Fragment of Dreams
1. I was watching/participating in a really weird part-Broadway-part-Bollywood crossover film between Harry Potter and Repo! The Genetic Opera that, for some reason, took place on a soccer field. Also something about cake. 2. I was reading a massive comic book that had a bunch of unrelated stories, though the only one I remember was about Batman preventing the Riddler from committing suicide. (Incidentally, don't you hate when you think a book or film you saw in a dream is real because you looked it up, but then it turns out you had only Googled it in your dream?) 3. Making ramen in a bathtub. 4. Telling someone that I refuse to read DC's New 52 because it's "like what would happen if you took Homestuck, cut it in half, removed a bunch of characters, and gave Rose and Jade huge breasts."
1. Something about a rivalry between all the planets 2. Something about re-reading some books I'd read previously as a child and finding them far too heavy-handed in their message 3. Something about really strange water-slides, including one with a robot polar bear that launches you into the water and one with antelopes that push you up the hills. 4. I'm on a really big cruise ship. I decide to go explore, just to see what there is. First I eat some leftover cheesecake from a party. Then I find an indoor train that tours the whole ship and board it. The train passes several interesting-looking shops, and I stop at one (whose name was something like "Cossette Boutique") that sells replicas of stage costumes from Les Miserables. Finding I look quite sharp in an Enjolras costume, I buy it. Next thing I know, I'm being chased around the ship engaged in a lightsaber duel with someone who can't seem to decide whether he's Darth Vader, Darth Maul, or James Moriarty. I run up stairs, slide down banisters, weave around dinner tables, veer off into hallways, and even try ducking into a bathroom to take off my vest and attempt to hide my Force-presence. No dice. The duel makes its way back into a dining room where Darth Whatever activates a switch with the cork from a bottle of wine. I head to the end of a hallway with an elevator, but the elevator won't open, and all the doors in the hall were locked. I'm cornered. I ask if I can have a moment to telepathically bid farewell to my padawan (because apparently I have a padawan now...) and make my peace. He obliges, then runs me through. Then I decide to run around the ship topless because I'm totally a ghost now and I'm so sure nobody can see me. But everybody can (though they apparently don't notice the seminudity), and they congratulate me on my excellent theatrical performance.
(Originally typed this up on Tumblr before I realized it was long enough to suffice as a DJ entry, hence the rambling style instead of my usual numbered neatness.) Okay, so first I was playing this weird version if IRL Minecraft where you had to use a compass and some calculations to find the type of block you needed, and there were twenty different types of flowers, and there was a school test where you had to collect a certain number of each type of block on a list, but then halfway through, the list turned into song quotes and you had to find MP3s of those songs before time ran out. And then I was visiting some relatives, and I had to sleep in the basement, but the cats kept bothering me (like one tried to mate with my pillow, and there was a kitten that kept crawling around in my pajama pants) so my older cousins and I decided we should make some food and go out for coffee. So I made a sandwich and some tea and a pickle, but when I tried to carry it back to my bed, my little cousins kept leaving obstacles in the way so the sandwich got into the tea. And then my sandwich went missing, and Benedict Cumberbatch was eating it, and I was so angry that I screamed at him and tried to stab his face with a tuning fork. Also something about hiding under different parts of a tree, ketchup-flavored potato chips, and a bus.
1. I'm participating in a very strange school production of Les Misérables, wherein we only do the scenes with the student-revolutionaries. The entire school building serves as the stage, and there is no concept of onstage/offstage, nor of in-character/out-of-character, so there were even battles in the girls' bathroom. I was assigned the role of Grantaire, and my acting directions were essentially "if you're not doing anything specified by the script, take the opportunity to follow Enjolras like a lost puppy." There were also rules laid out for the battles - the gymnasium bleachers are the barricades, the rifles use six-sided dice as ammo, and if you're hit in a certain place, act dead. Assorted bits included epic brohugs, an earthquake, the bathrooms turning into a maze, and a reenactment of the "Orestes Fasting and Pylades Drunk" chapter of the novel, which wasn't in the musical, but since it had so much Enjy/R subtext, we included it for kicks and giggles. 2. I'm trying to keep a former classmate from getting into my house. Dish soap was involved. 3. Trying to find a copy of "Airheads". 4. I'm escaping from someone by running through forests, using a balsa-wood plane as a hang-glider, and hiding in a miniature house in an abandoned camp.
1. I'm in study-hall, about to do some doodling in my notebook. The teacher says I draw too much and that I need to use study-hall for reading instead. So I reach into my backpack and pull out a rather battered paperback copy of The Silmarillion and locate my bookmark. 2. I'm an elf, wandering through a forest. There's a blackish-gray wolf following me, but I figure he's just there to be helpful. Then one of my former classmates knocks the wolf away with a huge hollowed-out log and starts chasing me. I can occasionally hold him off with a spell, but I have very little power. 3. I've been captured by an orc slaver, along with several other elves. The orc also keeps several huge owls on a leash. I try escaping several times, but I always get caught. Invoking the name of Elbereth doesn't help either. Eventually, we get to this hotel where the orc finds out he's only going to get about $8000 for the elves he's brought in. 4. Outside my old high school, I'm about to set out on a journey with a couple other elves. We stop to gather bundles of a special kind of long grass that can be simmered to produce a nutritious and delicious soup. Somewhere along the way, my companions get replaced by two of my (human) former classmates. There's an abandoned house that's still fully furnished, so we stop there. I set about the task of making dinner, but my classmates keep messing with the recipe. Then they let in this beggar-girl who starts stealing various objects in the house to sell. 5. I'm trying to eat some macaroni and cheese, but I keep getting sent away on errands, so I can't have any. I go on a huge rant about how you really don't want to find out what an elf with low blood-sugar can do. 6. I'm trying to solve a sliding-tile puzzle that's booby-trapped with water balloons.
1. Metal Gear Solid was taking place in my old high school. Since, having played the game about a billion times, I knew one of the major sad parts was coming up, I took the opportunity to sit Snake and Gray Fox down at a cafeteria table, have a conversation, and make friends with Fox (who for some reason was missing the upper half of his Cyborg Ninja suit, was wearing Otacon's glasses, and was carrying a plastic bag full of fake roses). Before everyone went their separate ways, I took a petal from one of Fox's fake roses so that I'd remember everything that happened. 2. Still in my high school, it was time for Home Ec, where we were making pancakes that we could either top with sweet things or with refried beans. Before class started, I checked my pocket to make sure the rose petal I "borrowed" from Gray Fox was still there. Cooking was mayhem. There wasn't enough griddle space for everyone, the classroom itself had sort of a maze layout, and when I finally got my pancakes poured, I came back to discover that a huge guy was sitting on them. Bastard. 3. I was at an anime convention, petal still in pocket. I found a light-up figure of Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell, but it was too expensive. There were also a bunch of weird jawbreakers. 4. I'm wearing my orange-red-yellow stripey nightgown. I check desperately for pants pockets, but eventually resign myself to the fact that I didn't really meet Solid Snake and Gray Fox. Bummer. 5. I'm a servant in a family of dogs who have to go into hiding under the protection of the wolf king. During a war with some lions, the pups and the wolf king go missing, so I put on a wolf mask and go into the forest to rescue them. I get killed, but it turns out the whole thing was just a play, and the plot repeats itself a couple times. 6. I'm in a mall where some highly advanced robotic llamas and ferrets are being exhibited. I play with the ferrets.
1. I'm running away from a castle, and try to trip up my pursuers by using magic to do things like switch the outfits of two competing factions of guards. I think I ran into Legolas at some point. 2. I'm trying to escape from a school building by crawling through air vents and windows. Somewhere in the surrounding town, I meet a version of myself with magic powers in a dark tunnel full of fake roses. 3. Autocunnilingus? 4. Running away from a former classmate who's trying to force himself on me. I throw a basketball cage at him. 5. Playing on a tree-swing. I watch an owl in the branch above me catch and start eating a duck. 6. I'm in a room full of drawers of stuff. I decide for some reason that I must be dreaming, and do the nose-pinch-breath-test to check. Of course, once I realize I'm dreaming, things get all vague and unstable, so I start touching everything - books with embossed covers, polished rocks, a stone knife (which I cut my thumb on and had to go find a band-aid). I think I got so obsessed with touching objects that I forgot it was a dream again. -_-'
1. I'm a wolf, and my friends are a hawk, a snake, a mouse, and a bulldog. My friends get captured, stuffed, and put in display cases, and I somehow manage to rescue and revive them. There are further adventures, but I don't remember them. 2. I'm at a toy store that only opens when a certain road is clear. There are all sorts of realistic stuffed animals, massive amounts of My Little Pony figures, and wind-up Tachikoma. I take too long deciding what I want to buy and get kicked out right when I was about to pay. 3. I have a non-speaking role in a really weird play where the other actors are the Marx Brothers and the Martian Manhunter. I somehow end up winning a second-place medal for my acting. 4. Some girl gives me a big tin of Valentine's Day candy - caramel-filled chocolate hearts wrapped in red foil. But whenever I talk to her, thinking we're friends, she doesn't want anything to do with me. 5. Various last-day-of-school goings-on.
1. Something about a truck full of macaroni and cheese. 2. One of my friends comes to visit, and we go to a restaurant. 3. Ginger ale and watermelons are illegalized in Nebraska, and I do all sorts of strange stunts in order to make them legal again. 4. My house back in my old-old town is all dark and creepy. I'm looking at my reflection in the upstairs television, and get so creeped out that - without even RCing - I decide that I'm dreaming. I keep shouting that I want everything to be normal, normal, normal, normal... but instead of normal, I get a pair of poofy shorts. So I change plans and figure that instead of normal, I should be Sora from Kingdom Hearts. I give myself the wacky hair, the outfit, the pendant, and the Keyblade, and then I wander into the basement waving my weapon (which occasionally turns floppy like a rubber toy) wherever I want there to be light. 5. I'm Robin, helping Batman on a mission. I get special gloves and boots to prevent electric shock so that I can get through buildings with electrified floors. Batman keeps getting injured, and I have to keep finding places to hide him. 6. I'm Batman, trying to get through the city without being noticed. It's dark, and there are guards everywhere. Most of the time, I just use my grappling beam to climb buildings. In one building, there's a woman sitting on a platform suspended from the ceiling, and assorted swings that I use to reach her. She thinks I have ill intentions and begins to threaten me, so I leave. When I'm outside, I hear gunshots and the woman screaming, but I just keep running away instead of going back to help her.
1. Something about taking along an old copy of Return of the King to read on the steps of some building while I'm bored. I don't actually open the book, however, and just wander around reciting the "Arise, riders of Theoden..." speech. 2. Something about petting a raven while it nuzzles me with its beak. (A better bird-encounter than some other dreams I've had - most of them end up nipping or clawing me.) 3. I go to a weird casino with some guys my age. The first game past the entrance involves peeing in a container, and if you can fill it up to a certain line, you have the option of paying for a diamond necklace. Otherwise, you can just dig through a big drawer of prizes - mostly coins, bead strings, feather fans, and pocket watches. Then there are all sorts of prize-grabber games for winning stuffed animals (odd ones at that - tribbles, insects, bats...) and various games that call for special tokens. I'm getting ready to cash out, but what I thought was a $20 bill was actually $20 in foreign currency, and I couldn't figure out the exchange rate. 4. Something about misplacing my Ghost in the Shell messenger-bag. 5. Something about puppies in an enclosure that resembles one of those restaurant play-spaces with tunnels and stuff. I also play with a large silvery-colored hamster that lives in a wire birdcage shaped like a house. 6. Something about trying to weave a basket out of pink fleece and sewing pins.
1. A hotel where half of the guests act as butlers for the other guests. 2. A swimming pool full of confetti launchers that activate when you step on them. 3. Trying to put on stage makeup in the basement of the house in my old-old town. 4. Going to summer camp. 5. A bunch of girls invite me to a "het slumber party" on the stage of the gym in my old high school. Basically, everyone is supposed to sleep in a giant dogpile and prove their straightness by having no physical reactions to doing so. When I get into the dogpile, my pulse starts racing and I start to feel an *ahem* disturbance in the southern regions. To avoid suspicion, I pretend to be sleeping as heavily as the rest of them, but they still catch on and throw me out. 6. A crumbling old hotel. 7. I'm playing some sort of Mario Kart/F-Zero mashup game, and I win every race except the last one, where I come in second.
Updated 01-16-2011 at 08:52 PM by 10472 (meant to click non-lucid instead of nightmare)
So... first dream-bits of the new year. 1. Riding horses to pack down soil that was recently plowed up. 2. Eating entire bags of carrots and celery at a picnic because I didn't want a ham sandwich. 3. A strange version of Bejeweled keeps booting itself and my laptop up. 4. Finding our family's cat, Sophie, in a cabin at a national park that had evidence of a bear break-in. 5. Investigating a strange hotel where the exterior doors all lead to different dimensions. One of my expedition partners has a wolf on a leash. Near one of the doors, there's a falcon of some sort with a reddish-brown back sitting on a dead tree. I say something along the lines of "Hey, Mr. Falcon" and it perches on my arm. As we all head toward the door, I notice a hot orange glow through the cracks of the door. The wolf starts straying in the opposite direction while its handler tries to pull it back toward the door. I ask the falcon if it thinks going through the door is a good idea, and it responds negatively. So instead of exploring that part of the hotel, we end up eating falafel and scrambled eggs from a food cart.
1. Someone projects images of creepy-crawlies all over my walls, and won't let me leave. 2. I can change my curtains by selecting an image on my computer. 3. I'm playing a very strange Mario-meets-Metal-Gear-esque game where Snake has to find and destroy an evil spinning top within a certain amount of time. 4. My friends and I are exploring a bunch of secret doors in my basement, which lead even further down to a fancy bathroom with a bunch of elevators in it. We get into one of them and end up in an elf-village that resembles a casino. There's a currency system where regular coins won't let you play the games, so you have to trade them for special ones by dancing. The leader of the elves kicks my friends out for being human, but for some reason, he allows me to stay. (At which point my alarm wakes me up)
1. My family has a coupon for half-off four cones of premium ice cream. I get some sort of chocolate cookie dough flavor, but toward the end it turns to vanilla with the consistency of cream cheese, and I'm eating it out of a foil wrapper instead of a cone. Dad goes on a rant about someone leaving the bottom tip of a cone on the floor and irrationally blames me, even though I always eat the entire cone. 2. Trying to photograph ocean waves, but getting more interested in a plant on the boat. 3. I'm upset about the concept of some new game. (Something to the order of having Sonic the Hedgehog wash dishes and do housecleaning.) 4. I'm walking home at night in the rain through a maze of sidewalks, courtyards, and imposing Victorian architecture. I get to a house that is apparently mine, and head up to the bathroom, while telling my butler (apparently I have a butler in this dream) to have a fresh change of clothes ready. I get undressed, but before I can take my bath, I have to break a bunch of gems that represent some enemy. I'm about to break the last one, but it's chained to one that represents me, and if I break it, it would kill me. So instead, I pull a sword out of my chest (Revolutionary Girl Utena-style) and use it to slice the chain. Then there's a copy of myself on the floor in agony as part of her face breaks into purple light. I kneel down to hold her still and comfort her until it's over. 5. I'm at an anime convention, but I can't find the dealer's hall. The artist's alley is a set of bleachers with the different artists progressively higher on the benches in proportion to their prices. There's a room with food, but I wasn't allowed in, because they said it was "exchange only" - you have to bring food to trade for theirs. But it was all potatoes and zucchini anyway, so I wasn't missing much. I also wander into an art installation where there's a big screen behind you that shows your silhouette in trails of color as you move around (something I remember from the Lincoln Children's Museum when I was a kid, and miss dearly - curse the "adults must be accompanied by at least one child" rule!). I spend a lot of time playing, because I'd probably never get the chance to relive those memories again. When I'm done, the person in charge of the installation invites me to a ballet, but it's scheduled for several months after the convention, at which point I'd be in a different state.
Something about... 1. A woman using a spell that petrifies people and binds their spirit guides. 2. A sheet music book with a lot of unusual selections (like "The Hounds" by The Protomen) 3. Working out on some really weird weight equipment, and then being unable to choose a drink afterward. 4. A room full of pinball tables that functioned a bit more like skeeball machines with ball bearings. A stuck-up lady was protesting a table that depicted some sort of mountain because said mountain got covered in trash. 5. Looking for interesting things at a thrift store. There was a neat black hair-bow with a cute-ified skull bead on it that I liked, but it was attached to a not-so-neat baseball cap. 6. Being stuck outside in a tornado and trying to get to the shelter, which was a combination of a hospital and a huge preschool. And then it turns out that anyone who seeks shelter there has to stay until they graduate, sometimes even after.