Yet another one...

Last night I had another story dream.

A young woman in a wealthy society had two lovers, one who looked like George Clooney and one who looked like Adrien Grenier, and she was secretly dating/sleeping with them both. She was invited to a weekend event held at an old mansion converted into a summer resort, and all her friends and some of her family was there-- and unfortunately, the two lovers were both invited.

She was remarkably sneaky in managing to keep her two secrets separate from both each other and the rest of the group, which pleased her no end. One afternoon she told the older lover that she would meet him in his room, and she went outside to get a breath of fresh air and so that her sister would think she was gone to walk in the garden. However, as she turned to reenter the house, there was a massive explosion-- someone had planted a bomb in the house, and she watched it explode right in the area of the house where she knew her younger lover to be. As people fled the area, headed for the lake or their cars, a second explosion went off-- this time closer to where she knew the older man she had planned to meet was.

Flash forward several months, and she's visiting a hospital. She goes to see her older lover, who is recovering well but severely disfigured; she then goes to see the younger one-- who is severely brain damaged and missing his legs, and sits on the floor of a padded room drawing in crayon. She has realized that of the two lovers, she was truly in love with the younger-- but because she had tried to have both at once, neither would ever be whole.

She left the hospital and met with an old man who told her he had a solution-- that he could send her back in time to occupy her body for the day of the explosion. She immediately agreed, and soon she was back that day; however, this time she changed her path. She paid a soothsayer and sent him to her older lover's room, claiming it was to be a fun little gift and she would join him soon; she then told the younger one she would meet him in his room instead. However, the soothsayer drugged the older lover's tea, and, per his instructions, dragged the man into the closet and pulled down clothes to pack around him. She had noticed that the items in the closet had been mostly out of reach of the second blast.

Meanwhile she met the younger lover, not dallying in the garden, and she told him she loved him, and they made love in his bed right before the blast went off. However, as they were farther from the center of the blast and they were in the bed, they were merely jostled and hit by splinters of wood.

A few days later, she is sitting with the younger lover in the hospital garden. They're recovering from the injuries, which aren't very severe, although he has trouble walking due to a shard of wood that hit his leg. Suddenly she sees the older lover walk by, glance at them, and walk faster. Giving her younger lover a reassuring kiss, she runs after the older one.

"I'm sorry," she said to him, once she caught him.

"You should be," he replied. "You played me like a fool. And then you chose him over me." It seems that in the rescue, the truth of her relationship with the younger beau became very apparent. "You hurt me."

"I saved you," she replied. "Why do you think that soothsayer drugged you? Why were you in that closet, protected from the blast?"

"You couldn't have known that ahead of time," the older man scoffed.

"I saw what happened to you-- saw you hit by the blast, your face practically blown off..."

"What are you talking about?"

"I knew. I did it to save you."

"You couldn't have... You didn't have anything to do with the blast, did you?"

"No!"

That's when I woke up. You know, for me, dreaming is a bit like watching 3/4ths of a movie and then having to turn off the TV. Annoying.

If you have saints make appearances in your dream, isn't that supposed to mean you're like blessed or something? What does the Terminator mean?

Last night I dreamed that I was working at a store or a gas station or something, and three guys came in-- two short guys and a really tall one-- that I recognized from the news as being wanted for some crime. So I had my co-worker stall them and I went to the back room, got some stuff for makeshift handcuffs (fuzzy handcuffs, wire, and a flower press- don't ask me why a gas station had fuzzy handcuffs, or a flower press) and we managed to get them restrained until the cops showed up. However, as soon as the door opened for a customer, they made a break for it, and the cops didn't wind up catching them.

They headed to the five-lane main drag through the town and I followed them at a safe distance. All of a sudden the tall one stumbled out onto the street, right in the path of a Greyhound Bus, and one of his friends cried out "Oh shit!" and lunged at him, trying to push him out of the way. End result, they were both hit, as the bus swerved and sideswiped them. The other guy ran off, and the short guy, who seemed to only have a few bruises and scrapes, attempted to move the taller one, who had a very broken leg (it was twisted all weird) and was slouched forward and bleeding everywhere. He was also unconscious. Concerned, I ran pout into the street, narrowly missing a truck myself, and cried "Wait, don't move him!"

"You!" the short guy cried.

"We have to call an ambulance, his spine might be injured. Anyone have a phone?" I looked around at the few people, like the bus driver, who had gathered. They dug in their pockets. Suddenly remembering, I pulled out my own phone.

"No, wait! They'll come to arrest us!"

"I promise I won't mention who you are. He needs an ambulance. I don't care about the police right now."

"Okay..."

I called 911 and said to the person in a shaky voice, "Hi, I'm at the corner of..." I looked at the nearest sign "18Q street and 102, a guy just got hit by a bus, he's bleeding and his leg is broken."

"Okay, we'll send someone."

I looked up from the call to see the injured guy raise his head groggily. "What happened?" he asked. His friend explained it to him.

"We have to get out of the street," the injured guy said, pushing himself along to drag his leg. His friend grabbed him as well and before I could stop them, they were on the far curb. I followed them, and we waited for the ambulance.

All of a sudden this giant Megatron-like robot came down the street, zapping things with it's arm laser. "We have to move!" the tall guy said.

"You can't walk!" I cried. "Your leg's broken!"

"How bad is it?" He looked down at it and winced. "Oh. Hang on." He grabbed it and twisted it back into position, and it made several cracking noises. The other guy and I kind of stared. He cracked his neck, and his right eyeball withdrew into his head, and in it's place out came a Terminator style red eye. I realized that where the red "blood" had cleared in his wounds, underneath there were glints of metal.

"What ARE you?" I cried, not realizing the Megatron bot was getting closer.

"Go, hide," he ordered me, standing on his now-stable legs. "She doesn't want us."

"Not even me?" the short guy asked, as I ran off, headed for the nearest building. A giant metal hand swiped at my head before I ducked into a storm drain and was able to sneak over to a building. Outside that building was Mother Teresa (don't even ask) and as I ducked in, I grabbed her wrist and pulled her along. We headed for the basement, which was semi-developed and had workman's tables, which we hid inside. I heard the giant robot outside, and was absolutely silent and unmoving. Soon she passed, and I came out from under the table, cautioning Mother Teresa that she might want to stay there for a bit longer.

Suddenly Terminator-guy came down the stairs (he appeared to have found himself some machine guns), saying, "Disguise yourself or something." I grabbed the conveniently-located makeup kit and some spare clothes and dressed in a sort of disguise, even changing the way I walked. The two of us then returned to the surface and I cautiously went over to the Megatron-style robot, who didn't seem to recognize me. She continued to search for me, though, yet I was able to actually go with her, and she didn't realize who I was.

I wish I could remember how it had ended... I think there was a firefight.

Dreams

I dreamed last night that I had decided to become a fashion designer, and my designs were pretty well-liked and I'd been signed up to work with a major label, so I was bound to be successful. Then I went to tell my dad. He had a golden retriever with him, which I knew was "his dog" although he doesn't have a dog. The dog had a scarf around her neck and was quite cute, running around our feet. Then I told Daddy about my new job, and he flipped out, telling me to go back to my original plan and I was an idiot for giving up my life like this and I should go back to studying biology. The dog ran off, scared.

I cried, explained to him that this was a good thing, etc but he just stayed mad, so I stormed off in a huff and drove away. I had just left his line of sight when I heard a thump and I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw a flash of golden hair and the red scarf around it's neck, crumpled in the street.

I tried to brake but couldn't, the car lost control, and I was crying and scared and then I drove off the shoulder...

And woke up, and spent several minutes repeating "It was just a dream," over and over again in my head until I calmed down.

Then I fell back asleep and my next dream involved Clark Kent from Smallville. No it was not dirty, thankyouverymuch.

Fairy Dreams

Last night I dreamed that the woods behind my house were about seven billion times bigger than they actually are, and that I discovered an elaborate and widespread fairy civilization in them. The trouble was, only certain people could see the fairy things, and to everyone else it would just look like I was talking to the air. So I set out to convince people that the fairies existed, because once they believed, I wouldn't look so crazy.

I started to talk to my father about it, and he initially thought I was kidding, then crazy, then eventually he began to understand that there was more to this than my imagination, so I took him out to where the fairies were and showed him, and with effort at first, he saw them.

He wanted to tell my mother, tell the world, but I explained that he couldn't, that people would say he was crazy, and it would take the same amount of determination to convince any adult that the fairies were real that it had taken for me to convince him, and for some people, like my practical, atheistic mother, it would be impossible.

A gift of my twisted mind

Last night I had a dream that everyone was accusing me of a brutal murder I did not remember doing. They all said they had seen me covered in blood and carrying the severed head of the victim, but while it was true that I had in my possession a hooded sweatshirt covered in blood, I could not remember committing murder and I could not remember ever holding the head. The thing was, I wasn't in jail or anything-- I was at home, but watched like a hawk, and no one trusted anything I said, because they thought I was a criminal.

Meanwhile, I had to try to prove my innocence to people who remembered things differently from me. In the end I figured out when the murder was supposed to have taken place and that I actually did have an alibi at the time, a fact I had forgotten because I honestly did not remember what I had been doing on the precise date (this is a minor annoyance to me on TV shows-- when they ask for an alibi, what if you can't remember what you were doing on a specific date?) I proved my innocence right before I woke up. Like, I had almost proved my innocence when the alarm rang but I hit the snooze to make sure it was all settled.

The interesting thing about this dream is that it felt very real, so much so that I was desperately afraid the whole time that I would discover I actually had murdered this guy and rather panicky about the whole thing. When I woke up it took me a few minutes to remember that none of it had happened.

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I'm going to do a site redesign (the url will be the same-- that's about it). I need to figure out a theme, though. And a title. Any great ideas?

Nothing induces a desire to diet like watching extreme weight loss shows.

I had a weird dream last night, in which I was slowly losing my vision. I thought, in the dream, that it was just a question of my sight getting blurry, but someone explained to me that I was also not seeing in as many wavelengths of light as was normal. This was then proved to me when I started to be unable to see objects and even people. At one point I took out my contact lenses and looked at them, only to learn they were broken in several places. I stumbled around without them for a while until I realized I was dreaming-- always a good sign-- and made a new pair appear in my pocket. I have no idea, by the way, why I didn't simply fix my eyes.

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I went over to the high school today to try to find the job list. They didn't have anything I was interested in-- just yardwork and baby sitting. I figured I would also see my old guidance counselor while I was there, since she asked about me when she saw my mom and she stitched a picture of me into her quilt and all. But she wasn't there, either, so I'm going to see her at 10:15 tomorrow. And I'm going to the gym. And I have to leave town to head up to Dover by 11. I'd better head to bed soon...

Dream Catcher

Last night's dream was really fragmentary, so it doesn't make a good story, particularly. It did have a few flashes of scenes that were interesting...

Like shopping in a Wal-mart and having the floor start to crumble beneath me and open up into the bowels of hell below.

And holding a baby duck but being completely unable to recognize the beak, thus causing me to run around holding it up to various birds and asking them if this was their baby... the turkey chased me off

And running out of a building that was about to explode and jumping into the nearest car to escape, except it turned out to belong to the people who had planted the bomb, so there was a mild altercation and then they threw me out on the highway. I bounced.

I dream in recycled movie plots, apparently

Last night's dream was an epic. There was a family who lived in a ramshackle two-story house on the edge of a chasm high in the mountains, with no yard but just rocks up to the sheer drop down hundreds of feet to certain doom. They were a close, loving family, and the father had chosen at some point to turn himself into a ghost, as he had a magical sword that could return him to the living at any time, and the abilities he gained as a spirit were useful. They had one servant, a girl from a high-class family who had fallen on hard times and was forced to work for people she considered lowly and worthless.

They got on Hera's (the queen of the Greek gods') bad side. That was their first mistake. I'm not sure what they did but she sent her army of minions to kill the entire family, led by a warrior woman under her command. The minions wiped out the whole family, even the father-- they managed to destroy his spirit and send that to the underworld so he could never return to his body. Only one son escaped, because he had surprised the warrior woman in charge by jumping out from behind a curtain and stabbing her with a knife, and accidentally hitting an artery. She died, but miraculously, the blood vanished form the carpet as she lay.

The son ran down a narrow tunnel through the mountain to the village, where the servant girl was talking with his best friend, a boy who worked in one of the shops. He told them what happened and they all agreed that he needed to run, as did the servant, because she was so closely tied to the family. His best friend also agreed to go with them, because he might be linked to their disappearance.

They went into flight, and were chased all across the earth by Hera's replacement for the original warrior woman (another woman), and several thug types. The woman in command has several magical abilities in her power, including the ability to call up rainbows for transportation, like the Greek goddess Iris-- except Iris' rainbows weren't made of candied fruit and Skittles in different colors. There were several close calls, including one time when they took refuge in a young woman's house, and then she chose to go with them because a) they left rather abruptly in the middle of the night, under attack, and she was afraid she'd be captured and tortured by the hunters, and b) she fell in love with the family's last son.

Meanwhile the best friend and the servant girl fall in love and are having a side-story relationship, but at some point, they have to leave her behind or she vanishes, and they assume she's dead. The best friend is heartbroken.

They reached a run-down old Colosseum-style arena, long since out of use, and planned to spend the night there. As the love interest and the best friend set up to sleep under the stone bleachers, the son wandered, and he entered the gladiatorial arena. Suddenly the once-empty bleachers started to fill with Greek gods, including their king Zeus, who sat in the old emperor's box. He declared, "I've taken pity on you, boy, and I'm ending this silly chase. You and my wife will compete in one-on-one combat, with her in a human form. If you defeat the human form, I will make her stop chasing you, and you and your friends can return home and bury your family and live in peace." The son wasn't given a chance to say anything, but was instantly attacked by the warrior woman who's been chasing him-- who, he realized, is Hera in human form.

Hera quickly gained the upper hand, as she still had godly strength even in human form. Just as the son was about to loose, she whispered a taunt in his ear, reminding him of his family and his failure at this chance for revenge so he'll suffer more. The exact opposite happened-- the remark spurred him, so he gained a burst of adrenaline-driven superhuman strength and strangled her human form.

Hera, naturally, reappeared sulkily next to her husband, but the son was declared the winner, and all the gods vanished. Triumphant, the son told his companions what had transpired, and they all happily headed back to the mountain village. The best friend was already plotting a quest of his own, taking the father's magical sword and finding the body of his love, the servant girl, and returning her to life.

Before returning to the family's house, they visited the villagers, telling of their adventures and why they were gone so long. The best friend is all prepared to offer up excuses to his boss, but the boss silenced him, saying he doesn't need to explain, and while he's been replaced, the boss will personally make sure he gets another job in the village. "Who is my replacement?" the best friend asked, and out walked the old servant girl who he loved and who had been released from Hera's control months ago. He immediately ran to her, joyous and ready to kiss her, but she stopped him with her hand, and pulled out from the back room another man, a former co-worker of the best friend. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I thought you were dead, and it's been a long time." She leaned her head on the new beau's chest and he wrapped his arm around her.

The best friend was sad, but he understood, as he'd mostly gotten over thinking she was dead anyway, and knowing that she was alive and happy was enough for him. The love interest, best friend, and the son headed happily back to the family's house, ready to start the rather unpleasant cleaning and burial process, considering that it had been years since the family had died and no one had wanted to risk offending Hera by burying them before then.

Then I woke up. Yes, that all happened in last night's dream. It was like a whole movie going on there. Kinda cool though.

Musical Dreams

In last night's dream, I was an infant, probably about 8 months old- standing and crawling, but not walking.I was with two women who were trying to get me to play the piano, and while I was doing pretty well for a complete lack of motor skills, they kept pushing me and pushing me, making me play more music and harder music, stuff that my infant hands wouldn't reach for another ten years. Then they gave me a new piece and said "play this," and I looked at it and it was just the lyrics, no notes. "That's not music," I said, since playing the piano that young probably means talking as well. "Yes it is, play it." "It's just words, there's no notes." "Play it," was the reply, fierce and dangerous. She grabbed my pudgy little baby's hands, and placed them on the keys, holding them there. Luckily I was saved by the alarm clock before I had to slap a child-abuse lawsuit on her...

Random Dreamings

I had the strangest dream last night. My brother and I walked over to the neighbor's house, like we used to do when we were little. WE were the same age as now but everyone there was younger, like they were years ago before we stopped playing with them and their parents got divorced.

We rang the bell, but no one answered, yet the door was open, so I said, "I guess they're around back." This used to happen a lot when we were kids- they'd be playing out back and wouldn't hear the bell. So we walked out back, and I was confused- because they weren't there, yet there were signs of them everywhere. There was a plate of still-warm cookies on the table. I headed back to the front of the house, and my brother followed- but when I turned around, I noticed he had a cookie he was eating.

"What are you doing?" I cried. "You can't eat that, it's not yours!" He shrugged and then went back to ignoring me. Suddenly the mother of the family, a woman who doesn't even live there any more since the divorce, came tearing out of the house screeching at him. "You stole that! You've been stealing our stuff! EVery day I come home and something else is missing!" My brother took off like a shot across the lawn, headed for our house, and she turned to me, still yelling, though clearly she wasn't mad at me. "Your brother is a little twerp! He's been stealing our things and breaking into the house when we aren't there, and he let a rat out in the house--" Suddenly I had this very vivid (fictional) recollection of having had two pet rats who went missing. "Wait, what happened to the rat?" I asked. "Well, we got him," she replied (with the clear indication that that meant he was killed), and I exploded. Ignoring her, I took off after my brother, finding him in my front lawn. When he saw my face, he started to run, but I jumped on him, dragging him down. I was about to beat the crap out of him when I woke up.

This dream was really weird, because besides the inconsistencies with the neighboring family, my brother's entire history of theft was stealing a handful of brass buttons from a store- each of which was worth about two cents and, due to the size of his hands at the time, there were only about four of them. He was like, five. Plus I really can't imagine him letting an animal loose in someone else's house. Especially not now, he's sixteen and a good kid.And there's the fact that even if I could catch my brother running, there's no way he wouldn't just be able to win a fight in like, five seconds. It was completely bizarre. Very vivid, though. The cookie smelled freshly baked and the grass was wet with dew.

Sleeping to Dream

I dreamed I missed the bus coming back from a field trip or something, and would up taking a different bus. But instead of taking me where I was supposed to go, I would up in a tiny little town with only one hotel and one convenience store. The hotel had one room left, and that room was absolutely disgusting, with smoldering cigarettes stuck into the bed and stains on the sheets; and the convenience store had absolutely no food or interesting little games or anything, a fact that a man with a screaming little boy was complaining about quite loudly....

Technicolor Dreams

Last night I dreamed I was at a society wedding, with lots of tuxedos. The groom and the bride, in true Romeo-and-Juliet fashion, were from opposing sides of a family feud but the families had agreed to put aside their differences for the sake of the wedding. Nevertheless, there was a lot of concern about someone starting a fight, so there were several undercover agents scattered about. Still, no one saw when a man- who wasn't a member of either family- set off the timer on a bomb in the corner. Luckily one of the agents noticed and deactivated the bomb, but not before it was seen by a member of the groom's family. Amidst cries of foul play, the men of both sides drew their ceremonial swords (whose idea was it to have ceremonial swords- sharpened ceremonial swords- at a wedding between two warring families?) and prepared to battle. Then my alarm clock went off.

I was kind of bummed. I wanted to see that sword fight.

To sleep, perchance to dream

Today is the festival of Felicitas, the goddess of good luck. It's also my brother's birthday and the day after my grandfather's birthday. This explains a lot.

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I had the weirdest dreams last night. I didn't sleep well- the room was stuffy and overheated, and I'm used to a slightly more comfortable bed. I'll get over it. But the dreams were really weird.

I was in Italy again, or rather, in the dream I was dreaming I was in Italy- I knew it was a dream, but at the same time I was exploring like it was real, and I marveled that I was having a dream that enabled me to explore new parts of the country despite never having been there myself- it didn't occur to me that I was making it all up. I kept getting lost, and I was trying to find my way back to St. Mark's (so I guess I was in Venice) but at the same time, I didn't really care that I was lost and I was happy to wander about aimlessly looking for the cathedral. This was weird because even if I don't have limits on my time I always freak out when I get lost. And yet, I was perfectly calm about the whole thing.

Then I was back working at the old daycare, the one that I went to for kindergarten and after-school care and then worked at myself when I was older. I was serving juice to the kids and then someone told me that there was going to be a reunion, of sorts, with the kids who were in the after-school care. I continued to serve juice, and coffee, to the people who came in, including the funny man that used to supervise us until his wife made him get a real job, and also the guy I had a crush on for seven years who turned into a jerk when he became the star of the swim team, and the guy I thought was a jerk for eleven years who turned into a nice guy when he learned that having two X chromosomes doesn't mean you have half as many synapses firing. This was weird because the daycare is a recurring theme in my dreams- working at it, at least. But I usually don't dream about being a kid there myself, or visiting as a former student- just as an employee.

I don't know what the first dream means- if I never have it again, probably nothing. The second dream, though, I can see where it's coming from. Yesterday I was talking to Mimi about that study at Mclean Hospital and how it made me think of my degenerate youth. She said that I should think about how that kind of childhood affected who I am today, if it did at all. I was trying to think of how my early life of crime and violence shaped me, but I wasn't certain of anything. I think dreaming of two people who I thought of one way when I was younger and then very differently when I grew up is my brain's way of gently reminding me that I'm not the same person I was back then.

Or maybe we need a fan in this room at night.