visiting. (I still have one in my "Peanuts" collection today.) The art on the glasses features Snoopy and Woodstock garnishing giant hotdogs and hamburgers.

In my dream, my friend Eric was wearing a T-shirt featuring this exact same artwork. I couldn't believe such a thing existed, and asked him where he'd found it. He explained to me that some random old man, possibly a vagrant, had come up to him and given it to him.

Hungry In Japan

2011-10-05T07:21:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF OCTOBER 5, 2011

For some reason I had gone to Japan by myself. I knew that Eric, and I think possibly some other friends, were supposed to be arriving on another flight later on. In the meantime, I explored the area where our hotel was, thinking particularly of where we might eat later. There was a Japanese version of a Pizza Hut right next door to us, though there were obviously many other restaurants in the surrounding area.

My next memory is being with a fairly large group of both friends and family. We were walking up and down the streets of Japan, trying to pick out a restaurant. Many of them looked tempting. We couldn't decide it we wanted to try a "safe" choice or one of the more exotic native options.

As we passed one restaurant, a couple of girls in traditional Kabuki garb were waving at me from behind a window to come inside. I waved back, but continued to follow my group down the street as they tried to decide.

Eventually we all decided to go back to the restaurant where the Kabuki-looking girls had tried to wave me in. It had only been a very few minutes, but now there was a closed sign on the door! The girls inside, now in the process of cleaning the place up, stopped and waved again anyway.

Hungry Bear and the Hotel

2011-10-01T11:01:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF OCTOBER 1, 2011

I was watching some sort of comedy segment on TV. One guy was outdoors, talking to another, and a lion sneaked up behind him, stood upright on its hind legs, and placed its front paws on the man's shoulders (the lion was CG, intended to look "real" but pretty cheaply done). The man just kept talking to his friend without realizing the lion was there. The other friend kept trying to warn him to no avail.

The lion opened its jaws as to bite the man, when suddenly an even bigger grizzly bear stepped up behind the lion and ate it. I mean swallowed it whole, head first. The man never knew what was going on behind him. I think this was supposed to be quite funny, but even in the dream the whole thing came off as just weird.

There was another dream in which I was visiting a big city somewhere with friends. I remember Eric, Richard and I were staying in a cheap hotel room with a couple of other people, possibly fictional.

I remember some bits of the dream took place in the hotel, and it was a very dingy appearance. Details from the dream are mostly unclear until near the end, I had gone out into the city to look for something and then I walked the few blocks back to the hotel. It was a gorgeous day and I vividly remember walking down the streets, though I couldn't tell you the specific sights I saw as I did.

Out hotel room was, I think, five stories up, and you had to walk up outdoor stairs to get there. At the base of the stairs I saw an old lady I recognized as being from our group. She had suitcases with her and told me the others were still in the room packing to go. She said they'd lost power several times in the room that morning and so-and-so (the name of the organizer of the trip, who I recognized in the dream but can't remember now), had said he'd never stay at this hotel again. I was glad, because it really was a pretty crappy hotel.

I returned to the room to join the others in packing, but this is about all I can remember.

Already Time For Another Film Festival

2011-09-28T18:18:00.003-05:00

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

In real life there is an independent film festival held in the late summer or fall each year in nearby Birmingham. This year's festival happened about a month ago, but in my dream, I was once again attending the opening night festivities.

Instead of the Alabama Theatre, where the opening night movie is really screened, this event was taking place at the house of an ex girlfriend. There was an impossible number or folding chairs, neatly arranged into row after row. At the front of the room was a rather small analog TV set. Once the crowds packed in, the TV showed "It's a Wonderful Life". (The same theatre that really shows some of the festival films also screens this movie around Christmas time each year, so the things sort of have a correlation, as random as it sounds).

As I sat in my seat and watched, it suddenly hit me that it seemed like I had only just attended the film festival. How could it already be happening again? Had it already been a year? The fact that a year had passed really bothered me--though it never seemed strange to me that all of this was taking place in the home of my ex.

My last memory is of my ex and I talking about something off in one corner while the movie still played.

Missing a New York Sunrise, Stealing a Rental Car, and Charlie Brown

2011-09-26T07:20:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 26, 2011

I was staying in New York City (I've never actually been). Eric was there with me, and I think some other friends were, too, but he's the only one in the part of the dream I remember. We left the hotel room very early and went on the roof of the building to see the sunrise. On the roof we had a gorgeous view of the city skyline as the sun came up.

About this time I realized I'd left my camera in the hotel room. And I'd left my cell phone as well, so I didn't even have that as an option! I knew I didn't have time to go get the camera and bring it back before the sunrise ended. Even as I stood in awe of the view, I was upset about missing the photography opportunity.

About this time, I saw a Frenchman and his family arrive on the roof (I don't know how I knew he was French before I spoke to him). He was a heavyset man with a handlebar mustache and mutton chop sideburns. He also wore a bowler hat and an old-timey suit. I don't remember much about the appearance of his wife and kids.

The Frenchman began taking pictures of the sunrise. Though he spoke only broken English, I managed to successfully explain to my predicament to him and ask if he might be able to e-mail me any of those pictures after he returned home. He agreed and we exchanged business cards for the contact information. I was trying to remember the word "merci" but I couldn't think of it.

In another dream I needed to rent a car for some reason. I arrived at the car rental place very early one morning, before I was supposed to be at work. The place was closed. I got tired of waiting and decided it would be okay to just take one of the cars without filling out the paperwork. I could always, I reasoned, call them after they got to the office and let them know which car I'd taken!

I vaguely remember driving the car around and realizing I forgot to take note of the mileage before I started. It was very important that I know the original mileage reading when I reported back to the rental place. And then, the more I thought about it, I decided that it might have been illegal to take the car before I told them about it, and I began to worry I'd be in trouble.

I was looking at old pictures taken in the guest bedroom at my grandmother's house. In the pictures, there was a large Charlie Brown figure in the room, probably close to two feet tall. It appeared to be mostly constructed of the sort of soft plastic a doll's head might be made of, and the clothes were actual fabric. In the pictures, was posed in a chair beside a desk holding the receiver of a phone. As I looked at the pictures, I tried to remember ever having seen that Charlie Brown doll in that room before, and I couldn't (because it really never was)!

In some of the other pictures, I noticed there were also several smurf figures in that room, all of a similar size as the Charlie Brown.

Beetle Bailey, Church Girl and the Bookstore

2011-09-25T10:23:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 25, 2011

I was looking through the Sunday comics in the newspaper. I remember, in vivid detail, seeing a Beetle Bailey comic. I read each panel and it was so extremely bizarre that I woke myself up laughing. I actually recreated the dream-strip for my art blog, so rather than trying to describe it to you, I'll just show you what I saw:

I went back to sleep and had another dream. This was in the wee hours of Sunday morning. I had plans to go for a long walk at the park and enjoy the nice fall weather when I got up. In my dream, I found myself visiting my parents' church (which looked totally different than it really does). When I "realized" I was there, I thought, "Hey! What happened to my plans to go walk this morning?!"

The sanctuary of the church was really large and circular in shape and had stadium seating. I sat on one of the rows near the back. A tall, pretty brunette girl, around my age, sat down directly behind me. I "recognized" having seen her in the lobby moments beforehand.

The service began and a man was singing a solo. Then the girl behind me went down and joined him. She sang, and I believe she also played an instrument, though my memory is a bit vague.

After the music, she returned to her seat and I complimented her on a job well done. Then she asked me about my music. I told her that, unfortunately, I don't sing or play anything. She seemed really offended and said, "Well you told me you played an instrument!" As I had no memory of having ever said any such thing, this attack confused me. I tried to explain to her that I was an artist, a cartoonist, and maybe she got that confused?

The rest of the dream consisted of me talking to this girl some more, and I think we got pretty flirtatious, but I don't remember any more details.

In one last dream I remember driving down a fairly rural road with beautiful fall foliage. There was a smallish bookstore just off the road. The outside of the building looked old, like it might have actually been abandoned and unoccupied. Once inside, however, it looked like a huge, modern bookstore, and the opposite end opened out into an entire mall.

I remember looking through books. I saw some young adult novels that looked like good stories, and also remember seeing a Stephen King section, and a display for the old Bone comics. Suddenly I got a text from Eric, which reminded me I was supposed to be on my way to meet him.

I tried texting him back, but suddenly my screen would only bring up pictures of Disney Princesses when I tried to open text messages. In real life Eric's phone is currently messed up and he can't send or receive texts. In the dream, this was my explanation for why my phone only pulled up random Disney pictures when I tried to contact him.

The Killer and the Nekkid Mermaid

2011-09-20T07:23:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

In real life I share my art in a gallery on the deviantART online artist community. In my dream, one of the people who "follows" my art on that site began threatening me. He'd seen that I was a fan of some particular character or movie or show (I can't recall the details) and contacted me to inform me that he tracked down and killed people who liked that property, because he couldn't stand it.

I did a little research online and discovered that he really was responsible for killing people because of this. He'd told me I had to get rid of anything I had pertaining to this subject, and I started to do so. I was frantically destroying collectibles and things (I really wish I could remember what it was specifically). Then I began wondering why I wasn't just contacting the police?

In another dream, my friends' daughter, Cailey was showing me some new toys she had. One of them was a huge toy castle or something that had a mural of Disney characters drawn on the inside of it. The mural featured all of the classic characters, from Mickey & friends to the princesses, etc. One striking thing, though, was the character of Ariel. She appeared in human form, lying on her stomach, completely nude with her bottom prominently exposed. I was shocked that Disney would allow such a depiction of the character, especially on a children's toy!

In yet another dream I found some old "Bill & Ted" comics drawn by artist Evan Dorkin (I really had most of these in the 90s). One of the dream-comics I found had a Q&A with Dorkin in which he mentioned he'd been told there would definitely be a third "Bill & Ted" movie. Obviously that never happened back then (though I suppose they're saying it is going to happen now).

The Big Dinner and the Distracting Rooms

2011-09-19T07:20:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

I was driving my car with my ex girlfriend in the passenger seat. Her sister was supposed to get married, and we were on our way to attend a big get-together her family was having to celebrate in advance of the wedding.

I don't recall much about the get-together except sitting at a crowded table with food being served. At some point I excused myself and I ended up going into some building with lots of hallways and doors. It looked sort of like an empty school building, perhaps. One of the rooms was full of old, analog black and white video monitors. I can remember looking at them but not what I saw.

Eventually I returned to the big family dinner and apologized for having been gone so long. At least one family member kept demanding I explain where I was and why I was gone so long.

There was another dream in which I was watching Doctor Who (the current version, with the 11th Doctor as played by Matt Smith). The story had something to do with there being several exact copies of the Doctor and even he wasn't sure which was the "original" copy.

Tiger Shorts, Comic Store Hostages and a Dumpster

2011-09-17T11:09:00.007-05:00

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 17, 2011

First, I remember going to Disney World with Richard, Jessica and Cailey (yes, another Disney World dream). We were standing in a long, winding line waiting for something, perhaps our park passes. During our time in line Cailey became upset about something, but I can't remember what.

My next memory is that we were walking down a strange-looking dream version of Main Street in the Magic Kingdom. We went in some of the shops to look at merchandise. One of the shops sold clothing, and I found a pair of shorts with a tiger face printed on one side of them. Not Tigger. Just the print of a realistic tiger, having nothing specific to do with Disney. For some reason I wanted these shorts, and I bought them.

Shortly after I'd left the store with the purchased tiger shorts I noticed they had small holes in them. I took them aback to the store to make an exchange, but they rack where I'd previously found them was no longer there, and I had to look for what seemed like ages to find it again. Eventually I had to get an employee to help me, and even then it was some time before we found it. Then I exchanged the shorts. Exciting dream stuff, huh?

Sometime after this I went to a huge comic book store where they were about to host a panel with a guest speaker I was interested in (I can't remember who). At this point the dream began to feel more like a comic convention than a Disney trip (not that it had seemed very Disney anyway).

I was milling around the comic store waiting for the panel to begin when suddenly the store was hijacked by some group of robbers, or thugs of some sort. They herded everyone in the store into one of the back rooms and locked us in there. The room was big enough that the 20 or 30 of us had room to mill around a bit. There was some couches and chairs for a few of us to sit on.

I was sitting on one of the couches with a girl who was either Hermione from Harry Potter, or the actress who plays her, Emma Watson. I don't know which incarnation of that person it was meant to be, but we were apparently friends. She was really nervous about what would happen to us and I was trying to encourage her as she held on to me. (I have no idea why, but I genuinely did not feel very scared about our situation).

Eventually the crooks left the place, and Hermione/Emma and I formulated a plan of how to get the door unlocked (apparently just breaking it down wasn't an option). We ultimately escaped unscathed, and then I found myself back on that weird version of Main Street. There was some really odd-looking Disney merchandise on display that I can't even describe. Just bizarre collectibles bearing various Disney character likenesses.

Finally I remember "waking up" at my parents' house, as though I had been visiting there. I went downstairs and no one else was home, so I started preparing a bowl cereal for breakfast.

There was a different dream that involved a large trash dumpster. I can't remember the "story leading up to it, but several people and I had lost an item in the dumpster and wanted to retrieve it. The dumpster was too deep to just reach down into, and it was filled with a dark, wet, mulch-like substance, so we didn't want to actually jump inside it. We decided that maybe we could tip it over to make the contents spill in order to retrieve whatever our lost item was. Of course the wet mulch substance made the dumpster especially heavy, so we were having a hard time tipping it over.

Eventually I discovered a white plastic box, not much bigger than a shoebox. It somehow connected to a level near the top of the dumpster. Once connected, there was some way this gave you access to the inside of the dumpster--it doesn't make any sense to try to describe it now, because it's one of those things that only works in dream logic.

My last memory in the dream is trying to describe this function of the plastic box to one of the ladies in our group.

The Early Morning Cityscape

2011-09-15T07:21:00.006-05:00

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

This isn't a very action-packed dream, but every single moment in it was extremely vivid, even more so than usual.

Early one morning I was getting ready to leave the apartment for the day. For some reason a CD I used to love as a teenager in the 90's popped into my head. I actually wanted to hear it again. It's not on my iPod or in my iTunes library (in real life or in the dream), and I certainly didn't want to dig around trying to find where the old CD actually was.

I remember looking through the closet in the bedroom I actually had as a teenager, trying to find something to wear. I kept seeing old shirts and thinking, "Wow, I thought I donated those to the thrift store ages ago--I really need to clean this closet!"

My next memory is being a passenger in Eric's car as we were driving in downtown Birmingham in the early, predawn hours. Driving up a big hill, we had a perfect view of the Birmingham cityscape, still lit up in the relative darkness that remained in the sky. The scene was beautiful, but what made it strange is that several blimp-sized pig balloons were floating at random places about the city. Not pig balloons like that Pink Floyd thing--these were more spherical, almost like the "Angry Birds" pigs in shape, but not in exact appearance.

We could see a large football down below as we continued driving up the steep hill. There was a large inflatable football stadium replica in the middle of the actual football field. I recognized in the dream that the city of Birmingham had supposedly placed this there as a promotion for the actual sports stadium they'd like to build one day.

Of to the side, in a portion of the football field not taken up by the giant inflatable, were a group of people playing Quidditch. Not the literal, magic sport of Quidditch that the wizards play in the Harry Potter world, but the real-life adaptation you hear of some groups of people actually playing.

Next we arrived at a fast food restaurant where we met up with our friends Courtney and Melissa (each of whom lives out of state now). We were all standing in line waiting to place an order for breakfast, and I was telling the girls about having seen the Quidditch players before. Then I went on to talk about the time I played a game of Quidditch like that--which I've never actually done, but seemed to "remember" in the dream.

Sizzlin' Breakfast

2011-09-13T17:53:00.002-05:00

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

I was cooking scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. But not at the stove. At the table. The eggs and bacon were sitting on a paper plate in front of me at the kitchen table, sizzling away as if they were in a skillet! Occasionally I'd take a bite. It didn't seem strange at all.

I had another dream that I was telling my mom about my recent real-life trip to DragonCon, during which I met Christopher Lloyd and other Back to the Future cast members. At some point as I was talking about it, Lloyd actually walked past in a crowd of people and my mom commented that he looked young for his age (probably because, in the dream, he looked exactly the age he was when the movies came out).

The Indecisive Order and the Old Photograph

2011-09-12T07:16:00.006-05:00

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

I was driving down a local highway on my way to meet Eric for some dinner. I passed a fictional church on my way. The church was mostly brick, but the front and back of the building each featured a huge portion of wall that was jut stained glass from ground to roof. It was dusk, so it was dark enough out that I could see light coming from the huge windows. The light was flashing different colors and created a really pretty effect.

My next memory is being at the restaurant, a local pizza place, with Eric. I also remember Jessica and Cailey being there at one point. At this restaurant you stand in line at the front to place your order, and then wait for your number to be called. This portion of the dream was extremely vivid as I stood in line trying to decide what I wanted to eat--a pizza or a sandwich (in real life it's almost unimaginable that I'd be in a pizza place and want anything other than pizza).

Even when I got up to the register I still didn't know what I wanted to order. It's so weird that this part of the dream seemed like such a big deal. I even woke up from the frustration, but quickly drifted back to sleep.

Next I was at my parents' and I saw some stacks of old pictures my dad was going through. There were several pictures taken during his time as the pastor of a church in Kentucky, where we lived during part of my childhood in the 80's. One set of pictures was of members of what was supposedly the youth group in that church at the time. Apparently they had all come to our house for some party or event. While there, each one of them had their picture taken individually, sitting in a chair beside the staircase.

There was one fictional girl from the fictional youth group that I supposedly had a crush on at the time. She was a brunette, and in her photograph, she was wearing an outfit that looked like something a teen genuinely would have worn in the 80's (when the picture was supposedly taken), but also had a hint of "Hot Topic" to it. When I saw her picture, I suddenly "remembered" her, and the childhood crush. It filled me with such nostalgia that I wanted to keep the picture for myself, so I put it with my things.

There was another picture among the ones from that era which showed my dad and some other men standing outside of a church. Upon close inspection, I realized it was the church from my earlier dream--the one with the huge stained glass windows that lit up. I thought it was strange that I'd just taken note of that church when driving by it so "recently", and then was seeing it in these old pictures.

Roger vs. the Terrorists

2011-09-11T10:48:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2011

First I remember watching a portion of some sort of documentary about the making of the Who Framed Roger Rabbit movie. It was specifically addressing the Roger Rabbit cartoon shorts that Disney briefly tried putting in theaters following the success of the movie. Apparently one of the ones that was in production but never finished was something like "Roger vs. the Terrorists". The documentary discussed how wildly inappropriate that seems now.

The documentary showed b-roll footage inside a real life warehouse where many crates and boxes full of who-knows-what were stored. As the camera moved along, it followed a huge stack of animated boxes that someone was trying to carry into the warehouse. You could only see the top part of the animated stack of boxes where it rose above the tops of the stacks of real boxes. You could hear cartoony voices arguing about where to set this stack. The animation was not blended into the real scene as expertly as in the actual Roger Rabbit movie, but was obviously just pieced together for the documentary.

There was another dream in which Eric and I were driving around late at night down a fairly deserted, rural road. Then we saw an old, beat up van drive by. It was purple and had Marvel comic's Wolverine character painted on the side. We were commenting on how odd that was when suddenly we nearly ran over a guy in a Wolverine costume, just standing by the side of the road. He never really reacted, just sort of stood there staring at us as we drove by. It was kind of eerie the way he was hanging around alone in the dark wearing that costume.

We decided we had to drive back by and try to snap a picture of the costumed guy. Before we could, however, we had to stop and do something else, I can't remember what. I just know we ended up in what looked like a hotel room, and Eric was in the bathroom. I was in another room changing into a different pair of clothes. As I put on my socks I noticed that my feet and toes looked oddly bloated and swollen. I didn't really have much reaction to this, as I just went on about my business.

I guess we thought the costumed Wolverine guy would just be standing on that road all night long, waiting for us.

The Swearing, The Passport, and Hermione?

2011-09-10T11:13:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 10, 2011

The title refers to a variety of short dream memories as opposed to one epic story.

First I remember going to my parents' to meet them and a lady who is our close family friend. The family friend was telling a story about something that had happened to her lately. One of the people in the story had a foul mouth,and she kept quoting what they'd said to her, curse words and all. In real life this lady would never utter a curse word, not even if she were quoting someone, so it gave me quite a shock to hear her saying all these words!

Also around this time I noticed that I really had to go to the bathroom, but for some reason I went ahead and got in the car with my parents as we headed somewhere. The whole ride all I could think of is how badly I needed to go, and I doubted I could make it. That's when I woke up,and you can guess what happened.

After this I went back to sleep. I remember a dream that I was somewhere, perhaps some kind of amusement park, with Richard and Jessica and Cailey. Before you were allowed access, you had to have a "passport" made (not a literal passport, but a kind of thing they made for you to use for access just at this place). Richard and Jessica already had theirs but I needed to have one made.

There was a pretty brunette girl dressed something like a stewardess who took my information and directed me where to stand to have my photo taken for the "passport". At some point during my interaction with the girl, I noticed she was no longer wearing her uniform but a slinky little cocktail dress. I didn't know how to address this, but she looked very nice. For some reason, Richard was off to the corner taking occasional snapshots of my registration process and laughing about it.

There was another dream in which I basically relived the surprise 60th birthday part we recently threw for my dad, only in a slightly different, dream-like form.

And finally, I was dreaming something which featured Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger as they appeared in the movies, or it might have been meant to be the actors who portrayed them. It had something to do with us walking down a nature trail not unlike one I frequently do walk on. By the end of the dream it basically just featured Hermione/Emma Watson and me, but I can't really recall the details before I woke up.

The Wrong Composer and the Missing Table

2011-09-02T18:45:00.003-05:00

MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

Film score composer Michael Giacchino (perhaps most noted for several Pixar scores and the LOST series) was a new employee where I worked. We spoke a few times, but I didn't know him well. I thought it was really strange to be working with a famous composer.

Then one day I saw him make a post on Twitter about being in the studio scoring a certain movie. I thought, "no he isn't, he's at work here today"! That's when I figured out it was two completely different guys. The Michael Giacchino at my workplace just looked the same and had the exact same name!

There was also another dream that Eric came to visit my apartment early in the morning. So early, in fact, that his arrival woke me up. After I opened the door to let him in, I immediately noticed that the kitchen and chairs from my kitchen were gone! Of course I promptly blamed Eric, assuming this was some sort of prank. He'd moved them during the night and that's why he was here so early now--to get my reaction.

Eric swore that he had nothing to do with the disappearance of the table and chairs to the point that I eventually believed him. But then I was perplexed as to how they came up missing. Who would break into my place while I slept and only steal my old table and chairs? What sense did it make if it was an elaborate prank by anyone?

Somehow I eventually found out that my grandmother was the culprit! I asked her about it and she vehemently denied her guilt, but somehow I had learned for a fact that she had sold them to someone. (I have no idea why this would be the case, even in a dream!)

Free Chicken

2011-08-31T17:23:00.001-05:00

MORNING OF AUGUST 31, 2011

I received notification on my Facebook page that some fast food restaurant was giving away a free fried chicken dinner. For some reason I made a point to drive through and pick up some of the chicken. It looked really good, but I'd already eaten, so I took it home and put it in the fridge to be reheated later.

Talking Cat

2011-08-24T07:21:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF AUGUST 24, 2011

There is a stray Siamese cat that hangs out near the place where I work. We've been feeding it for months. It's gotten used to us, but hasn't been tamed. My dream started out as basically a real life scene in which I arrived at work in the morning and the cat was there waiting for me to put its food out...

Then, suddenly, a random family pulled into the parking lot and wanted to visit my workplace. I vaguely remember these people spending some time inside the building. Eventually I remembered that I had never fed the cat, so I went to the door to see if it was still outside.

The cat was there, and when it saw me it asked, "Are you gonna feed me now?" I had no reaction except to casually say, "Yeah, in just a minute." I went on to prepare its food. I thought about how I'd have to tell my bosses that the cat was talking now, but it really didn't seem that strange at all!

Fireworks at the Church

2011-08-08T07:19:00.006-05:00

MORNING OF AUGUST 8, 2011

I was at home, which in the case of this dream was a fictional apartment. It was almost bedtime when I got a phone call from an old lady telling me to turn on my TV. There was a patriotic special (sort of like an Independence Day thing) being hosted by Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and this lady, whoever she was, really wanted me to see it.

I vaguely recall watching the show, which was very funny, though I can't recall specifics anymore. All the while I stayed on the line with the mystery woman who would tell me related anecdotes as we watched. At one point she began to tell me how they celebrated the Fourth of July at her church. As she told me the story, the dream shifted so that suddenly I was actually there with her in her church as they celebrated.

The old lady and I were seated on a pew near the front of the medium-sized sanctuary. On the pulpit before us was a very small device which was emitting a very small indoor fireworks show. Oddly, it had all of the colors and types of explosions you'd expect to see in a major professional fireworks display, but all on a small enough scale to fit on this church's small pulpit. It was also visible on video screens posted from the ceiling. There was no sense of danger from this all being indoors, it was just "cool" that it was such a unique presentation.

After the fireworks, everyone in the church was dismissed. As we were standing to leave, I heard shouting in the back. Some fat, middle aged man in a sport coat and glasses was yelling and screaming "praise the Lord!!!" and such. The old lady told me to pay him no attention--"That's just so-and-so, and sometimes he gets this way".

As we made our way to exit, we passed the screaming fat man as he was getting up in people's faces warning them about the coming of the Lord and such. He was more than a little crazy. My last memory is seeing some ushers sneaking in to take care of the disturbance.

Under the Table

2011-08-07T11:08:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF AUGUST 7, 2011

First I remember visiting someone's house with a handful of other people. The actress Kristen Stewart was there, and we began talking. I "recognized" her as we spoke, but there wasn't that sense of celebrity attached to it. (Also, I should add that it's really odd that she would turn up in a dream. I've never seen a movie she's been in, she's not a one of my "Hollywood crushes", etc. A totally arbitrary pop culture dream appearance.)

Kristen told me she wanted to show me something, so she took me into the empty dining room and we crawled under the table. The table was draped with a long tablecloth so that we were concealed from the outside once underneath. She then pointed out something about the pattern of the fabric on the inside of the cloth that she thought was really fascinating. I didn't really see what the big deal was, but I played along for her sake.

At this point we ended up kissing and then things suddenly began to get rather...heated...between us. And the next little bit of the dream is far too racy for me to transcribe here for public consumption.

After, we came out from under the table and rejoined the rest of the party. I only have the vaguest memories of other things going on at this point. Mainly I was just waiting for my next moment with Kristen. I think we stole some more kisses here and there, but I don't remember anything else to detailed as the previous scene.

Later I remember my parents telling me that we were going to go to Maggiano's for our family friend, Judy's, birthday. Maggiano's is an Italian restaurant I really love. The closest one is in Atlanta, so I don't get to go that often. In my dream, when my mom said the name, I knew it sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. I remember just wracking my brain trying to think where I'd heard the name "Magianno's" before. Finally I remembered it was the Italian restaurant in Atlanta, and I couldn't wait to go.

My next memory is being seated at the restaurant. For some reason my friend Eric had joined the family for the occasion. I was privately trying to tell him about what had happened at the party from earlier in the dream.

Our waitress took our drink orders and left a pair of salt and pepper shakers on the table. They were sculpted to look like a cartoon woman and a cartoon dog. It was really cool. I remember Eric commenting on them, but can't recall what he said specifically.

From here on out, I mainly just remember thinking about what I wanted from the menu, and eventually my alarm went off.

The Fickle Redhead

2011-08-06T13:03:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF AUGUST 6, 2011

I was part of a crew filming a special that had something to do with puppets. I think they may have actually even been Muppets. I was behind a camera or something, and another crew member introduced me to another one who I'd not yet met. She was girl, down in a trench behind the set where they operated the puppets. She had bright red hair and a pale, milky-white complexion. Very pretty in a girl-next-door sort of way.

The girl and I locked eyes when we were introduced and you could just feel the sparks already starting to fly. The rest of the dream simply consisted of the two of us talking and getting to know each other better. We clicked on so many levels and it was so exciting, making me the happiest I could remember being in ages.

In the last part of the dream, we were going to some type of movie or play. Standing in the lobby she just abruptly announced that she "couldn't do this" and left. I was devastated, even as I felt it was a pretty typical outcome. The disappointment was so crushing that I woke up.

Disney Trip with an Unlikely Partner

2011-08-05T07:22:00.003-05:00

MORNING OF AUGUST 5, 2011

I was going to Disney World with one of my ex girlfriend's sister. (I never had a "thing" for this sister, who was married anyway, and I haven't seen or thought about her in ages and ages, so her appearance here is pretty arbitrary).

I remember the two of us going through the security line at the airport, which was conspicuously low-tech and not at all crowded. I remember trying to unload my pockets and all my goods into the tray and for some reason, as dreams will sometimes do, I just couldn't do it right. I kept trying over and over, while the guards and the small line behind me grew increasingly frustrated.

After this I remember nothing about the dream until we were checking into our hotel at Disney. I think there was another family staying in the same suite with us, which was odd. I remember going to take a shower as soon as we arrived. When I got out of the shower, I was trying to find towels to dry with. There was a rack that had several of them, but the first one I tried was damp, like it had already been used, which was kind of gross.

I realized now that it was after 7 PM, and probably all four of the main parks were closing by now. We found out Downtown Disney would still be open for a while, so we thought we'd go there and shop.

First we decided to eat supper in a fancy steak restaurant that was attached to our hotel. The waitress, a really nice black lady, seated us in a U-shaped booth. The funny thing was, she seated herself in the middle of us! From that position she began to take our orders. And that's about all I recall.

We Were Laughing Kids

2011-08-05T07:21:00.003-05:00

MORNING OF AUGUST, 4, 2011

In real life, my younger cousin and I visited each other frequently when we were growing up. In my dream, it was as if we were both kids again and were spending the night at the house my family lived in at the time.

It was late and we were lying in bed just talking and joking like we used to often do when we should've been sleeping. Something we said really cracked us up, and we woke up my parents with our laughing. My dad came came to the door to tell us to be quiet and go to sleep, but the door was locked. For some reason this made us laugh even harder.

I'm pretty sure I actually laughed in my sleep, as I sort of vaguely woke up for a minute. I went right back to sleep and was dreaming of eating breakfast and trying to remember what had been so funny.

Simple and silly as it was, it was a nice dream in that parts of it really felt like revisiting times gone by.

My Friend the Murderer

2011-07-29T17:24:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF JULY 29, 2011

In real life I occasionally attend a "Meetup" group that goes to see movies together locally in Birmingham. In my dream I was attending one of those Movie Meetups, only instead of a theater, it took place in a random room somewhere. (The room actually resembled the study room used on the TV show "Community".)

There was a group of maybe eight of us (some real people, some fictional) sitting around a big table. We each had a laptop computer in front of us. We watched the movie streamed over our individual laptops and would discuss what we'd seen after.

I remember one fictional woman in the group. She was probably about 40, and was very loud and boisterous and sort of redneck-ish. I think she annoyed everyone there at least a little bit.

My next memory is finding out that that annoying woman had gone missing shortly after that and was presumed dead. I was visiting my friend Eric and when that topic came up, he confessed he'd murdered her! He was very calm about it and didn't seem to think it was a big deal, though he asked me not to tell anyone.

As I left his apartment--which looked nothing like the ones where he really lives--I noticed an apartment across the way that I knew had belonged to the woman he murdered. There was already a "For Rent" sign on the door because they knew she'd never be coming back. This all just made me feel sick.

In my last memory, I was back in my own apartment and the police showed up at the door. I was terrified because I thought they were going to arrest me for not telling anyone that I knew Eric had killed the woman.

Mutants for Hire

2011-07-25T07:19:00.006-05:00

MORNING OF JULY 25, 2011

On my lunch break at work I went over to the nearby mall and bought a new pair of shoes (something I really did not long ago). Then I went to the walking trail across from the mall, though it looked fairly different in the dream. There was a family of about five people walking around a circular part of the trail in the opposite direction. At the moment our paths crossed, I realized I wasn't wearing a shirt. Embarrassed, I quickly put one one.

When I got back to work, a young 20-something guy who I did not recognize suddenly sat down beside me. He kept asking me about the job, and how it worked, and how I was going to train him. I kept trying to tell him that we weren't hiring any new people. He was increasingly aggressive in his insistence that he did indeed work there now.

Eventually it was confirmed that we'd hired, I think, three new people and I was to train them all. I didn't understand how we needed three new people. This caused me to simultaneously fear for my job, and to dread the act of training--especially training that obnoxious new guy.

Next I remember spending the night as a house that looked similar to my grandmothers', though it wasn't supposed to be. I apparently knew the lady it belonged to, and I think I was house-sitting for her. The strange thing about her home is that she had TV screens affixed to every window of the house and they played Disney movies nonstop. Anytime you wanted to look out a window, you just saw Disney animation. It was very bizarre.

At one point in the night, I went out into her driveway. I just sat there watching an episode of "The Simpsons" on my phone (I never watch TV on my phone). In the show, Lisa had some quote that really cracked me up, though I can't remember it now.

Suddenly that obnoxious new guy from work appeared in the driveway, though he was being a little nicer now. He asked if I "had the CDs". I told him I did, and retrieved a box full of old music CDs out of the backseat of my car.

Then suddenly I'm standing with all of the new people we hired at work, including that guy, who now really seemed funny and affable rather than obnoxious. He started doing a lot of celebrity impersonations. One was Michael Jackson, which included the dancing. During the dance he suddenly began spinning faster and faster until his body began contorting and he was doing all of these weird, superhuman moves.

This freaked me out a little, but the other new hires then told me they were all mutants, like the X-Men, and they all had weird powers. I was having a little trouble taking this in. As they continued to explain things to me, I saw a pretty brunette girl in a tiny, baby blue dress walking toward us. She had fantastic legs, but as she got closer and closer, the legs just seemed to get bigger and bigger until I realized she was actually like 50 feet tall. She was another mutant, and obviously her powers were that she could grow to huge heights.

About this time all the nonsense finally woke me up.

Dog with Tools

2011-07-19T17:20:00.002-05:00

MORNING OF JULY 19, 2011

I have a memory of being at a house that looked like my grandmother's. My dad and I were standing out on the front porch late at night, listening to the nighttime noises of the frogs and crickets. We were talking about something, I don't know what.

Then I remember being out in the woods, also late at night, with my parents and a few other people. We weren't camping, because we had no supplies. There was a black dog with us who might have been vaguely based on a cocker spaniel, Harley, that I used to own.

We were trying to send the dog out for help, and he'd keep returning to us with various tools and nuts and bolts he was finding somewhere out in the woods. I just remember the pile of tools accumulating every time the dog returned.

The Concert

2011-07-18T07:22:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF JULY 18, 2011

I was attending an outdoor concert at dusk on a summer night. For some reason I was on the stage, with a vantage point from behind the singer. This didn't seem strange or special to me, it just felt like I was watching a show the same as the rest of the crowd. The performer was some cheesy female country singer of some sort.

At one point we began to hear the distant rumble of thunder and see the lightning in the gathering clouds. The singer announced that they would pause the concert and resume indoors in a few minutes.

During this intermission, I decided I'd go back "to my hotel room" (apparently this was taking place out of town) and get my camera so I could get pictures of the show. In the lobby of what I guess was the quaint little hotel, I passed a gift shop (I actually think something might have happened here in an earlier, forgotten part of the dream, because it was very familiar).

The shop had a lot of accessories for costumes, and I decided to buy a low-quality costume fedora. For some reason I actually thought it would be funny to stick a "press" ID in the band of the hat so I'd look like an old-fashioned reporter when I was photographing the concert.

On my way from the shop to the hotel room I paused and looked at the large conference room where they were preparing a stage for the show. A crowd was beginning to gather. I went on to the room and found my camera.

My last memory is being back outside (not inside!) for the concert. The weather was now clear, and it seemed to be a little lighter outside than it had been. I found a place not too far from the stage to stand, and now some of my friends were with me. At this point I was aware that Jenny Lewis and/or Neko Case were going to perform, so I was excited, as they are favorites.

Mobile Home Murder Mystery

2011-07-10T16:27:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF JULY 10, 2011

I remember there were two mobile homes side-by-side and for some reason I was visiting one of them. Upon walking inside, I saw there was a huge commotion going on, including the presence of police officers. I soon learned that someone had been murdered, and it was a member of a local improv comedy troupe whose shows I regularly attend.

I was extremely saddened to hear that they had been killed. One of the police officers explained to me that the murderer had actually broken into the mobile home next door and tried to shoot a person there. The bullet had missed and gone through the wall, entering the home next door and hitting and killing the other person instead.

Somehow I was roped into investigating and trying to help the authorities figure out exactly how it had happened and who the killer was.

There was another dream in which Richard and I were going to see the recent Green Lantern movie at the theater (I haven't seen it in real life.). The entrance to the theater where the movie was playing looked more like the queue at a theme park attraction. There were all sorts of elaborate props and things to entertain people who might be standing in line for a long time.

There was no line at the moment however, so Richard and I walked on through, only glancing at the props. We actually couldn't see them very well, because they all had a sort of "double vision" effect, like watching a 3D movie without the glasses. We decided this was because we had opted to see the 2D movie, so the 3D effects didn't work, even in the line.

I vaguely recall having a vague disagreement with some people about where we could sit inside the theater, and that's about when I woke up.

TMBG Guest Stars

2011-07-05T17:32:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF JULY 5, 2011

I was attending a They Might Be Giants concert in Nashville on sunny afternoon. It seemed the venue was some sort of abandoned building that may have once been a department store or warehouse of some kind. The concert itself was held in a partially outdoor area in the back. There were only a few bleachers to serve as seats, and not many people there.

Before one of the songs, John Flansburgh announced that the band had written a song for the upcoming album, "Join Us" with actress Amy Adams. And it turns out Amy was there to sing it with them at the show. And then for some reason, She & Him (the musical duo of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward) were also there. They all sang together.

Somehow Zooey messed up really badly, either with the lyrics, or singing or something. She was terribly embarrassed and they temporarily stopped the whole show for it. My last memory is that I had somehow ended up talking to Zooey backstage, assuring her the mess-up was no big deal.

The Ornament Girl

2011-07-04T10:41:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF JULY 4, 2011

A few friends and I decided to take a last minute trip to Disney World (yes, another one of THOSE dreams). I know Richard, Jessica & Cailey were there, as well as Eric. We decided we'd fly there. I have no memory of the airport being on the plane, though I do remember flying...

My first clear memory is that were were each in a seat, as if on an airplane, though our seats were each independently flying out in the open air! We could see the Magic Kingdom before us, and we were just gently gliding in on our respective seats. As we got closer to the ground, we flew through a patch of helium balloons that had been released. We were each trying to grab at them and catch one. I remember narrowly missing a Minnie Mouse balloon that I thought I could have given to Cailey. I can't remember if I ever successfully caught one.

Once our seats landed, we went to our hotel, which was the Grand Floridian. There was still plenty of day left, but for some reason we just hung around the hotel for a while instead of hitting the parks. I remember sitting on one of the beds eating potato chips with Eric. Finally we realized we should leave the hotel room, so we began getting ready. Eric and Richard were using the bathroom mirror and I heard Eric start yelling because apparently Richard had stained his shirt.

After this I only have vague memories of going out into one of the parks. At one point I realized I'd only packed the clothes I was wearing, which was unfortunate as they'd probably get plentifully sweaty before our stay was over. We all just seemed stressed and distracted, and I began to think a last minute trip had been a bad idea.

Eventually the dream sort of morphed to where we were trying to plan a trip home, but there was some man who kept thwarting our plans, trying to keep us there (thought "there" by now had little to do with Disney World). In hindsight, the man was a little like the character Tywin Lannister from the "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels that I'm working my way through right now.

My friends and I kept researching ways to get ourselves out of there, rendting cars, buying plane tickets--even shipping ourselves on a truck, but the man kept thwarting them by hiding or destroying whatever information we came up with. We were very much in awe of how sneaky he was--always one step ahead of us!

In the midst of this crisis, I met a girl. She was a little younger than me and very cute, in a mousy/nerdy sort of way. She sculpted Christmas ornaments for fun. They were very, very well made, looking just as professional as the collectible Hallmark ornaments that come out each season.

I remember at some earlier point she'd given me two as a gift. They were based on characters from the old 90's "Animaniacs" cartoon. My last memory of the dream is that the girl approached us again as we were plotting ways to escape. She had just created another ornament, this one of a cartoony hedgehog character, supposedly from the same cartoon as before.

She asked the group at large, "I just made another ornament...who wants to have this one?" Several people, including myself, raised their hands, but she immediately walked over and gave it to me, even though I also had the other two. This is when I knew she must "like" me, which was exciting, because I definitely liked her.

My final memory is examining the detail of the ornament she'd made. It wasn't more than two or three inches tall, and yet each and every one of the hedgehog's quills had been finely and individually sculpted...it was so impressive, and I kept telling her so.

Tomato Plant Party Favor

2011-07-04T10:31:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF JULY 1, 2011

Neko Case, one of my favorite music artists, was hosting a party in what looked like my grandparents' backyard as it appeared during my childhood. Back then they used to grow a garden, and indeed Neko had a garden there in the dream. My only clear memory is that as everyone was leaving the party, Neko tried to send them home with a tomato plant. I kept trying to politely refuse mine, insisting that it would probably die if I took it home, but Neko wouldn't take no for an answer.

The Head-First Preacher

2011-06-28T21:35:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF JUNE 27, 2011

There was some kind of public rally that was more or less like a church service. It was held indoors, and the crowds were seated in rows of chairs as well as on bleachers along the side walls. A fat preacher I thought I recognized as a televangelist was screaming from a pulpit and the crowd was listening intently and responding enthusiastically.

The preacher was warning everyone to get right with God, because Jesus would be coming back at any time.

I was just sort of roaming the auditorium as a dispassionate observer of the whole affair. At one point, the fat preacher set his open Bible on the end of a table, then climbed up to the top of one of the sets of bleachers. He shouted out something to the effect of "God expects us to get into the Bible head first!!!"--and then he dove off the bleachers, deliberately aiming his head for the Bible on the table. His aim was true and his head loudly cracked on the table and snapped back as he hit the ground, limp and unconscious.

In addition to his weight, the preacher was not especially young, so there was a good chance this fall had killed him--it was severe enough to have done most anyone in. People were screaming, medics were rushing to his aid. I just stood in a state of shock. It had been a very disturbing thing to witness--especially knowing he'd just done it intentionally!

There was a separate, but also religiously-themed dream later. I was watching a show on TV where a supposedly Christian host was interviewing Will Ferrell. They were explaining how they'd become real-life friends, and Will Ferrell had accepted the Christian's challenge to follow some kind of religious program for a month to see if he could be converted. Ferrell seemed to be treating his host respectably while still being jokey.

An Auction with Mr. Gaiman

2011-06-20T17:31:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF JUNE 20, 2011

In the dream I owned the original art for a page from a comic book that Neil Gaiman had written (he's my favorite author in real life, though I'm actually more familiar with his prose than his comics work). The page in question featured Mr. Gaiman as one of the characters. He was shouting "squirrel!" in one panel, followed by five more panels of vague action I can't recall. Two panels had been left blank, but the others were in full color (which is rare for original comic art).

The art was framed on my wall, but for some reason I decided, quite on a whim, to sell it to make money for charity. I scanned the art and posted it on my art blog, announcing that I would start receiving bids. The winner got the art, and their payment would go straight to whatever charity.

Shortly after posting this on my blog, Neil Gaiman contacted me online and wanted to get involved in the effort. I have vague memories of eventually meeting him in person and coming up with creative ways to promote the auction.

I ultimately realized that I didn't really want to part with the artwork, and now I was sad that I'd posted it, because I felt like there really was no honorable way out. I can't really recall what happened next.

There was another dream involving a stray Siamese cat that hangs out where I work in real life. We feed him and are trying to tame him. In the dream, the cat showed up at my house with several kittens in tow. For the first time ever, the Siamese let me actually pet it. At this moment, my long-deceased dog Harley ran up to me. I shooed him away because I didn't want him to scare the cat away. Then I realized Harley hadn't been with us in years and felt guilty for shooing him, so I started calling him back.

Weirdo at the Track and a Depressing Store

2011-06-16T07:14:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF JUNE 16, 2011

I was at a walking track that was vaguely like the one I walk at each morning in real life, only this one was in a downtown area, near a lot of little shops and such. There were several people there, including a really weird, awkward man who decided to talk to me. He was around my own age, tall and lanky, and I think probably based on a real person I met before. He kept hounding me about random, pointless trivia I didn't care about.

There was some "game" he wanted to play while we walked the track, like, some kind of "Dungeons & Dragons" style role playing we could enact in real life. I just wanted to get away from the guy, so my dream conveniently provided my friends Eric and Richard, so I ended up hanging out with them.

At some point I had to leave the track, pick up a push lawnmower from somewhere, and bring it back to the track. It was early evening, and I was mowing the grass near the parking lot (this is a bit odd, as I live in an apartment and therefore haven't actually cut grass in quite some time now).

I eventually put the mower away and went back to the track. It looked like Richard and Eric were gone by now, so I started to listen to my iPod. Then I found Richard and Eric again.

We walked down the street from the track to where there was a fictional comic book store. As we approached it, we saw a sad, fat man placing a "going out of business" sign in the window. We decided to check it out.

The sad, fat man--bearded and wearing an ill-fitting, generic superhero costume, was the lethargic owner of the shop. I browsed a for a little while. The selection in the store, both of comic books and of collectibles, was fairly pitiful. I couldn't figure out if this was because the closing sale had emptied a lot, or if it might have always been so.

There was a large boxed set featuring a large Batmobile toy based on the 60's TV series, with matching Batman and Catwoman figures to go with it. The store owner told me it was marked way down and it was his last one, so I should really buy it! The "markdown" price was seven hundred-something dollars! There was a similarly overpriced "markdown" Batman statue of some kind.

I looked at a shelf in the back of the store and they had a lot of old toy sets from the 80's or before. I saw a lot of things that reminded me of my childhood, including a set of "Tinker Toys", which I haven't thought of in years.

Now it was as though I'd come into this store with a girl instead of Richard and Eric. (I can't even remember if she's someone I really know or was a fictional dream character). I approached her and told her I was ready to go if she was. She was very anxious to go, explaining that this store really depressed her. I had to agree it was a fairly depressing place.

Taking Donations Before the Wedding

2011-06-11T12:51:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF JUNE 11, 2011

I was with a large group of people one evening. We were gathered in a parking lot of some sort, across the street from a row of buildings that looked like small businesses. Though I remember nothing wedding-like about the dream, we were supposed to be part of a wedding party.

I was standing around talking to someone when my mom approached me and told me I needed to be ready because the bride (whatever her name was) was almost ready for my part in the ceremony (and now, I wasn't the groom, just a participant, though I can't remember in what way). I looked over my shoulder and remember seeing the bride and bridesmaids giggling and talking a few feet away. Awake, I don't recognize them as any actual people I know.

Before my part in the wedding, however, my mom handed me a baseball cap and said I needed to make the rounds taking donations for Pixar (as in, the animation studios). I couldn't fathom why Pixar needed donations from anyone, but I dutifully walked around the crowd with my hat.

Everyone very happily and graciously donated, each proclaiming their love for the studio and how they were so glad to help out. It was a lot like that last scene in "It's A Wonderful Life" when everyone helps George Bailey! Pretty soon my upturned baseball cap was full of cash and checks.

Then my mom appeared again and told the the wedding was starting and I was going to be late! I held the cap up against my chest as to hopefully secure the contents from spilling as I began running across the street, toward where I knew the ceremony to be held. I looked back and saw some loose pieces of paper in the parking lot as I fled. Fearing it might be money I'd lost from the cap, I ran back, only to find it was just litter. Now even later, I began running to my appointment at the ceremony again!

I remember running up sidewalks, jumping small landscaping walls, etc. Finally I made it up the street to a very big, probably very old house. It was in a poorly lit area and it was fully dark outside now, so visibility was not great, except for the lights from the home's windows. There was steep hill leading up to the house. Fortunately there was a stairway made of old railroad ties and stones to make the trek up the hill slightly easier on foot.

I bounded the steps two at a time, by now grunting and huffing and sweating profusely. One I made it to the house, I slipped in a window into a small room with my bed and the TV from my living room together in it. This "room" was actually just a small "balcony" of sorts that overlooked a larger room where all the guests were.

Some animated movie, I think "Tangled", was playing on the TV. My last memory is looking down at the crowd and someone shouted up at me that I'd left my TV on too loud, and could I please turn it down. I informed them that I'd used "the remote control on my keychain" to turn it down from the parking lot, but I guess it hadn't worked.

Cleaning the Shower

2011-06-07T07:09:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF JUNE 7, 2011

What should have been the bathroom in my master bedroom was actually just one huge shower. Literally, it was the size size of a small room, and was octagonal in shape (or perhaps pentagonal, or some similar, many-sided shape).

I knew that company was coming, and this meant I had to clean the shower. It was so large I had to start out by spraying it down with a garden hose. I remember lots of grime and stuff that looked like algae washing off the walls. Then I had to start scrubbing. It was not an easy task. What a fun dream!

There was also some other dream, or another part of the dream, in which I had found some pages for a comic book I'd started to draw but never finished. I think these were really supposed to be from one of the ideas I had roughly a decade ago. I remember discussing this find with Richard and showing him the pages. He declared "we never should have stopped that project, we should have kept on with it!"

Flying O'er the Fairgrounds

2011-06-05T11:12:00.008-05:00

MORNING OF JUNE 5, 2011

This is the second of two dreams from this night. Due to the length of each, I've made them into two separate entries.

In a second dream it was a bright and sunny afternoon and I was at what looked like an outdoor fair or festival of some sort. I was browsing the wares at the various merchant booths that were set up in rows when I ran into comedian/actor Patton Oswalt. He was obviously in a state of grand amusement, and told me I just had to come see this shirt he'd found for sale at one of the booths.

He led me to a clothing shop where several shirts, mostly men's styles, were hanging from a variety of racks. He pointed out a particular shirt which was a long-sleeved, mustard yellow button-up. He went on and on about how he really wanted that shirt and wished he could have it, but it wasn't in his size. I couldn't tell if he was being sincere or sarcastic. And in either case, why was the big deal? The shirt was neither particularly eye-catching nor particularly ugly. I was literally perplexed by his reactions.

From here I continued to walk around the fairgrounds. That's when I met up with Amy Adams. We just walked around leisurely and talked together, very much enjoying ourselves. Eventually we came up to a steep hill that dropped off into a dirt pit of some sort. We decided to try to walk down the hill for some reason. About halfway down, Amy lost her footing and almost fell. She leaned into my shoulder and I caught her before she did. Then, in a singular motion I just swept her legs up with my other arm and flew away, carrying her in my arms. Yes. I flew away. Casually. It was no big deal!

It was such a great feeling as I just flew around over the fairgrounds with Amy in my arms. At one point, I stated that I felt like Superman carrying a real-life Lois Lane! It wasn't until after I said it that I remembered that she is actually going to play Lois Lane in the upcoming Superman movie. My saying this changed her entire expression. The smile left her face and she started acting awkward and said she wanted to go back to the ground.

I assumed she must not have liked the fact that I inadvertently referred to her being an actress instead of treating her like a regular person, and I feared I had ruined a great day. When we returned to the earth, however, we began making out...

There was some other portion of the dream, I think still at the fairgrounds, in which I was watching a play. The actors were not that great, but it was fun. There was one really, really fat guy with a beard who reminded me a little bit of a much larger Dom DeLuise.

In one scene of the play, the fat guy was dressed in drag as some kind of fortune teller, only he was naked from the waist up. His overweight man-boobs were meant to serve as his female character's breasts. It was a grotesquely odd scene.

After the play I remember the cast hung around and spoke to the audience. The fat guy, however, was so large that he just lay in the floor and you had to walk up to him to speak to him. He was so large that just being in the play had made him too tired to walk around and greet people, or even to stand.

Tornadoes and Memoirs

2011-06-05T10:48:00.007-05:00

MORNING OF JUNE 5, 2011

This is the first of two dreams from this night. Due to the length of each, I've made them into two separate entries.

Another dream in which the cousin that I was very close to growing up was hanging out with me as though we were both kids again (not that I could really see myself to say for sure what age I was in the dream). He was spending the night at my house and we were upstairs getting ready for bed. We had the TV tuned to the local weather where they were showing a system of strong storms moving towards the area.

The storms were only supposed to be mildly severe with no expected tornadoes, but we decided to stay awake until they passed over us. Then I remember we went downstairs to where my parents were (being that we were both younger in the dream I naturally still lived at home) and watched the weather reports with them. Now they were showing tornadoes everywhere--not just in our state, but all over the country. One had even touched down in Washington D.C.

As we waited out the storms I realized there were many, many people downstairs with my parents, more or less like some kind of party. There were two long tables where men and women all sat with loads of paper and notepads all around them, studiously writing.

My dad explained to me that the people writing at the tables were transcribing all his notes from his entire lifetime. He was going to use the transcript to write his memoirs. He told me that in the morning, I was going to have to transcribe all day as well. There went my Sunday plans, I thought.

Then I turned back to the TV where the local weatherman was still warning about the tornadoes. The meteorologist was very, very manic and crazy--not from panic about the weather, but just his natural personality. At one point he began mocking a real-life local meteorologist, James Spann, who is widely hailed and respected around here. The crazy guy said something like, "Of course he's so accurate! He has all kind of equipment! Look what we have to work with! Cameraman! Go show them what we have to work with!"

The camera then walked through what looked like not a television studio, but a regular house. It opened the front door and zoomed in on what appeared to be a normal doorstop on the front porch, though the "doorstop" did have little lights and buttons and a tiny little radar dish on it. The weatherman explained that this was the only weather tracking system they had.

In the final part of the dream, the local weather switched over to an episode of The Simpsons. In what was obviously a spoof segment, the Simpsons family were in a spaceship, having a Star Trek type of adventure. Their ship was attacked and left in ruins. Then the Simpsons "woke up" and realized their real home was in ruins because it had been hit by a tornado! This was supposed to be the season finale cliffhanger, and it's about then point when I woke up.

Disney Holocaust and Fun with Brie

2011-06-04T12:02:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF JUNE 4, 2010

Early one morning I found myself in a crowded classroom taking a test. I was excited because I knew that after the test, my friends and I were leaving for Disney World. The next part of the dream is sort of a vague blur, and then I remember actually arriving at Disney. At first I was there with Richard and Jessica and their daughter Cailey (in later parts of the dream, my companions are less clear).

I realized I'd left my backpack at home (backpacks are handy for carrying your belongings through the parks all day), so we stopped in a gift shop and I bought a pink "Tangled/Rapunzel" one! (I assume I chose this in my dream because Cailey and I played with her Tangled toys a little bit the night preceding the dream.) Richard and Jessica teased me for choosing that one, but I explained to them that Flynn Ryder and Maximus were also pictured on it, and they were male, so it was OK!

The first attraction at the park was a "ride" where you went into a building and for an allotted amount of time they recreated the holocaust! This was not intended to be in any way offensive, but merely educational! They lined you up and walked you in, actors dressed like Nazis separated you from your friends, stripped you of your belongings, etc. I remember being filed into a room with my allotted group and having more instructions barked at us by actor-soldiers.

Next I remember being herded outside. I looked up at the night sky, which I think was a fake projection inside what was actually a building. You could see a lot of stars overhead, and the occasional silhouette of a warplane flying overhead (complete, of course, with the loud sounds). Then I saw an actor playing an American solider who was there to rescue us. I recognized him as someone I went to high school with--and then remembered that I'd seen him at the test I took that morning before leaving for Disney. How odd, I thought to myself, that we both ended up here at the end of the day.

In a second dream, I was with the beautiful actress Alison Brie (I know her best from the show "Community"). We were eating chicken dressing, more or less like the kind my grandmother used to make. There was just one huge casserole-type dish full of it, and we were both eating straight out of the dish together. I had to explain to her what exactly chicken dressing was, as it was largely a southern thing. Somehow, naturally, this ended with us kissing.

Next, we joined some other people outdoors. Everyone began running down a huge, steep hill. Many of them chose to do cartwheels down the hill. I told Alison I couldn't do cartwheels, so she tried to teach me. Of course that just led to us tripping over each other and landing at the bottom of the hill in a heap. Which led to more racy parts of the dream I'll skip here.

And then we were on our way "home" at the end of the day. Someone was chauffeuring us around, so we were both in the back seat. I was seated at one end, and she at the other, though she was turned to recline all the way across the seat, with her legs in my lap.

Underage Driving!

2011-05-27T07:19:00.007-05:00

MORNING OF MAY 27, 2011

I was driving around one afternoon, stopping for gas, pretty mundane stuff. Then I stopped by a house where my friends' six year-old (nearly seven) daughter, Cailey, apparently lived on her own! She could also drive, and we took our own separate cars to a house where some of my family and friends were gathering. (I saw inside Cailey's car before she got into it, and it was full of the same toys and things that typically found inside their actual family van).

Once we each arrived at the house, I remember seeing Cailey's parents, Richard and Jessica. My parents were there as well, and some other friends and family members. Some things went on here, but I don't have a very clear memory of it.

The Handyman

2011-05-26T07:19:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF MAY 26, 2011

Richard and Eric and I were hanging out at some old abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere after dark. I have no idea why. Some apparently drug-ravaged drifter who seemed to be around our own age approached us. He kept referring to himself in the third person, using his nickname, which I think was "Handyman" (or something similar). "Handyman needs some money, man." "You're gonna help Handyman out, arentcha?" and so on.

His using this nickname to refer to himself amused us to no end! After refusing to give him money, he eventually went to a corner and just sat down and minded his own business. The three of us began to privately mock his nickname, ultimately deciding to give each other "awesome" nicknames like his. I can't remember the names we gave ourselves.

Next I remember we went to a store that looked like Hobby Lobby. At one point I wandered the store on my own while Richard and Eric looked at something else. I remember passing a display of doll wigs (for dolls maybe slight larger than Barbies). There was a clear plastic box that had probably 15 or 20 different female wigs in all sorts of colors and styles. One was even a big "Marie Antoinette" style wig. I remember finding this assortment of wigs an odd item to be displaying prominently.

Finally, I remember being at Richard's house looking at YouTube videos. We found one of the opening of the old "Heathcliff" cartoon, and some others that we found very funny, whatever they were.

Unexpected Artist

2011-05-21T23:46:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF MAY 21, 2011

I only remember the last part of a dream in which I was hanging out with Eric and Brandon. I think we were supposed to be in Brandon's house, and he showed me a fancy coffee table book showcasing a lot of nice paintings.

As I looked through the book and made comments, Brandon would make his own observations that shocked me by revealing a much deeper knowledge of the art world than I knew he had.

Finally he began saying things like "that's why I chose to go in so-and-so direction with that one" and I realized he was the artist behind all of the paintings in the book!

Ketchup with the Ducks

2011-05-21T23:41:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF MAY 20, 2011

In real life one of the trails I frequently walk on is beside a large river. In my dream I was on some slightly alternate version of that trail, and for some reason I decided to walk off the trail and into the river.

The water only came up to my waist as I wandered about aimlessly, still wearing all my clothes, my shoes, and everything. A trio of ducks swam past me, and I decided to follow them back to the shore.

As the ducks climbed out of the water, I saw that each one was carrying an empty Chick-fil-A ketchup packet in it's beak.

Wasted Trip to Disney World

2011-05-15T11:35:00.011-05:00

MORNING OF MAY 15, 2010

Several friends and I went to Disney World together. I specifically remember Courtney and Brandon and Eric being there. There was one other strange, skinny nerdy guy who came with Courtney (he was a fictional dream character). In real life, some combination of friends and I have gone to Disney World the past two years, and would be open to doing so again, so I guess that's where this dream comes from.

This was a very detailed dream and it seemed very long. It was even one of those rare dreams that continued after I briefly woke from it and went back to sleep. Still, I can only remember parts of it clearly enough to put here. We were supposedly at the Animal Kingdom park, and they had totally revamped the Dinosaur section (not just the ride but that entire area) to be much bigger and more elaborate--almost like touring Jurassic Park or something.

We were walking through one of the buildings when a commotion broke out and people we running to and fro in panic. It was mass confusion. We all hid in one of the gift shops while we waited to get word as to what was going on. Eventually we got the report that Somalian pirates were trying to take over Disney World and were in this park right now wreaking havoc (it was all real and not a staged thing by the park). I recall spending some degree of time in this gift store while we waited for the danger to pass. We were watching video and reports of the situation on the news.

In real life I started a collection of "Disney Pins" the last time I was there. In the dream, while trapped in the store, I remember looking at a huge selection of the pins. One of them was a giant, nearly foot tall Ariel which had an actual clock in the middle. I didn't see how this one played in with the usual, tiny pin size.

After a while, they told us the situation had passed and were clear to go back out into the parks, which we did. By now we were hungry, so we went to a cafeteria that sold pizza. We each ordered a single-but-very-large slice of pepperoni. While we ate, I floated the idea of taking one day of our vacation to go to the Harry Potter park at Universal (which we really did in our last real-life Disney vacation). It seemed no one liked my suggestion in the dream.

There are vague memories of going on another ride and walking around the park a little, but my next clear memory is that Eric and Brandon went back for another pizza slice, because the one hadn't been enough for them. I decided I wanted to do the same. As we stood in line, I watched them making different types of pizza. One of them featured huge, thick strips of what looked like roast beef covering every inch of the pizza and stacked high before it was covered by cheese. For some reason this looked delicious, so we got it. I don't remember actually eating or tasting it.

At some point there was more commotion by Somali pirates. We hid in a different room and were plotting ways to escape the park. I remember at one point there was a bucket of old action figures on the floor. I began looking through them while we talked. I specifically remember seeing a Joker from Batman in the pile.

At another point, Brandon almost got in a fight with the fictional nerdy guy. I can't remember the exact cause, but I know the fictional guy was very abrasive and annoying in the dream, so I didn't blame him, though nothing actually ended up happening anyway.

Then I remember being in a parking lot next to our car. It wasn't even dark yet on our first day, and we were just going to call it quits and go home. I felt so sad. I remember I felt that if we'd only waited until the fall to take our trip, like we did in real life the past couple of years, things would have gone better. It seemed such a waste!

Disney Prizes at the Post Office

2011-05-15T11:35:00.010-05:00

MORNING OF MAY 14, 2010

I was at a fictional post office with Richard and Jessica. We'd each gotten packages from Disney World which contained cheap plastic figures of the classic characters like Mickey, Donald, and Goofy. Somehow these figurines represented that we'd won some sort of contest to go back to Disney World, or perhaps you had to receive a certain number of them to earn a free trip--something like that.

In another dream I went to a house that basically looked like my grandmother's. My dad was in the living room talking to a small group of other men, all of whom I understood to be preachers. Also in the room were two large dogs of the same breed (I can't really remember what breed it was, if it was even a real one--they had the basic look of a German shepherd). My only clear memory is just sitting there petting those dogs and wishing I had one of my own.

Ferrell and Robinson

2011-05-10T20:23:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF MAY 11, 2011

Eric and I met Will Ferrell and Craig Robinson, who play Darryl on The Office at some type of in-store signing or something. No doubt my subconscious supplied this thanks to Ferrell's recent guest stint on that show. I remember little about the meeting in the dream except having them sign something.

Some time after this, I drove to a comic book store that was part of a large strip mall. I met Eric inside where we looked around at the wide variety of geeky merchandise. I remember seeing an Iron Man T-shit, which for some reason I really wanted to buy, even though I'm no particular fan of Iron Man (I didn't buy it anyway). It turns out Will Ferrell and Craig Robinson were also doing a signing at this store while we were there!

I remember telling Eric that I wish I had brought my Bender action figure for Ferrell to sign, "since he does the voice of Bender on Futurama" (he of course does not, but in my dream I guess I thought he did).

The Fey Improv

2011-05-09T17:33:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF MAY 9, 2011

Richard and I were reunited with a friend we knew a few years ago. He told us he was independently filming his own documentary film, and showed us some of the early footage. It was all very amateurish, but we both agreed to join in when he asked us to be a part of it.

Shortly after this, he came to us and explained that the direction of the film was changing. It was no longer a documentary, but would be a comedy with a scripted story. I remember filming one of my scenes. It took place in a small cafe of some kind. I was supposed to be playing the loner, rejected high school student. All the "cool kids" were sitting at one table. Tina Fey played the part of one of the cool kids.

Tina's character rolled her eyes and begrudgingly came over to my character's table, just to "do the right thing". The exchange between our characters was entirely improvised, and it ended up being hilarious. I can't recall any of our lines, but I remember the pride and excitement I felt when the scene wrapped, having just held my own in an improvisational skit with Tina Fey!

There was a different dream in which I was in a store with my parents. They were paying for something and received twenty-five dollars in change. My dad just handed the $25 over to me and told me to buy something with it. There was a rack of generic compilation CDs behind the checkout counter, and I bought a couple of those.

Back in my parents' car I sat holding the CDs and wondering why I'd payed good money for them. My dad asked me some simple question and it took me several seconds to answer him. I remember wondering why I wasn't answering him right away, and I kept thinking, "Well, answer him!" Finally, I replied--and woke myself up actually speaking out loud.

Face/Off

2011-04-25T17:41:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF APRIL 25, 2011

This is by far one of the weirdest and most bizarre dreams I've ever experienced. I should mention that I've never seen the (no doubt) cheesy 90's Nic Cage movie, "Face/Off", but this dream had the same premise...

I was apparently part of some sort of "undercover operation", the motives of which are unclear to me now. Due to the "undercover" nature of the mission, it was necessary for this woman who was on my team and I to exchange faces, so we could be disguised when we went to gather information.

I vaguely remember lying on the operating table and numbly feeling the pressure of the doctor cutting around my face, and then the next thing I know, the procedure is finished. It felt like I was wearing a Halloween mask or something--sort of stuffy and my vision looked as though I were seeing things through a mask's eye-holes. There was no pain, but my face felt "tight", and there was a lot of pressure whenever I moved anything or made any expression.

There are more vague memories of our friends and associates freaking when they saw us with our switched faces. I never actually saw the woman while she wore my face. She was there in the dream, but I just don't remember ever actually laying eyes on her and seeing my face on her. I also never actually looked in a mirror and saw her face on mine, either. I only felt it.

Eventually some of my associates and I were seated in a beautiful, ornate theater waiting for a live show of some kind to begin. I knew this was the last night of our undercover mission, and I was supposed to rendezvous with the other woman so we could switch back to our proper faces. I kept scanning the crowd, looking for her. I started to get nervous because I didn't want anything to happen to her while she had my face! That's all I recall.

There was another, brief dream featuring a news report on TV showing helicopter footage of a police car chase in California. It was reminiscent of the infamous O.J. Simpson "white Bronco" footage. At some point it was revealed that the driver of the fleeing car was "Weird Al" Yankovic. The entire chase was completely staged as a promotional stunt for his upcoming new album, "Alpocalypse".

Cynical Statuette

2011-04-19T18:37:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF APRIL 19, 2011

I remember only one detail from this dream: Somewhere I had found a small statuette depicting a little boy dressed like a cowboy riding a stick horse. Text was engraved at the base of the figure, reading, "Who cares? People aren't good for anything except for just chilling out with sometimes, or making fun of them."

Al vs. Al

2011-04-18T18:14:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF APRIL 18, 2011

For some reason I was hanging out with "Weird Al" Yankovic. We were watching the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video and I was reminiscing about how it had been popular when I was in high school.

Somehow this led to Al and I deciding to film a comedy video to post on YouTube. In the video I played the younger, 80's version of Al, and he played the modern day version. My Al had time traveled from the past to confront the modern Al and they did battle. Filming the faux fight scene is my last memory.

Conan Contest and a Missing Girl

2011-04-16T10:43:00.008-05:00

MORNING OF APRIL 16, 2011

I, along with a small group of select other people, had won a contest which allowed us to spend a day at an amusement park with Conan O'Brien. I have vague memories of just hanging around the park with Conan as he cracked wise. At the end of the day, he gave each of us a T-shirt with a funny catch phrase printed on it. The phrase was supposedly one he'd coined that same day and that we'd all been using as an in-joke (I can't recall what it was). I remember realizing after I had already left the event that the shirt I'd received was the wrong size.

In another dream I was hanging out with my cousin. He and I were especially close when we were growing up, and in my dream he was still a kid (I assume I was my current age, though the ages were of no issue in the dream). We had heard on the news about a young girl who had been kidnapped in the area and everyone was searching for her. We decided to join the search teams.

Our search team was led by Leeza Gibbons! I have not heard or thought of this personality in literally years, so I have no idea where she came from, but there she was. We searched up and down a wooded trail that was similar to a real-life trail where I often walk. Leeza was the first to find a shallow grave just off the trail. The "grave" contained personal items that had belonged to the girl, but no actual remains. Leeza brought in a film crew and was reporting the find, vowing we wouldn't rest until the actual girl was found.

The Japanese Restaurant

2011-04-12T20:45:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF APRIL 12, 2011

I was in a Japanese restaurant to pick up some take-out. A Japanese lady in full Kabuki attire stood at the front desk. When she told me the total for my order, I realized my debit card was not in my wallet. I began to panic, because I couldn't remember when I last used it and where I might have lost it. Even though it was not crowded in the restaurant at all, the lady quickly became very irritable with me for taking up her time.

Oddest of all is the fact that throughout this entire dream, there was music from the "Katamari Damacy" video game soundtrack playing in the restaurant.

Games in the Basement

2011-04-12T20:41:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF APRIL 11, 2011

My parents and I went to my grandmother's house, only the house was a fictional two-story home. Supposedly we were the first ones there and were expecting other family members for a big get-together, like perhaps a Christmas or Thanksgiving holiday.

While we waited on the others, I went into the furnished basement of the home, where there was a huge TV and various sorts of technology hooked up to it. I entertained myself playing a video game. I think it was based on the 80's He-Man cartoon, though it was on one of the modern day systems and looked very high-tech.

At one point my dad came in and was asking me about the game, and I think he even tried to play it. Then one of my cousins arrived, and he and I reminisced about some of our childhood experiences.

A Pretty Girl, A Zombie Attack, and an Art Contest

2011-04-10T21:01:00.008-05:00

MORNING OF APRIL 10, 2011

In the first of three remembered dreams, I was a dating a really beautiful girl. She was petite and had really nice, long brunette hair and dark features. I was unbelievably happy that things between us seemed to be going well.

Later I showed up at some crowded public event and saw her sitting with another man. She didn't know I was there, but I overheard her talking to the guy about how she hated going out with me. She had started doing it under some pretense--I can't recall what she said it was--and couldn't wait until she could get out of it.

Of course I was devastated to hear this, but thought it was a believable outcome and couldn't believe I hadn't seen it coming.

In another dream, it was late at night and I was walking around the track I usually go walking at early on weekday mornings. The only difference was that a nearby grocery store was located right across the street from the track in the dream.

I overheard a girl talking on her cellphone and looked up to see her walking across the street from the grocery store parking lot onto the track. At this point I was finishing up my walk and was headed to my car in the track parking lot. It turns out the cell phone girl was parked beside my car, and we entered our respective vehicles at the same time and proceeded to leave.

Somehow both our cars ended up stuck in mud, or sunk into a ditch, or some similar obstacle. We couldn't move. I remember as I sat there spinning my wheels, I looked into my passenger seat and saw two birthday cards, one with Tinkebell, and one with Disney's Princess Tiana. I knew that both of them were meant to be given to my friends' daughter, Cailey, on her upcoming birthday.

Anyway, the girl and I got out of our cars and began discussing our predicament. Then we noticed a car nearby us that is filled with zombies! One guy in the car, who looked a little bit like Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter movies, was not a zombie, but he was too terrified of the zombies to actually flee the car. I remember the girl and I pleading with him to get out of the car and run with us! It was a very, very intense scene in the dream. I remember feeling just terrified.

We finally pulled the guy from the car, and the three of us piled into an SUV with a couple of other people in it, and began fleeing the zombies. As we drove, a middle aged man with an English accent began narrating our escape from the back seat. I wondered if this was the beginning of the final Harry Potter movie, and we were somehow in it.

As the man continued narrating, Eric, who was suddenly in the car with us, began asking me questions about some poster contest we had supposedly entered years ago. I was annoyed, because I couldn't hear the narrator when he was talking, and I was desperately trying to prove my theory that we were stuck in a movie. Somehow only hearing what the narrator said could help me with this.

There was one other dream in which it was a given fact that every April, I hosted a contest at my deviantART gallery online. Each week I'd give a theme and participants would turn in a drawing inspired by the theme, and there would be a winner each time. Only in this dream, I had forgotten to start the contest at the first of the month, and was rushing to start it late.

My first challenge for contestants was to draw something inspired by just the word "dinosaur". Fro some reason my dad, who is not an artist and in no way follows or cares about cartoon art, decided he wanted to join the contest. He practiced drawing and actually turned in a decent drawing on a dinosaur. There was some kind of actual process and "story" as he was talking to me about learning to draw the dinosaur, but it all gets lost in a blur of events in my memory.

I recall the second contest I posted was to draw something inspired by a specific Arnold Schwarzenegger 80's movie (one that doesn't exist in real life). My dad wouldn't join this contest, because he'd never seen the movie and didn't want to watch it because it was rated R. I explained to him that contestants only had to enter ONE of the challenges for the whole month anyway, so he didn't need to turn in another if he didn't want to.

Patton and Remy Do Improv

2011-04-04T07:16:00.003-05:00

MORNING OF APRIL 4, 2011

Some friends and I attended an improv comedy show and were surprised to learn that comedian/actor Patton Oswalt was doing a guest role in the performance. Patton did his whole improv segment on the stage by himself.

His only prop was a puppet of Remy the rat, the character he voiced in the Pixar film, Ratatouille. It was very unique seeing him improv a whole scene against the puppet he was also voicing.

I vaguely remember standing in the lobby of the theater afterward, discussing the performance with friends. I'd taken a few pictures and we were looking at them on my camera.

On the Run in the Secret Rooms

2011-04-03T11:40:00.003-05:00

MORNING OF APRIL 3, 2010

There were a couple of older adults, and two or three people around my own age. Most of them were fictional dream characters. One of them was a girl I apparently had a crush on. We were all on the run from something. I think supposedly some kind of Nazi-like government had taken control and we were trying to stay in hiding.

One of the older ladies knew of a secret room inside the building we were in. It led into several other secret rooms that obviously had not been visited in some time. The lady explained to us the function these secret rooms had served in the past, but I can't remember it now.

We spent some time in these rooms, just hiding silently, hoping to evade capture. During this time the fictional girl I was crushing on and I seemed to grow much closer. That was the one silver lining of our scary ordeal.

My final memory involves us deciding to sneak out of the secret passageway, leaving the building completely and going out into the woods. We were walking a long a huge dirt trail cut through a thick forest. I can't remember what else happened.

There is some snippet of a second dream I recall. I was talking to an ex-girlfriend and her sister, and in the dream they supposedly also had a brother. They were teasing the brother because he had "mom hair". I can't remember what supposedly constituted "mom hair" in the dream. They just called him "mom" sometimes.

Dinner with Genevieve

2011-03-29T18:11:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF MARCH 26, 2011

I remember Genevieve, the lead singer of one of my favorite bands, Company of Thieves, was one of my circle of friends. We had all been hanging out together, but at one point in the dream Genevieve and I were having dinner alone. That's when I realized that we were "dating", and as the reality sunk in and I felt really excited. This is pretty much all I can remember.

Jesus!

2011-03-24T19:52:00.006-05:00

MORNING OF MARCH 24, 2011

A new movie had just come out, directed by and starring Ricky Gervais, and titled, Jesus!. Some friends and I went to see this film one night, only now it was a play instead, though it still starred Mr. Gervais.

The venue looked similar to a small venue where I often go to see actual local theater. The small audience sat in folding chairs lined up in front of a stage. When the play began, for some reason, I chose to sit on the edge of the actual stage to watch it. It was a great seat, but I suddenly realized I should probably go sit with the rest of the audience, lest I block someone's view, so I did.

Somehow plush bears factored into the play. They looked like a cross between "Lotso Huggin' Bear" from Toy Story 3 and Care Bears. I was holding one at one point, and I think I'd accidentally carried it with me from when I'd been sitting on the stage.

At one point, former child star Gary Coleman came and sat down near me. It never entered into my mind that he's actually dead now. He climbed up on the stage and played on a piano while singing (I'm sure his appearance in this play stems from the use of a Gary Coleman in the actual play, "Avenue Q").

Suddenly, but without notice, things changed so that it was more like we were watching a movie in a theater as opposed to a live play. There was a scene where the characters went to Disney World. My mom, who was now apparently in the theater with my friends and I, asked me how they could get away with showing Disney World in this movie. I told her because this was a Disney movie.

The next scene in the movie took place at a wrestling event, like WWE or something. One of the wrestlers was named Jesus, and this was the supposed twist of the movie. And from here the movie evolved into some sort of sci-fi action thriller that looked a little like Tron: Legacy.

My next memory comes after the movie. I was sitting at work with my friend Richard (who doesn't work with me) and one of my actual coworkers. We were discussing our likes and dislike about the movie. We generally agreed that it was "okay".

And then I was walking in to my parents house for a visit. My mom was cooking supper, which was huge chunks of what looked like roast beef, each skewered to a giant, softball-sized shrimp. She said they were easy to cook because you just take them out of the packet, skewer them, and cook them.

They actually did look pretty good! Around this time my dad got home, obviously just returning from some sort of lengthy trip. He told me he couldn't believe I'd go see a movie called Jesus! when I don't ever even go to church.

Delinquent Commissions

2011-03-21T21:43:00.004-05:00

MORNING OF MARCH 21, 2011

In real life I've recently been enduring a months-long period of the "creative doldrums", in which my usual passion for drawing and cartooning has been hard to muster. Not only does this create a lack of new art for my own purposes, but it slows down commissions people have asked of me, which creates guilt. Plus, I watched a movie with a "RiffTrax" commentary last night. Hence, the following short dream...

I suddenly remembered that the three guys from RiffTrax (formerly Mystery Science Theater 3000), Michael Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, had commissioned some art from me. They'd been waiting so long that I had almost forgotten the project altogether! I couldn't believed I had received the honor of someone I was such a huge fan of commissioning work from me and had just sat on it!

Stricken with combination of panic and guilt, I began hurriedly working on the commissions, some of which had already been in various stages of work. Each of the three guys had commissioned a parody comic book cover, though I can't remember the details. Most of the dream just consisted of me sitting at my desk working away on these things. I knew I had to leave and be at work soon, which created the sense of more need to hurry.

Near the end of the dream, I received an e-mail from a random "fan" who was also requesting a commission. Based on their description, I began roughing out an idea for how I'd draw theirs when I got to it. The weird things is, I was using a canvas. In real life I only draw and ink with more traditional pencils/pens/paper and then color in Photoshop, but here I had a huge canvas and was painting on it with oils--but only a rough outline! This wasn't even to be the final product!

All of this was taking place in the bedroom I had as a teenager.

Zooey's Cake and a Disney World Film Festival

2011-03-19T10:05:00.005-05:00

MORNING OF MARCH 19, 2011

In my first dream, my friends and I were all friends with actress/singer Zooey Deschanel. She invited us to her house and served us all a chocolate cake she had made!

We were all sitting on a long, white couch in her mostly-white living room and she brought us each a piece from the kitchen, one at a time. It looked delicious! Eric was one of the first to receive a piece, and I took a picture of it with my phone while I waited for her to eventually bring my piece. I even remember tweeting the picture, along with a comment like, "We're hanging out with @therealzooeyd and she's serving us cake!"

The only other thing I remember is that it seemed like I waited forever and forever to get my own piece of cake, and in fact the dream memory ends before I got to taste it.

In a second dream later on, I was with Richard, Jessica, Lisa and Eric at a place that was a strange combination of Disney World and the Sidewalk Film Festival they have each year in nearby Birmingham, AL. I remember our group would splinter off and go check out different movies.

One theater looked like a cross between the Alabama Theatre (an actual old theatre in town) and the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney. Lisa saved a seat in the theatre while Eric and I went into a gift shop before the movie started.

In real life, during my last trip to Disney World, I began collected the Disney Pins, so that's what I was looking at in the dream. In addition to Disney Pins, there were also, for some reason, "Peanuts" and "Looney Tunes" related pins and merchandise.

I even saw a display of magnets featuring retro versions of Kellogg's cereal mascots. The old cornflakes mascot was a tomboyish little girl. In one Halloween-themed magnet, that little girl was dressed like a zombie and Tony the Tiger was a Frankenstein-like monster, and so on.

Eric and I went back into the theatre just before the movie began. It was proceeded by a spooky vocal greeting, similar to the beginning of the Haunted Mansion ride.

I realized that Eric and I had just sat down in random seats and left Lisa holding seats for us elsewhere.

A Convenient Sitcom Cast

2011-03-17T18:40:00.003-05:00

MORNING OF MARCH 17, 2011

I was in a convenience store picking up some food items. The place was full of many unusual and memorable people, and I actually had the thought that it seemed like the cast of a quirky movie or TV show.

As I was waiting in the checkout line, a tall, skinny cop was standing behind me. I can't remember the specifics of anything he said, but I know I overheard his conversation and found it to be really odd. He also had a very peculiar stare and made me uncomfortable.

For some reason I took my groceries to my parents house instead of at home. Then we ate dinner together, which was one bowl of Lucky Charms cereal each. I haven't had that cereal in ages, but it tasted really good in the dream.

I noticed some kind of entertainment magazine lying on the table. The cover of the magazine showcased a retrospective of classic 80's sitcoms. The cover image was the cast of one of those sitcoms...and I soon recognized it to be the cop and all the other strange characters from the convenience store I had just visited! Even in the dream this kind of blew my mind.

The Tiny TV and a Wall of Ice

2011-03-13T12:48:00.003-05:00

MORNING OF MARCH 13, 2011

I was at Richard and Jessica's, talking to them and playing with Cailey. A girl was there with me. The house itself was a fictional house I don't recognize, and was much bigger than their real house is.

There was a little 13" analog TV on the floor. Cailey had a video game system hooked up to it, and it was showing a preview for a Toy Story video game on constant loop.

Now our friend Dean was also there, and Cailey had another little girl as a playmate. Dean wanted us to watch a movie he had brought on the little TV, but we couldn't get the Toy Story thing off the screen. The girl I'd brought with me took me upstairs and we kissed at the top of the staircase.

There was another dream in which I was climbing around on a nearly sheer wall of ice in the ocean. I guess it was a glacier or something. Several baby polar bears were following my lead. I think I was trying to lead them to safety. I remember some of them slipping off into the water and I was very scared for them.

Conan's Sketch Show and Big Donations

2011-03-07T18:08:00.003-06:00

MORNING OF MARCH 7, 2011

I was at a taping of Conan O'Brien's show. Instead of the usual talk show format of the actual program, this taping was done more like a sketch comedy show. There were several unusual sets in which different scenes took place.

One skit featured Conan and 90's Saturday Night Live alum Victoria Jackson performing together. They were discussing something about having Twitter accounts.

After the show my friends and I were walking on the set as they cleared it out. I realized it was the studio at my job. I thought it was odd that I never realized they taped Conan there after office hours and I never knew it. Still, I had strangely little trouble believing it.

From here, Eric and Richard and I entered a little restaurant to have a bite to eat. We were sitting in a booth and I noticed the unusual decor around us. There were huge doorways in certain places on the wall that appeared to lead to even larger dining areas. Upon closer inspection, these doorways were revealed to actually just be monitors that showed HD footage of other dining areas to give the illusion of size. The real restaurant was tiny.

Conan I'Brien sat down at our table and talked with us while we ate, but I don't remember any of the details. I just remember feeling really nervous and wondering what to say.

There was another dream about the RiffTrax website (current home of the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000) being forced to go out of business. They were accepting emergency fan donations to try to save them. If x-number of fans would donate $1,000 each, the site would be saved...

So I donated $1,000. Only after I okayed the payment did I realize I absolutely did not have that kind of money to spare, and then I began to panic! This feeling of panic, of wondering if I could get my money back, is really the main thing I recall.

There was also a dream where I was having to have the tip of my thumb pricked for a blood test.

I Want a Window

2011-03-06T10:40:00.004-06:00

MORNING OF MARCH 6, 2011

I was in a gift store looking through books. One of them was a childrens' book about owls. It had a very unique layout with beautiful illustrations. The prose was a very Dr. Seuss-ish rhyme that told about all the different types of owls. I was so impressed by the books that I wanted to buy a copy for my friends' six year-old daughter, as well as one for myself, just for the creative value I saw in it.

Outside the gift shop was an area that looked kind of like Downtown Disney in Orlando. They had the coolest decorations on the walls in some of the shops: They were full-sized fake windows, looking very much like the windows of a castle. There were beautiful 3D animations in the window which made it look as though you were seeing a scene from a classic Disney animated movie when you looked "out" the window.

This was such a neat effect that an animation nerd like me really wanted to own at least one of these "windows". I knew they'd likely be more expensive than I could even dream of affording, but I couldn't find a price on any of them (yet somehow I knew they were for sale). I have vague memories of occasionally just seeing a new one (or ones) of these windows hanging in different places throughout the dream, but I could never find out how to get one of my own.

Finally, I remember meeting some different celebrities. Bill Murray is the only one I recall for sure. I remember one room where they let you pose for pictures holding Johnny Cash's guitar and also John Lennon's guitar. Finally I went through a room where some obscure country singers I had actually met in the 90's were signing, and they told me they remembered me.

Adultery, Improv and Tin Foil

2011-03-06T10:39:00.007-06:00

MORNING OF MARCH 5, 2011

In the dream, I lived in a neighborhood not unlike the one I grew up in during part of my childhood. There was a family that lived down the street for me. The wife was probably a couple of years older than me, but the husband was several years older than us. I think they might have had a kid, but that memory is vague. At any rate, it was clear that we were all friends.

The husband was a very meek, very short, scrawny guy that sort of reminded me of an older George McFly from Back to the Future (the pre-empowered version). The wife was a tall-ish, blond-ish lady who was very pretty.At one point I was in their living room. The husband was watching TV in his chair. The wife and I were sitting on the couch together. She was wearing flannel sleep pants and a tank top, and we were talking. Things became very flirtatious, and before I knew it, we had begun to make out! Then we realized the husband was right there in his chair and felt ashamed.

Being the meek "George McFly" type that he was, the husband didn't get mad at either of us. He simply told me "I guess you're gonna have to leave now", so, after we both apologized to him, I left. I felt really bad, and wondered what had come over me. Though it had felt good when it happened.

Later, I remember a dream that Eric and I were going to attend another improv comedy class held by the same people who taught the actual improv class that I attended last summer. This time, the class was being held in the back of an RV/camper! There were a few very redneck-y people of all ages--even children--who had shown up, but no teachers.

Everyone decided that since I was the only one who had had classes before, I should teach them. I was reluctant, but enlisted Eric to assist me, and began trying to teach the first lesson to the best of my memory and ability. The thing was, no one would listen. They all just walked around and talked amongst themselves, ignoring me entirely. The kids were overly-energetic and loud and rambunctious. It was so uncomfortably crowded in this little RV!

I decided I needed some supplies, so I left the camper and walked into a store across the street. It looked like a combination head shop/comic book store. But they sold tin foil, which is what I wanted to buy a roll of. They had a roll of 100 feet for $7, and I decided I'd buy it. The little screen where you swipe your debit card at the check out kept giving me weird readings. It was asking me to select either "weather", "blue", or "white". I had no idea what it meant.

Right after I checked out, an elderly black lady came up to me and showed me that she had already bought me a 50 foot roll of tin foil for $5. We politely argued over which one of us should return our purchase and keep the money. I have weird dreams, sir.

Choir Girl

2011-02-26T12:22:00.003-06:00

MORNING OF FEBRUARY 26, 2011

I was with my parents and visited a fictional version of their church. I was standing in a back room and saw the members of the choir gathered. Someone near me was explaining to me that they were trying to recruit new choir members and that I should join. That struck me as strange because I was only a visitor here. Of course I had no desire or intention of doing such a thing.

But then I saw a really cute girl about my age standing amongst the choir members. She had shortish hair that was either light brown or dark blonde. She was wearing a dress and heels that showed off a knock-out pair of legs. About this time the choir started to file into the room where they practiced, so I immediately volunteered and filed in with them, trying to get a seat next to that girl!

I was separated from the girl and didn't get to talk to her at all and immediately began to realize the stupidity of my rash decision. Some guy, also near my age, was sitting beside me and he was very talkative. He kind of reminded me of an old co-worker I used to be friends with. After choir practice we hung out and were talking about some geeky topic, but I really can't remember anymore.