dream within a dream

I woke up in the middle of the night last night excited about an interesting dream*, but I can't really remember** it now. All I can remember** is that it was a dream* within a dream*. I had slept in the dream* and dreamed* about a space voyage, with a lot of very complex details involving the mechanics of space travel and various arcane measurement systems. I was impressed with myself in the dream* for having dreamed* such complex things.


*I think this wins the price for most redundant paragraph ever.
**See above.

very weird miscellany

It seemed like I woke up every 20 minutes or so last night thinking, "that was so weird. I have to remember that." Of course I forgot most of it, but I think the few I do remember are representative of the rest in weirdness.

• My husband was going to do some interplanetary travel. I'm not sure if I was going too, but at any rate I wasn't concerned or worried, just excited for him and the other two people who would be traveling in his little "pod". It was a very rudimentary metal construction divided into three stall-like compartments, almost like a flat-topped horse trailer, minus the wheels. Each stall had a round porthole-like window that the traveler could look out while en route. He and the other two travelers were getting inside the pod to accustom themselves, but not yet leaving. Oddly, I don't think there was even any glass on the windows. Apparently there had been such great advances in space travel that things like pressure and oxygen were no longer a concern.

• I was staying in a largeish cabin with my parents and sister in the woods somewhere, on a family vacation. I'm not sure who else might have been there, but I had the impression of more people there than just my nuclear family. At one point when we were all sitting around in the living room, I began to talk to the cat. It was a large, mottled gray cat with a slightly cartoonish air. I asked it some question of little consequence, and it answered me immediately as if to have a spoken interspecies conversation was completely normal. I looked around at my human companions and said, "See, that's why I like cats so much. They're so much more intelligent than dogs."*

• [Same setting, cabin in the woods, raised up on a very high foundation/stilts; on the front porch this time.] I was just loafing on the front porch when a redneck-ish man with a junior-high-age redneck-ish son sauntered onto the porch. I wasn't at all alarmed, because it felt like they had some business being there. I just kept reading my book, until I started to feel like the son was infringing a bit on my personal space by staring at me (the father was completely absorbed in the view of the woods and not paying any attention at all). The son said, a propos of nothing, "I'm kweeping!" which in this alternate dream universe meant, I knew, that he was *ahem* very excited**. I was pretty offended by his forward declaration and also didn't want to encourage his attentions, so I went back in the house without really saying anything. On one hand I didn't want to hurt his tender young feelings, but really! A few minutes later a [very corny] rejoinder came to me: "You're kweeping me out! I'm mawwied." [Get it? Think "mawwiage" from The Princess Bride.] I don't know where my brain comes up with these things, and I find it even more alarming that in the dream I considered it a brilliant example of l'esprit de l'escalier.

• Then there was a very brief vignette, maybe a movie, in which a bimbo-ish blonde woman was threatening a used-car-salesmanly man*** with a ludicrously tiny gun, cocking it and holding it to his head. It was some kind of revenge thing for his ostensible past mistreatment of her, and I never did see what actually happened. I had the impression that she was all just hot air (and whether such a tiny gun could do any damage was another legitimate question).
  

*This coming from a person who in real life very much likes both cats and dogs.
**What can possibly be with this recurring theme of inappropriately young boys expressing interest in me?
***Although I know that there are many exceptions to this, my stock impression (based on extensive experience being dragged to car dealerships) is a stout man with a greasy, bloated face and moist, meaty hands with one or two large rings jammed on to his fat fingers.

snippets

i've had a ton of crazy dreams lately but have been terrible about blogging them...

snippet #1: me and recent romantic interest (rri) found ourselves hanging out in the ex-boyfriend's (xb) apartment. i was not happy when i realized where we were and even less happy when xb joined us in our hanging out. the xb showed the rri around the apartment and then it turned into the two of them snorkeling (!) through the apartment. suddenly it became the coolest place ever and these two guys were snorkeling while i was sitting on the couch. i was very unhappy as i could see that rri thought that xb was "cool". i wanted to scream "no! he *tricks* people into thinking he's cool! don't trust him!" but i kept my mouth shut for the sake of good manners (?). rri could tell that i was uncomfortable and he would swim back to me every once in a while and spend some time with me as if to communicate that he knew i was uncomfortable. and then he would go back swimming with xb out of what seemed like 1/2 obligation and 1/2 there was a frickin ocean in his apartment that they could snorkel in. in the dream i was very appreciative of rri's attempts at making me feel less uncomfortable even though it didn't help a whole lot. i could still see that he was trying and it meant a lot. i woke up irritated that the xb had tried to win over my rri. why was he always trying to steal people from me!?

snippet #2: i (along with and quite a few other people) was commissioned to design a new spaceship ride at disney world. only, when i arrived for "orientation" i, along with everyone else, learned that what we were designing was not a ride but in fact a real spaceship-slash-living system in an attempt to save mankind. the "disney" folks (which were actually government people) told us that the earth was in danger of being destroyed and that they were trying to find a way to transport all of humankind to outerspace before the destruction. they were not sharing this information with the general public, for fear of mass hysteria. instead, they put the "development site" on disney world property with a large wall around it (just like they do when a ride is being built in the park) in an effort to conceal the project. there was a lot of pressure on all of us (random group of people specially chosen for the project) to develop something before a non-defined deadline of earth destruction.