weird miscellany and zombie shooters

I had the weirdest and wildest dreams last night, but I won't be able to do them justice, partly because my memory is a little hazy. Of course there was a group trip, a rather epic one involving travel on a giant bus with my mother and various random people from my past. I tried to find a seat, but each option presented problems. There was a very back row facing backward, which I thought would be okay although I don't like facing backward in a vehicle. But when I tried to sit down I discovered why the seats were empty: it really only worked if you hunched over or lay down across several seats, because of the combination of window and ceiling heights. Then my mother pointed out that there was a row of seats running up and down the left/driver's side, facing out sideways. I didn't like that option either because I thought it was dangerous. I was worried about the lack of seatbelts and what would happen in the event of a side collision*.

I finally sat down (in a rear-facing seat, but in the middle of the bus) next to a guy with a baby. The guy looked vaguely like Sean Bean, and I didn't really interact with him because I was distracted by the baby, who was dangling in front of me without any apparent support (although this didn't seem odd). Acting on reflex, I took the baby and set him on my lap, at which point I realized that he was actually a small freckled boy, maybe 6 or so**. I started talking to him rather animatedly, which surprised me since I'm not normally one of those people who makes over small children (not that I have anything against them, I'm just not the one who runs over and starts talking baby talk to them).

I'm not sure if this was the trip destination, but the next thing I remember I was at a house on a very steep wooded hillside. This was surely inspired by watching several historical British dramas recently featuring those long-term (by modern standards) visits in which a group of random highbrow people would descend on a manor house. There were a lot of people around, a few of whom I knew but most of whom I didn't, and I was trying to navigate the bathroom-use system because I wanted to take a shower.

I had laid claim to a bathroom (one of a pair in an odd layout: they were on a stair landing near the entrance, and had white louvered Western Saloon type doors) and was just about ready to take a shower. I don't remember all the details, but the owner of the house (who I think was the Sean Bean lookalike from the bus) arrived and made it clear that his routine was to use this bathroom at this exact time for his ablutions. So I apologized, gathered up my stuff, and went to wait outside.

I don't know if I ever got my shower, because the next thing I can remember was being outside. I realized that something odd was going on, but it took me a while to grasp the basics (I never did understand the details). In a nutshell, there was a shootout between some people, at least one of whom was a doppelganger of the host. This doppelganger had been activated by some action or event, but was apparently a chronic presence who appeared every so often--locked in semi-permanent conflict with the host.

The most fantastical moment involved a zombie-like young man propped up against the exterior wall. He had appeared to be dead, actually nailed to the wall by a gunshot. It became clear, though, that this was just a disguise to hide in plain sight--as the doppelganger (or maybe the host, I couldn't straighten out their identities) rounded the corner, the young man practically exploded from his position flat against the wall, shooting the doppelganger/host. I finally realized that this was a dangerous situation, and I started running/rolling down the hill. I'm not sure how I managed to avoid all the huge conifers, but the pine needles made a forgiving surface on which to roll, and when I had gotten to the bottom of the rather deep ravine I looked around and appreciated how beautiful it was, even though I didn't know how I was going to get out of there.

At some point a couple from my parents' church made a cameo appearance. In real life, this man has very straight, wiry hair that grows straight out from his head in all directions, and he favors a buzz cut of varying length. In the dream, he had curled his hair in a foppish late-18th-century/early 19th-century style***, and had caused some kind of unnamed scandal of medium-level seriousness. In real life, his wife has a rather old-fashioned haircut styled in a way that might be described as marcelled. In the dream, my sister informed me that he shared her husband's hair woes and that was why she always wore it quite short and curled in a standard "old lady" helmet style.



*I don't want to delve too deeply into this recent dream concern for vehicular safety.
**Nor am I going to meditate on the recurring theme of small boys.
***Thank you again, British historical dramas.

crocodiles and mobsters cont.

(cont.)

Part 3:

I was now out somewhere with a group of people, including the friend and some random dream characters of a wide range of ages and ethnicities. We were in a big concrete building on an upper floor--it was a very bare, industrial sort of building, all metal and concrete and very Soviet Eastern Europe. We must have been on a guided tour, because we had all entered a rather dodgy-looking restroom (this was part of the tour, not a bathroom break). About that time, I realized that we were being guided in there by Russian mobsters. They did the requisite yelling ("get down! Shut up!" etc.), and I dove into the first available stall. Unfortunately it turned out to not have a door, so my hopes of crouching on the toilet to avoid detection were dashed.

The mobsters singled me out for some reason and yelled something at me. I'm not really clear on what happened next because it was very quick, but I realized that a grenade had been unpinned and it would behoove me to get out of there. I had a very weird sensation of simultaneous extreme fear and complete fearlessness, and for once my dream running was very effective (probably faster and with more coordination than in real life). I ran right past them and out the door to try to get out of range of the grenade.

I dashed out into a hallway and out the door, which led me to a long concrete exterior staircase with no railing (this was probably at about a 5th-floor level). At this point I realized that the bathroom mobsters had let me go knowing that they had companions outside the building who could take me out. I got to the bottom of the stairs and started running across an open space of packed dirt (there were buildings all around similar to the one I'd come out of, all deserted). I knew that there were mobsters around, but I also realized that I had to keep running even though the open space left me vulnerable to being picked off.

At about this point, I think I was caught by one of them, but this is where things got weird. Because when I realized that I was being caught, I also realized that this was a movie dream, and my perspective shifted to outside myself. When it shifted, I saw that I wasn't really me, but a much smaller teenager with long dark hair and bangs. This smaller "me" started belting out a song and I realized, "great, I've gotten myself trapped in a musical". [I'm not a real-life fan of musicals; I find it disconcerting how they burst into song at random times.] I tried to put the movie/dream on fast forward so I wouldn't have to listen to the songs and could get to the end faster, and it worked.

mystery and intrigue!

I had a really somewhat delightful dream this morning, spanning a couple of snooze-button pushes. It's a bit hazy, but it was a very plot-twisty cloak-and-dagger sort of thing. In the beginning I think I was in a group setting, maybe a school dorm. I was going out to run some errands (for me and/or others, I'm not sure) and get something to eat. This took me to an old Asian neighborhood, very much like how I would picture an old city neighborhood in China: very narrow, warren-like streets really only suitable for pedestrians and bikes/carts.

I went into a business that seemed to be partly food-based and also a front for some other, slightly sinister enterprise. In the course of a short conversation with the people working in there, it became apparent that I had somehow been peripherally drawn into a conflict/intrigue involving a Korean group and a Chinese group. It was never clear who the groups were or what they stood for, respectively, but they were a combination of underground political movement and organized crime group.

I think I was involved on two levels: one was a specific job that I was requested to do (by what group or who, I have no idea, nor do I know what the job was), and the other was a growing journalistic/investigative curiosity and a desire to figure out what was going on and who was doing what. I got very excited indulging fantasies of "cracking" the case and "breaking" the story, and wondered how it could have taken me so long to realize that my true calling was as a spy (I was absolutely certain of that).

After leaving the Asian neighborhood, I found myself in an old apartment building, in a living room with people talking and coming and going. They were all young, and seemed to be radical underground political activists of some sort. I wasn't really involved, just there and observing (a sign that espionage was my true calling was my uncanny ability to not attract attention). The neatest part of the dream occurred during this mini-episode, and consisted partly of what was actually happening in front of me and partly of my mental images of things that had happened before that. I was watching a young man and simultaneously an image of another young man I had seen before. It slowly dawned on me that the two were the same person, but came across as completely different people through his ability to project a completely different persona just with a change in clothing, accessories, and hairstyle. It was a wonderful ah-ha moment, both because of his transformative skill and because of my delight in piecing together the fact that he was a double agent.

I arrived home ("home" being a neat old house where we apparently lived), and my husband was there puttering around in the kitchen*. I indicated to him that I needed some time to think, undisturbed, because I was on the verge of piecing together the various pieces of the puzzle to figure out exactly what was going on.

The whole thing had a wonderful atmosphere of intrigue, adventure, and danger, although the sense of danger was more enjoyable than scary. And the settings were very detailed and atmospheric too--if it were a movie I would have given a good rating to the props/costuming/cinematography people. My snooze button went off a couple of times, and each time I was determined to return to the story so I could see what was going to happen next (unfortunately I didn't ultimately figure out the mystery). The ironic part is that when watching movies involving organized crime and political intrigue, it takes a great deal of concentration for me to figure out what's going on.


*This is not someone who normally putters in the kitchen, so I don't know where that came from.

in which my subconscious's superego punishes my subconscious's id

The other night I dreamed that my husband had branched out at work into managing not just landscaping stuff but computer/software/marketing things. It wasn't clear how he had gotten this particular project, but it seemed like he had maybe taken it over from another manager who wasn't getting things done. He was excited about having such a big project; it was something for a huge, important company, and although I didn't really get what it was, it was something fundamental like managing orders or something. That's the boring part, though. The funny part was that he introduced me to the guy who was going to be his assistant in charge of all the computer aspects: it was Sam Worthington, in a wheelchair, no less. He was grinning affably and seemed about as happy about the job as my husband was.

Perhaps I was feeling guilty about my glee that the spouse had an attractive sidekick, but the next part of the dream was extremely unpleasant. We lived in an old fixer-upper house in the country (although not our real-life house). I was rooting around in a cluttered room trying to find something when I saw a flash of color. It turned out to be a black-white-yellow-and-red reptile. At first I thought it was a coral snake and went through the little ditty in my head ["red and black, friend of Jack; red and yellow, kill a fellow"] and was alarmed to see that the red stripe was right next to the yellow stripe. Then I noticed that it had legs and thus couldn't be a snake. I was still thoroughly freaked out, though, assuming that it was some kind of equally poisonous "coral lizard". I jumped up on a chair like the stereotypical woman-confronted-with-a-mouse and tried to figure out what to do. There were three big dictionaries within reach, so I figured I could try crushing it with those. I hurled the first one at it, but it landed an inch or so away from the offending beast, prompting it to scuttle away.

Knowing that the "coral lizard" was hidden somewhere in all the junk was even more alarming, and I had no idea what to do. I knew I had to find it and kill it so one of our dogs didn't stumble on it and die (not to mention the humans). Then I looked around (still standing on the chair) and noticed that there were all kinds of big, dangerous-looking scorpions* and other insects on the walls. The whole thing was rather creepy, especially with the added layer of guilt at lusting** after my husband's coworker.

*The scorpions on the walls of my house do have some basis in reality.
**Yet another illustration of how embarrassingly G-rated my dreams tend to be: said "lusting" was really just the idea that he was cute and it would be kind of fun to make small talk with him.

gross and racist?

I had the most weirdly detailed dream the other night. I was planning a trip to New York with my parents (weird in itself), and arranging everything beforehand online. I had arranged for several nights of lodging and several meals, and going back through and rechecking things to be sure everything was taken care of and made sense.

I realized that I had gone a little over budget and decided to pare some meals and just plan on eating them from street vendors. The one planned meal that I was really scrutinizing was a charity thing. It was a meal/presentation that demonstrated all kinds of elements of a program for poor kids in some African country. It was run by a very friendly looking middle-aged couple, and the more I looked at their website the more confused I got. There was a "menu" breaking down the experience into all possible components: actual meal, appetizers, craft session with children, presentation, etc. etc. etc. It was all itemized and I realized that if you went for the whole thing you could end up spending a fortune. Also, I wasn't sure my parents would want all that interaction instead of just a plain meal.

Another very weird thing is that twice lately I've dreamed of being confronted with scarily aggressive young Hispanic guys. I have no idea where this came from, not having had any scary encounters at all lately, much less with young Hispanic guys.

In the first dream I was in a "bad" section of town late at night. I was at a grocery store or something (I don't know how I'd gotten there) and learned while in the store that this part of town was reputed to be full of aggressive young guys and wasn't safe for single females. I more or less shrugged it off and went out a back entrance into an alley, where I was immediately set upon by young Hispanic guys. I don't know if they actually said anything, but they were doing threatening things like staring and fingering knives. It was really rather like a zombie movie in the way they converged out of nowhere.

I guess I made it out of there unscathed, because the next thing I can remember is being in a decrepit large building, something that seemed like an abandoned institution that had been taken over by squatters. I think part of it was a rundown YMCA. There were still some vaguely threatening young men, but there were also non-threatening people around too. One of my coworkers was there, showing me a large room she had bought. It was really interesting: very long and narrow, with some round columns holding up the ceiling, and tiled all over with square tiles of all different colors. She was planning on taking out the columns, and I wondered if that was a good idea, because they might be load-bearing.

In the next room over there was a bathroom, with sinks in one area and showers in another. The sinks had been [sorry, extreme grossness warning] crapped in, for lack of a more delicate term.

Then last night I had a rather confused dream in which I was trapped in an institution. I think it may have been loosely based on a 70s science fiction movie we saw recently. There was also an element of those thrift store dreams I have every so often, with a couple of rooms full of old stuff. I don't think it was a store, more of a giveaway with free old things. I was trying on some clothes when I realized that there were glass windows into an adjacent room and I was being ogled* by a bunch of very short Hispanic guys of varying ages**. I was really annoyed and embarrassed, and hunched down to finish my changing and got out of there quick.

I think part of the reason for the changing of clothes might not have been just an interest in old clothing; there was a subplot involving escaping with a fellow internee, but it's all a blur. It was fairly exciting, though I wish I could remember if we had made it out successfully.


*I mean really ogled--think of the most extreme stereotypical Ogle expression/sound effect, and you'll get the picture.
**What is with this? Am I a closet racist or something?

...and again

I don't know what the deal is, but there was another Anthony Bourdain cameo. I'm beginning to worry now.

In the first part of the dream I was in the car with my husband, on a road trip. It was a more or less spontaneous trip, and we were just exploring. We got to a little town in some southern state. As we entered town, we started to see people in the street, like there was some event. People were dancing and eating, there was music, and the streets were really narrow so we had to slow to a crawl and drive through the middle of everything. As we progressed I realized that we were going through very distinct racial sections of town. At first everyone looked Central American, and I commented that I felt like we had been transported to Nicaragua or Honduras*. As we got a little further the crowd changed. There was a transitional group that included a gypsy flamenco dancer (everything was very detailed, people's clothes, faces and hair). Then suddenly everyone was African-American and there was a large man in a stereotypical "pimp suit", dark purple with a bowler hat, all his accessories coordinated. He was very spiffy and was dancing and juggling a little pistol.

We didn't quite know what to make of this, and we were a little freaked out by these progressive distinct racial groups. We arrived at a section of town with only whites, and they were also out in the street, eating stereotypical things like baked beans and coleslaw. They looked pretty redneck, and they weren't very exuberant compared to the other groups [I love how my subconscious reinforces stereotypes...]; they seemed poor and resentful, like they were fomenting revolt.

At this point my husband had gotten really intrigued and wanted to further explore the town and see what the party was about. We stopped the car to try to decide what to do, and in the few seconds we were stopped, a mulleted blond guy went around the back and bent down. I realized that he was trying to let the air out of our tires with a modified Bic pen. [In the dream, those clear ballpoint Bic pens had a screw-in plug at the non-writing end, and this screw corresponded to the screw on the tire, making them the perfect instrument for emptying car tires; I filed away this information as potentially useful.] We realized we weren't welcome here, and the vaguely menacing atmosphere that had been growing since the beginning finally registered. Fortunately our tires were still inflated, so we got out of there.

Later we arrived at a hotel/resort somewhere in Arkansas. I'm not sure what we were doing there, but we were planning on staying at least one night. It so happened that Anthony Bourdain and his crew were there too, to attend some kind of conference. We were all eating at a big table, and he was flirting outrageously with me (including a roguish and extreme version of "footsies"), which I found flattering but disconcerting. I had the impression that it was a compulsion of his to keep his womanizing skills active at all times, and I told myself that I shouldn't be too flattered by the attention since I was just the most acceptable option present for maintaining his skills (his crew members were apparently exempt since they were too constant a presence).

Later, he needed help organizing handouts and a PowerPoint for a presentation he was making, and I was coaching him on the fine points of labeling Appendices. I said that at my workplace we usually marked them "Appendix A: Such-and-Such" and "Appendix B: Such-and-Such", but then pointed out that the "Appendix A" was probably superfluous, like making a one-item list with "1." He seemed to think that was witty, and also seemed to take my coaching seriously, as if he actually needed help, which was rather flattering (not to mention that he didn't seem to look down on the fact that I had a secretarial job). I felt a little guilty, though, because my husband had gone back to our room, disgusted (I inferred) by my indulgence of this blatant cad.

Things were a little more vague after that. There was a subplot involving a very odd mixed-breed puppy, gray with black speckles and very sheep-like. I did a little bit of research and came to the conclusion that she was actually a very rare and potentially valuable hybrid (she had hair like a poodle, so was allergen-free). According to random internet sources, there were either 330 or 990 existing ("Figures of 1,110 are thought to be inaccurately high"). I was wondering about her potential sale value, but she was also really cute, so I wasn't sure that I wanted to sell her. She seemed like a very cooperative and malleable dog, to the point that she wouldn't really even require training.

Then there was a subplot in which I was arriving at a boarding high school. I was only there temporarily, and there was a whole other group who was also only going to be there temporarily. We were going to be housed in dorms with large, open rooms and bunk beds. As long as the temporary groups were there, each room would contain 8 people, of mixed genders. I was happy to realize that I had snagged a top bunk against the wall, instead of one of the beds out in the middle of the room. The only people I remember were a real-life coworker and a random guy from my high-school class that I don't think I ever talked to. In the dream he was a kind of proto-River Phoenix/Keanu Reeves, and we were all aware that he was Going to Be Big, so everyone was friendlier to him in the dream than they were in real life high school. There was a bit of subtle jockeying to get a bed near his, which he didn't acknowledge openly--but I could tell he was happy about it. A more alarming element of the dorm was the presence of huge cockroaches and even several rats, scurrying around people's luggage.

{Not only do I always seem to introduce the most unsavory labels ("pimp"?), but I'm maxing out the tag characters to the point that Blogger won't publish my post unless I get rid of some!}


*Of course I've never been to either place, but it was very clear in my mind that the scene looked exactly like either of those countries.

anthony bourdain strikes again

All I can remember from last night's dreams are that Anthony Bourdain showed up again, which alarmed me a little. I don't think he had a major role, just a short cameo appearance. The main plotline involved a huge boulder-like formation of very hard red clay. At irregular intervals it would turn orange and then change to a pudding-like or jello-like texture, which was dangerous for anyone who didn't get off as soon as the color started changing (I think there was also a warning siren). There were a couple of kids playing on it, and some panic about where they were and whether they would manage to get off in time or were too absorbed in their play to notice the warning. There was also someone who had a big drilling machine* and was getting ready to drill into the rock/clay/pudding. Maybe that was where Anthony Bourdain came in--maybe he was the guy with the drill?

On looking at this written out, I feel like I should issue a disclaimer: I am not obsessed with Anthony Bourdain, and the part about drilling should not be interpreted in a...let's say Freudian...manner.


*I blame this part on the fact that we recently bought some used drill stem to use as fence posts.

swimming contest

The setting for this dream was the default group/institution setting, kind of a cross between a short-term academic program and summer camp. I think everyone, including me, was a teenager, although it didn't register as being a change in age.

The only thing I remember very well is that the people in charge were organizing an athletic contest. Apparently this was a tradition for the group, and the centerpiece of the tradition was a long-distance, cold-weather swimming contest. The location was at the edge of a lake or maybe the ocean, in a Scandinavian-like climate. I think it might have been winter to boot--at least it wasn't summery, and the water was very cold.

The adults in charge of the contest were gathering people up to participate, and when they came to me they insinuated that it wasn't a big deal, something they had done for years, and not even all that difficult. I must have signed myself up, because when they came around on subsequent rounds they asked if I was getting ready for the competition. I tried to find out more about it and began to realize that I might not want to do it after all. Every time the sign-up lady came out with another informational tidbit about it it sounded more daunting. I had just assumed that we were supposed to wear swimsuits, but then she mentioned that we should wear at least two swimsuits, and probably socks. I looked down and realized that I was wearing a pea-green competition-style suit over a darker green retro halter suit with shirring. I kind of liked them both, especially the retro one, and wondered vaguely where I had gotten them*.

It had gotten near enough to the race time that people were lining up at the edge of the dock (in all kinds of weird clothing combinations), and I was getting a little apprehensive. The organizer lady came around again, and asked me if I was sure I wanted to compete. I asked what the distance was and she hemmed and hawed, but then said that it would be about an hour and a half of swimming in frigid water. I said, "Oh, in that case I'd better not. I could swim for an hour and a half, but I couldn't compete for an hour and a half." I think I was also wanting to put on some regular clothes by that time, and picturing young competitors dropping off mid-race and sinking slowly to a watery grave. The organizer was fine with my withdrawal, and I thought the staff were displaying a weird and irresponsible mix of cavalier disregard for safety on one hand and a stifling tendency to assume my incapacity on the other.

There was another part of the dream involving a very nifty old house in the middle of the desert that had been converted into a restaurant/museum and was supposedly haunted; and an episode involving rapidly rising floodwater about which I was very unconcerned--but I don't remember much about either.



*oddly, I didn't wonder why I was in good enough shape to be wandering around unselfconsciously in a swimsuit, or swimsuits, as the case may be.

Swinging

The best snippet of last night's dream, and maybe of this year's dreams to date, was me swinging on a rope swing. I don't know what it was attached to, but it was something very high and the rope was very long. As I swung out in a curving arc, hands clenched around the rope, I saw things far below me, as if I were in an airplane. I was going relatively slowly, but centrifugal force was pulling the rope outward. There was a sense of danger (I knew I had to hold on tightly), but also of complete exhilaration, like I was flying. It was incredible.

In another snippet, I realized I wasn't eating well because I was afraid of opening my refrigerator.

why so much plaid? and why are my dreams always so long and detailed?

I had a between-snooze-function dream this morning that had several threads.

The first thread involved trying to juggle the care of two dogs (to anyone who's talked to me lately, that won't come as a surprise since it's a real-life issue). We were living in a very spartan mid-century concrete house with a fenced yard that seemed divided into several parts, most of which I hadn't been in. We were discussing how to sufficiently exercise the dogs when I remembered that my husband had bought a really nice black vintage-style bike that was parked in the communal parking area, and I suggested that we ride bikes with the dogs so they could run and get more exercise. There was a back-and-forth on whether he had actually bought a bike and then forgotten about it, and whether, if so, the black bike in the parking lot was the one he had bought and not someone else's.

Then, inside the house, my sister and husband were doing an experiment on the effectiveness of Google. They chose as their subject a guy we know who has gone by several different names in his life, and they were comparing the results coming up for each name. One of the results was a video montage of his life, of the sort that people show at graduations and funerals. I only really remember two snippets of it. In the first he was about 12, at a Bar Mitzvah type occasion, wearing a red-and-green plaid jacket and matching plaid bowtie and looking very young and happy. In the other snippet he was adult, very hirsute (bushy hair and beard), and holding forth on some controversial subject in front of a group of people. In this one he was also wearing a loud plaid jacket and an unmatching also-loud plaid scarf. I had the impression that this bit of video was not something that should be readily available and that he might get himself into some sort of Homeland-Security-related trouble over it, not least because the bushy beard made him look like a candidate for profiling.

As we were looking at this video the surroundings changed and we were suddenly in a Target-like clothing store (still at a desk looking at the computer). The store also housed the office where I work, with people's desks mixed in here and there with the merchandise. My coworkers were walking back and forth purposefully, getting engineering-related things done, and my boss had a little office off to the side, the sort that you would imagine the manager of a small store having.

In the dream (and above all in real life), it was time for me to get ready to go to work, but I was reluctant to do the preparatory rituals and I wanted to watch the video of the plaid-clad friend with earphones so I could actually hear what he was going on about. So I went into my boss's office and told him I'd like to take a couple of hours of sick time and come to work later, if that was okay. He readily agreed, and I puttered around the store for a while, most notably running laps back and forth between the racks with the feeling that I was getting some really good exercise [on later reflection I realized that people were giving me really annoyed looks].

Around this time (still in the store) I met a girl with a really interesting sweater she had knitted. It was big and cozy, with a fair-isle pattern over most of it. The sleeves were kind of big and gathered on the shoulders and partway down the front, and she had very cleverly incorporated pockets into the side seams so she could stow away her hands. I really liked the idea and wanted to make a similar one for myself. I also suddenly had a vision of a completely different type of sweater, very much like this one. On thinking about it, the stitch pattern that was in this sweater wouldn't even be possible, but it was very pretty.