Fragment of Dreams
I didn't remember this one at all when I woke up, which was disappointing. But then I was reading in the morning and came across a scene which involved a severed head. I thought of the head and then I thought 'Taxidermy' and everything came back to me. This dream was so strange. The second part wasn't at all gory to experience but I suppose it could make some feel queasy. Fragment 1: I remember being in a boarding house with classmates from school. The building has two floors and is painted white or grey all over. There are no lights on and the sky outside is dim white, so inside it's shadowy. It's just us here, no host. My room is on the ground floor and I step outside into a long hallway. The doors too are smooth and white, with pull-down handles. Recessed inside their frames they are dark with shadow. I walk past a pink laundry basket and up the single flight of stairs. The upper floor is just as shadowy and plain. I pass along the hallway by closed white doors. At the end of the hallway is a dark, empty room with a window on the opposite wall and off to the side a doorless doorway into another empty space. In the wall opposite the doorway are two white doors, and one in the adjacent wall, all closed. I see two of my friends come out of this latter door. They are laughing and carrying a laundry basket. Fragment 2: I arrive at my street with a friend from school, we get out of the car. I see that there are two naked corpses, each splayed out face down on top of two cars which are next to one another. One of those cars - the blue one - might be mine, the other is grey. My friend has some reason for these being here. She wants to preserve the corpses so I offer to help her. I take a short scaffolding pole out of the boot of the car and push it into the anus of the nearest body. It enters cleanly and easily with a long part still sticking out. She pushes another into the other end of the body. I'm not clear about this part - in the dream I was sure this was the vagina, but it can't have been, more likely the mouth. But I'm sure it wasn't the mouth. I'm not sure these bodies even have heads. I suppose that's dream logic. At the end of this process poles stick out of both ends of the body, as if it has been impaled. She asks if I'll help her with the other one too. I look down at the pole I now have in my hand. The pole is dented at the end and has some smudged black marks on it so I tell her it might not be suitable - I'm worried about it causing an infection. I walk up to my house leaving her to finish up on her own. Outside the open door of my house I stand talking to my mum. She looks out and asks me what that's all about. After a moment's thought I tell her that my friend is interested in taxidermy. Looking back I can see that both corpses have now been 'impaled'. From here they seem in a sort of spread-eagle position, toes pointed and arms stretched backwards, faces looking up. Day 14 (Night of Friday 01.12.2023) is too fragmented to merit an entry.
Updated 12-16-2023 at 01:37 AM by 100434
Fragment: looking down a gently lit stairwell at school, sound of girls chattering below. Me and my best friend from primary school are in a café (restaurant? Eatery?), waiting for another friend who I haven't seen since primary school. It's a small, narrow, high room built entirely of light-coloured planks, roughly hewn. There are large gaps in the wall like floor-length windows, but with no glass in them. I can see outside on a sort of market scene. There's a shop serving lots and lots of lovely-looking baked goods for pretty low prices, I can see their menu even from this far. I don't know what's on the menu of the place I'm in. We sit at a table - also made of planks, it's what you might find in a hipster café, sideways-box seats on both sides and a white runner in the middle of the table. My friend and I are chatting while sitting next to each other. I look to my left and see a classmate from my current school sitting at a small table, on a school-style chair with a thin cushion, drinking a cappuccino. I go to the bathroom and when I get back she's moved to my table and is sitting opposite my friend. We all talk for a while before she leaves. More time passes, I don't know how much, but it feels infinitely long as we keep waiting. He's really late. The light outside is still as bright as ever so we keep talking, discussing him, how long it's been, talking to each other. Finally he arrives. The two of us have almost finished eating (when did the food appear?). He sits opposite, we all greet one another joyfully. For some reason he's wearing a black suit - not the most likely dress for another person my age. I'm delighted to see him. I'm sad not to remember any of our conversation, since I know there was one. I really need to work on recalling speech! Anyway, after a short time of discussion, I get up and go to the bathroom again. When I return, he isn't here anymore. She tells me that he's already left. It's only been a short time since he came. "But he only just arrived!" "Well, you'll see him again. He said to say goodbye to you." "I wanted to talk to him more. After all, he's my friend, too. And I've missed him..." The view out of the window is different to before. I can see the back of the bakery shop. There's a bar bending around a corner piled high with giant, glistening canelés and other baked goods to be sold.
I remember being in a place that seems like an American-style cartoon town. Red barns (like Applejack's) surround a small square and wide dusty streets. They are big, each two floors and then a high barn roof. I have a brief image of being inside one of these, on the first floor. The floor was of light wood boards and the room was large and fairly empty. I feel that there were wrought iron spiral stairs down to the ground floor - though those would be rather out of place in a barn. Outside there seems to be a small market going on. In the square I examine goods displayed on a wooden table. There are other people milling around, as well.
I've been lazy about editing my journals for posting so I've got a bit of a backlog now. Four more dreams waiting to be posted - including this morning's journal! Nothing lucid yet but it looks like my recall is improving, so that's good. Perhaps I'd better move on to trying some lucid techniques soon. I'm abroad in a different city. I'm sure this is some mainland European country, though it somewhat reminds me of English country towns. The buildings and walls are built of large irregular cobblestones while the streets are paved in the uneven way that's so common in Corsica (to the detriment of my shoes). I catch sight of a large set of wooden double doors, black, wide but not as high as those I see in Italy and France. I'm guided to the house where I'll be staying by two men. They both wear glasses and seem nerdy, I think they are a gay couple. In retrospect, I'm quite sure the two looked exactly the same - that, or I saw only one and imagined the second. The two are friendly and I remember them talking and laughing with me. They have brown hair. I meet two more people later on. One is a businessman - broad-shouldered, black suit, cold expression and an office full of heavy dark wooden furniture, thick books and leather upholstery. He reminds me greatly of a character from one of my favourite series. I don't remember the other. At one point, I'm wandering the streets in the evening, light spilling out of restaurant windows which display scenes of people leaning towards one another talking, cutlery resting loosely between gesticulating fingers, red wine swilling about in glasses, unfinished dishes on the table. I can almost hear the hubbub of hundreds of conversations jostling to make themselves heard.
Day 3 (Tuesday 31.10) is not one I'm comfortable sharing, and I also remember very little of it. I experienced the dream as an invisible observer and played no part in it. Today's I remember a little better, but it is still two fragments. I believe I unexpectedly became lucid at the end. A white, pink and grey house. It's a modern bungalow. A relative (grandfather?) of mine lives here. In the large kitchen-living room is a counter, black granite on top, pink sides. A variety of kitchen utensils on top of it include a shiny silver, tall teapot. Full-length windows wrap the side of the room that faces outside. It's snowy out there, some shrubs and spiky winter plants peeking through the snow under a blank white sky. I see that there are two small steps down from the glass door in pale beige stone. I remember running in and out of the house, hiding some objects or my own self in black and grey halls and behind doors. However the dream was overall a calm one. I remember sitting curled on the floor, reading. I remember modern white metal baskets and filing cabinets, supermarket bags full of clothes, and some piles of clothes on the floor. I remember conversation and a casually dressed man with longish dark brown hair and a small beard on his chin. I remember cooking, walking on a snowy road to get here. All the other recollections are too vague to be put into words. Faint fragments of emotions, flashes of images and indecipherable, tenth-of-a-second beeps of sound and glimpses of movement. I feel sorry to have forgotten what I feel was an eventful and interesting dream. Later. A white box room, no windows or doors. Someone is in here with me. Suddenly I become aware that I am dreaming. Elated to have achieved lucidity, I want to test the limits of the dream and see what I can do. I think: 'how about flying?' and move my arms a little away from my sides. Then I am spiralling up into the air towards the ceiling of the small square. I can look down at the same time as I see myself from above, looking upwards to the ceiling. I feel an incredible rush of joy and lightness while my companion is looking up at me. But it's short lived. As I'm about to go through the ceiling I feel the dream slipping away from me. The scene itself seems to break away from my consciousness and spiral downwards into blackness until it disappears. While losing my dream I saw my bedroom, with lights on, appearing. I don't know now if I woke up or fell into a deeper sleep. I remember waking up later, to the sound of my alarm, in darkness.
I rarely remember a dream as long as this one, with so many details. I can still visualise the dream scenery quite vividly. Currently I'm working on increasing my recall, since I'm a beginner, so I may not have any lucid experiences to note for quite some time. 1. School day? Remember a lecture earlier, at school, in the pool. The bottom of the pool is raised to floor level and we are all sitting on it. Swimming teacher (IRL) tells us her belly is fake (attached by some permanent procedure, who knows why) and that's why she's fat. There will be more lectures, by others, in the future, and one has already happened - I know this thanks to a paper stuck to the wall, with a list of lectures typed in blue, Times New Roman. After it's over, I leave, I'm in the school building. Exams are either coming up or have just finished. The school (not IRL, but a squarer, more industrial-looking, white building) is empty. Hallways seem like endless white square tubes, with blue noticeboards on the walls. The carpets in there are blue - IRL they are red. I leave. I'm standing on an unfamiliar street corner, outside a food shop of some sort. The air feels fresh and cool and the area seems lit up by almost blinding white light, as if a faded white photo. The buildings opposite me are white and glowing. There are cars on the road but they don't seem to move or make a sound. I get the impression I'm near my local library. A girl runs up to me, I know her IRL, though we aren't as close as friends. She grins and greets me with my name. She has a cup of bubble tea in the left hand. We chat a while about school and I have the impression I'm doing quite well in my exams. We're still talking when quickly, she says she has to leave. She runs across the road, between the cars, and jumps in through the already-opened door of a shiny, sleek black car. Then she's gone, leaving our conversation unfinished. 2. Chase Fragment: my brother chases me through the streets around my house. IRL geography. I run past the pharmacy but don't remember where I go next. My (?) cousin (blond) arrives. He wants to see my brother and they enter the bathroom (?) together. I stand outside eavesdropping and feel frightened by what I hear. Cousin touches brother's shoulder and a whitish-yellow light glows. As the door begins to open, the landing lights turn off and I dodge and tumble down the stairs to curl up in the corner of the next landing. My brother descends as I'm pretending to be asleep. I fidget a little, and feel myself shaking in fear, wondering if he'll see through my act because of the trembles. He walks past. Then I am in the living room. (It's mine IRL). My aunt is here. We talk - I don't remember the words, but she knows they are after me now that cousin did something to my brother. Speak of the devil - my brother suddenly races into the room and makes a beeline for me. Aunt intercepts him, grabbing him by the shoulders while telling me to run. I run out of the house and turn left, racing across the road and into the nearest street off mine. I know I need to quickly get around some corners to make the most of my head start - hopefully, this will confuse my brother since I'm not taking the route I had before (in fragment above). I run through several streets and around corners and the architecture shifts from almost-real to a cartoon-like candy land. The houses have uniform pointed roofs with cherry-pink candy borders. Soon I realise this isn't the fastest way for me to move and I start bounding, somewhat like a four-legged animal, putting both hands on the ground and pushing, propelling myself forward in great jumps. My whole body lifts off the ground as I jump. The scenery is blurring around me as I'm moving so fast. Suddenly I can see from my brother's point of view. He's looking for me, running through streets of beige gingerbread houses. The streets are lined with heaps of giant, golden, caramel popcorn piled up steeply against the walls. He throws out his arm and scatters a heap of popcorn as he turns right to keep running. It seems my cousin is speaking into his mind. He makes several left turns. I feel relieved at this since I've been turning right and seemingly heading in the opposite direction. My point of view again. Suddenly, I see him turn a corner and come towards me. I skid and hurl myself backwards. This time I feel like I'm soaring up into the air, flying on my back, as if I'm floating in a swimming pool. My brother soars up as well and slows to float above me. I hear a conversation between my cousin and him, to the tune of 'about time, do it'. He unfurls a huge flag, in blocks of colours: red, yellow, green. It's made as if of many round beads close together, forming a flat (flapping in the wind) surface, yet with nothing obviously joining them. It billows out against the direction of the wind. I'm still desperately trying to propel myself away. I hear 'NOW!' and brother comes down on top of me, flag gone. We fall to the floor. I fear my cousin controlling my body, as he is currently controlling my brother. Then we are sitting in the road, as if we've been dropped from above (I suppose we have) and my cousin and aunt reappear. They cry out: 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY!'. A surprise? My brother has returned to normal, unaware of what's been happening. The dream ends. Note: - The first dream had familiar but not quite real landscapes - The girl who approached me was someone I actually know - The second dream took place partly in my IRL house - IRL I don't have a brother, or a male cousin - I didn't remember any sounds of speech or particular words, nor any faces. Make this a goal for next time!