zombie lambs

I had a really weird and disturbing dream just before waking up this morning. I wasn't clear on all the details, and I think there were some double meanings/significances that I barely caught at the time but now can't remember.

It started out nicely enough. I was in a beautiful open field that sloped up on three sides to more wooded areas (there was a road in the distance at the uppermost point). I was just walking slowly and enjoying the scenery when I noticed a deer. At first I thought it would run away as I approached, but it didn't because it was very intently searching for something. Rather creepily, it almost brushed me as it went past in its quest.

I was a little alarmed and hoped that it didn't have some kind of dangerous rabies-like illness that was causing it to throw caution to the wind, but I soon realized that she (it was a she) was looking for her fawn. Just when I realized this, the fawn hopped into sight, but kept on going after something further up the hill.

It turned out that the fawn was going toward what looked like a group of lambs. All very idyllic, right? Almost syrupy-sweet? BUT. When it got to the group of lambs, I saw that they were writhing around on the ground in various zombie-like states (I guess my fears of a malicious infection were well-grounded, if misplaced). Some were motionless, apparently having died from their malady, others were wriggling around weakly, and still others were aggressively jumping at the fawn and trying to bite it.

As if that weren't disturbing enough, I suddenly found that I was responsible for either a small child or an animal (a dog? a kitten?). I really can't remember what my child/pet was, exactly, but I suddenly had to protect some sort of relatively helpless being from the zombie lambs. The whole thing was extremely creepy. I think some of the animals may have had speaking parts too, but I can't remember what they may have said.

so random

Last night's series of dreams wasn't very interesting as far as the storylines go, but there were some funny details.

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I was somewhere with my parents, sister, and grandmother. We had been on some kind of outing and were getting ready to leave. We were in a weird, railroad-tunnel type structure (wood, with an elevated table-/rail-like structure running down the middle, with a small space to either side of it). We had almost gotten to the exit of it when a large javelina appeared in front of me. Either she (it was a she) knocked me over or I had already been sitting down on the middle structure--either way, she was looming over me. I was quite alarmed, having heard that javelinas could do a lot of damage. My dad indicated to me that it was my family responsibility to restrain the javelina while they got away, and then I would be able to extract myself (he wasn't throwing me under the bus, exactly; it seemed like the most sensible approach since I was last in line). So a tussle with the javelina ensued, with her eventually down in the little space beside the rails and me trying to immobilize her with my feet. The funny part was that she was speaking the whole time, although I can't remember what she was saying. I was struck by her rich vocabulary, though, and her excellent command of language (really, it was impressive, especially for a javelina).

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I was on a _______ (that's right, Alert Reader--group trip!). I was riding in a car and we were caravanning with another car. I don't really remember who else was there; probably a combination of past acquaintances and dream people. We drove up a very steep, winding road in some wooded hills/mountains and stopped at the apartment of a group member for a bathroom break. I went into the bathroom and started out with some freshening-up. I guess I was taking a while, because another group member came in (a girl I knew in the rather distant past) and started messing with the toilet. It was then that I noticed it wasn't an ordinary toilet. To begin with, because of the remote, hilly location it was some kind of special self-contained system, some sort of chemical toilet (she told me it was quite expensive). Also, it was "wheelchair-friendly", which meant that it had a rather complicated fold-out system that produced a ramp up to the toilet itself. She had helpfully decided to start converting the toilet back into the non-wheelchair version to speed things up for me. It was a rather cumbersome process, and--grossness alert--the fold-out portion had been covered with toilet paper lain flat that was soaked with urine [at least no excrement, but still, yuck!].

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I was on my way home from work and debating whether or not to go to a party I'd been invited to. I was very tired and had pretty much decided not to go. I stopped at a little health-food-y juice place/cafe on the way home (not a real-life place), and ordered some kind of snack. They had already started to ring me up when I decided to get a coffee too and try to go to the party after all (which I ended up clutching, un-drunk, for a good part of the dream before finally drinking it and rather shamefacedly just leaving the empty cup somewhere).The party was at a house in the country, given by a girl* I had gone to elementary and high school with. I went into a bedroom and found about 4 girls dressed up in bizarre, makeshift costumes (including something vaguely Mongolian, over jeans and tennis shoes). That made me think it was a costume party, but then I found that it was only the host's sister and a few of her friends, and the real party was outside.

On going outside I found a rather overwhelming scene. There were several folding tables with handwritten game rules on large pieces of paper (lots of cross-outs and corrections), and a huge crowd of people participating in some arcane game that I couldn't begin to grasp. It involved forming a large circle (like duck-duck-goose) and moving around it. Some people landed on spots with big, elaborate, ugly porcelain figurines of fantastical animals that were the prizes--they seemed very excited about them and lifted them up in the air. I gave up on figuring out the game and just people-watched. The most interesting thing there was a greyhound in a pastel crocheted jacket--she was very sweet.

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The last tidbit featured Picasso as a washed-up artist looking to re-launch his career. Apparently he hadn't actually died, just stopped producing. He was showing a few recent "works" which seemed to fall far short of his previous output (including some typed pages--?). I wasn't quite sure what to tell him, but he seemed very excited about re-branding himself in a new, more corporate environment.

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*An interesting detail here was that the girl and her sister were (surely still are) very pretty in real life, and my parents were excessively fond (to my mind) of pointing out how pretty they were. In this dream, they both had rather bad skin. This makes me a bit ashamed of my subconscious for being schadenfreude-y, especially since I liked them in real life and we were friends, despite my parents' harping on their looks.

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.