Keys to Dreams

The other morning I was getting dressed and announced to my honey that I was going to wear my kuffiyeh print dress. By saying just those words he all of a sudden remembered his dream from that night which he otherwise had forgotten about (it involved the loss of sandwiches and a face covered in a kuffiyeh).

He then remarked that he thought that maybe all dreams have keys. The keys are words or sights that can open up what might otherwise be in a locked part of our memory. He said that he thinks that each key has a limited life, and if they aren't uttered or seen within a certain amount of time they disappear forever, rendering that dream inaccessible.

I loved this concept and had to share it with other dream weavers.

tiny little apartment

Ok so here is my first addition to this blog and I hope it may just go to show that I am as crazy as my cousins are, if not crazier. So I haven’t seen my GF in awhile because I have been fucking overloaded with family shit, so maybe I am a little backed up and my mind is running around like crazy. Or maybe I am just always going to permanently be a 13 year old boy inside of my head, but recently I have been having some crazy weird dreams that almost always revolve around some sexual activity in some way.

Last night I was on my way up this boring bland looking gray tall apartment building, it almost looked like the projects, but without any violence. So I go into my apartment, which I just moved into. I walk into the room and it is about 12 ft x 14 ft and this is the whole apartment. There is a desk in front of me that takes up most of the wall, there is a queen size bed to my right and it has the headboard against the wall with the door that I just entered (basically head board towards the hallway and the foot of the bed towards the desk) there is a small gap between the foot of the bed and the desk for me to shimmy across the room. On the other side of the bed against the same wall that the headboard is against there is another door. I look at the bed and my roommate is already tucked into bed ready to go to sleep, she has black hair and light skin but her face is covered.

I start unpacking my backpack and I spill over a container of sewing needles and other types of pins, I bend down to start picking them up and I step on one. “FUCK!!” I yell, “That shit hurt”. Now my roommate peeks her head up from the covers and she has a really soft and pretty face, she looks so familiar but I cannot put my finger on what her name is and why I know her, but I know her face so well. She asks what the problem is and I say, “I stepped on a fucking pin now my foot is bleeding. I need to wash my foot off” So I start looking for the bathroom. Obviously there isn’t one in this room so I look out the door I just came in, it goes back into the hallway but I don’t see a bathroom out there, I wonder if this is like all of those hostiles where you have to share a bathroom with everyone on your floor. I go to the other door and I open it and it also leads to the hallway, now I am getting more and more angry by the second I think to myself “Why the fuck are there two doors in this tiny shitty ass apartment that both lead to the hallway.” I ask my roommate “Where the hell is the bathroom in this place?” Without even opening her eyes she sleepily gestures to the corner and says “they said there was one, I think it is over there” pointing at the opposite corner of where I have entered. This is the wall where the desk is, the desk ends about 3 ft before the corner, and then there is a small metallic sink (like the ones in a jail cell). I go closer and upon further inspection, I see that there is a toilet seat that folds out of the wall and when I look up, there is a shower head attached to the wall above my head and a drain down by my feet. Also there are these two pieces of sheet metal that come out of the wall to form like an L against the wall, but they are on hinges and swing like the doors from the saloons in the old Westerns. These pieces of metal are about 1 foot off of the floor and only about 2 feet high, they form a square where apparently I am expected to stand and shower. So I am looking at this sad little shower and then all of a sudden I just strip down naked. Then my roommate sits up out of bed and with an extremely shocked tone and says “what the hell are you doing?” I say to her “Well if we’re going to be using this tiny shower in this tiny apartment then we might as well just get used to seeing each other naked. So why not just be naked all the time”. She didn’t really have anything to say against that but she did keep her clothes on. Then I started thinking to myself, well if I’m going to be sharing this bed and this apartment with this woman and we are going to be naked all the time, then we might as well be messing around. Until now, she was just my roommate and nothing else. So I walk over to her in the bed and I pull her up out of the bed and I start softly kissing her. She starts to kiss me back and then in a kind of slow withdrawal she tries to pull away but I pull her closer and start kissing her again. Then she pulls away and says “No we can’t do this, we can’t be together”, I question her “Why not?” she responds “Because, if it doesn’t work out, how are we going to live in this apartment together? We wouldn’t be able to live together in harmony and I can’t have you moving out, I can’t afford to pay for this place on my own” So I am standing there with her in my arms and I am perplexed thinking to myself, how much can this shit hole really cost and what the hell is our rent, cause I know I can afford better than this. For some reason I didn’t know what our rent was, but I knew I wanted her as my roommate.

So our dialogue continues but that part of the dream gets a little shaky, I know that I was trying to convince her that it would be ok and that it would work out but she keeps resisting. Somehow the idea is presented that I can prove it to her that we will work out. All of a sudden the dream jumps locations to the roof of the apartment complex, where we have the mattress with us up there. We are lying on the mattress naked but under the covers and we are in the middle of a blizzard. It’s freezing up there and we are both shivering and I’m saying that if we can survive this then we can survive anything. Then a big gust of wind blows by and slams the door to the building shut. I try to pry it open but it seems like it is frozen closed. So now we are stuck on this roof and we are both freezing to death. I notice that on the next roof over, there are construction workers working on a roof top (also for some reason there is no snowstorm on that roof), I tell her that I will hide behind the chimney and she should stand up and get their attention. If they see a half naked gorgeous woman on top of a roof they are bound to rush on over and save her. But if they think she is involved with someone then they might not come to help. So she stands up, with the blanket wrapped around her like a towel and she starts shouting at the construction workers to come and help her. Finally she gets their attention and one of them comes running out onto the roof, I’m hiding behind the door and when he runs through I grab him from behind and hold a knife to his neck. The door has closed and locked behind us again, so I start yelling at his other buddies that they need to come and let us off of the roof right away. Immediately they come and help pry the door open while the wind is blowing it closed, they struggle with opening it while I try to chip the ice away from the door jam with my knife, we finally get the door open and THAT is when I wake up to the sound of my alarm clock.

This morning on my way to work I was so damn perplexed by that dream, and I kept thinking to myself about it over and over. So I decided I would put it on Reem’s blog as soon as I got to work, I would put it on paper so that I wouldn’t forget it. And I kept thinking to myself who was that girl, who was that girl, I know her face, I’ve seen it before. And then all of a sudden it hit me right before I got to work. It was………………. Ally Sheedy, the young version, she played Alison Reynolds (the pale girl with the dark hair) from the Breakfast Club. How fucking weird is that, I guess I always really had a thing for her. Oh well, so that is my crazy long dream which took me all night to dream and all morning to type up. Sorry if there is too much swearing but the FCC can't sensor my dreams or silence my inner voice. BOOYAH!!

Haunted by Georgia Politicians

I keep dreaming about politicians. Which I know is sorta like "duh" considering my line of work- politics for your suckers who don't know me. Nevertheless, even for me its too much.

I dreamed about Bob Barr the other night. He was wearing a super sharp suit that I later realized was the same wone worn by civil rights leader Rev. Tim MacDonald last weekend- royal blue with white pinstripes, an ivory vest with big gold buttons (to match the gold watch chain), and a teal and royal blue striped tie. I turned to my friend and said "You know, Bob Barr's stylist is a genius for shopping at stores for black men. So much more... je ne sais quoi." Are you kidding me? Je ne sais quois?? Yikes.

Then I had another dream that Vernon Jones was courting my parents to try to get an endorsement from them. I burst into their little barbeque yelling about "We're a Jim Martin family! He's Jack's brother!"

So passionate. Jeez.

Squirrels and Magic Wands

This is a dream I had back in April.

Tom and I were doing something outside in the back yard. I'm not sure what prompted this but we decided to tie a squirrel to my bird feeder and send it up into the air (like a balloon). We tied him on to the top and let him float up into the air. There was no balloon, I just let go of the bird feeder and it floated into the air. We watched him float slowly up into the air criss crossing the sky in long sweeping movements. We watched him float slowly up through the trees. I commented to Tom that his silhouette looked funny against the sky, like the stereotypical squirrel image.

I then realized that I wouldn't get my bird feeder back and started to regret sending it up in the air. It was the bird feeder Tom got me for my birthday. Then Tom and I started to go after it. We started walking after it and then all of a sudden we were floating. We started to float into the air and after the squirrel and bird feeder. We followed the squirrel at a distance and floated slowly up past the trees and up into the sky. We went higher and higher after the squirrel. We saw planes go by and moved higher past them. I looked down and saw that we were now above a huge lake. The squirrel then started to float back down and we started floating down after it. We got closer and closer to the water until finally we dropped in.

I swam my way to the surface and saw that I was floating in the midst of tons of black and white magic wands. Like the kind magicians use. I looked around and saw Tom splashing in the distance. Further in the distance there were big planes on the water too. Finally I saw the bird feeder in the distance and swam over to it. I grabbed it and Tom and I started swimming for the shore. We go to the shore and sat there looking out onto the water of magic wands and planes. I asked Tom if he saw the planes we passed in the sky.

And that was it.

Mugged by Justin Timberlake

This comes from my 9 year old student, Riley:

I dreamt that I was talking to this really really short person who was in the play with me. She complimented me, and then her arms grew really long.

Then I was playing with 4 of my friends, and Sam (her neighbor) got eaten by the school bus.

Then I was with my mom at a family reunion barbecue and she was like "well good, because I don't want to get mugged by Justin Timberlake!"

omg.

Hundreds More

I dreamt I was in this cutesy vintage store with a lot of sun coming in through the windows. I mostly browsed purses. Then I went to the back of the store where there was a small pen with heating lamps over it, and inside, a bunch of baby chickens. Most were yellow but a few were black. There was a sign next to it that said something like "if this was in real life, there would be hundreds more in here."

One black chick was running around on the floor outside the pen and it hid under my pant leg. Incidentally, I was wearing giant bell bottom jeans. It kept hiding and I kept trying to shake it out. Then a skinny black cat spotted it and started stalking it. The chick disappeared, but the cat started trying to get me. It bit me a bunch of times on the foot, and then bit me on the hand. I complained to the store owner who replied "Well, what do you expect me to do?"

Pony Party

I dreamt I was at this party in a warehouse. Scott from the Onion was on the phone, taking a call from his boss, and learning he had just "got the job!" We had to be quiet though, so as to make sure he still had the job officially.

I go outside and there are all of these cars pulling up full of people. One, I think it was a Chrysler LeBaron without a roof, held four people in the front seat. Two sat in the front middle; Zach and Sean. They were both red-faced and laughing and wearing all fluorescent colors. When I saw the colors, I asked "oh...is this a pony party?" They laughed and replied "Of course it's a pony party."

There was a police raid. People lit off fireworks on the side of the warehouse to try and distract them. People were being searched. I slid out the side door and joined the pony party and somehow got out of getting searched.

Then I'm in my high school with Sherin, who is my "group leader." The other person in my group is Daniel, the brother of an old friend of mine. Daniel won't talk to me. He has a lip piercing, only it is a stud and spells out the name "Bill" in gold cursive letters. It's long and awkward and doesn't look right. Bill was the name of his father who passed away (in the dream. In real life his name was Steven and he did die). Sherin, in her attempts to moderate and make us get along, persuaded me to tell Daniel the story about my father and pacha (Middle Eastern "delicacy") and the restaurant at the top of the hotel. I have no idea what this story is, but it worked and Daniel laughed and we were able to work together, and Sherin sighed and checked something off on her clipboard with the attached pen, and we walked up the main stairwell.

 

THE Shark Recurring Dream

I have had this dream at least once a year since I was a little kid. The event that sparked the first time was a trip to the Jaws exhibit at Universal Studios in California. Man that scared the hell out of me.

My sister and I are at the pool with our father. We are next to the diving pool which is square-shaped and very deep. There are two massive sharks in it that take up the length of the pool. There is a guy there dressed in what can be best described as carnie-clother - red and white striped hat and vest, white pants - and he is in charge of this rather flimsy looking lever. The lever has two directions: good and evil. When the lever is on good, the sharks are still, barely moving, almost like they are "off". When its on evil, te sharks become viscious, bloodthirsty.

Each time I have the dream it goes a little differently, but everytime what happens is:

1. Dad slips and falls in the pool
2. I run over to the lever. Its stuck on Evil.
3. I try to pull the lever back to Good but it breaks off in my hands.

Screams, then I wake up. I was afraid to swim in pools for a few years as a kid.

Fire Alarm

a dream i had a month ago

i roll into a parking lot in a white scion x-a, like the one vic has. i leave my stuff in there and take a walk on a road that looks similar to roads on the east coast. i see eli there and we stop and chat about bikes. i continue walking and get on a school bus where i am teased and brought to tears by three girls on the bus. i get off the bus at a school where my whole family is. i tell them about how i was bullied and they try to comfort me. an alarm goes off and everyone is told to go to the basement of the school. animals have taken over the school. specifically puppies, some cats, a bunch of those little monkeys, but we fear the over sized chimps. we start pulling down the ceiling tiles inspecting for the animals. i help bring down one of the little monkeys. it sits on my shoulder and wraps its tail around me in a non-threating way. like it was scared too. at this point, this is the first time i ever remember smelling something in my dreams. and the little monkey on my shoulder smells TERRIBLE. and i cant wait to get it off me. while pulling down more ceiling tiles we accidentally find a chimp asleep. someone with a tranquilizer comes and gets him in the palm of his foot. a call over the speaker, we are allowed to return to the rest of the school. but we get up there and there are still animals all over the place.

Teeth and Barack

I had a dream where all my teeth were falling out. I was so freaked out and kept telling myself in my dream that if I just woke up it would be okay. I have weird teeth dreams every couple years.

In the middle of the dream I look up from my handful of newly lost teeth and see Barack Obama was there. I'm not sure but it looked to me like he was showing off his pearly whites. What a diva!

In Bed with the Rats

this is actually from 4/11/08

I had a set of awful dreams last night - the kind where you wake up, tell yourself it isn't real, then fall back asleep and dream the whole same damn thing all over again.

My dream was that I was in this courtyard and I was trying to get to a legislator's house. I don't know who the legislator is but there is a sense of urgency that if I don't get there something terrible will happen.

In the dream I'm wearing my super cute vintage green heels and I have to hop around all these dark spots on the path. As I move forward, I start to think that the spots are blood. Ick. As I get closer I realize that what I am seeing are the decapitated (for lack of better words) tails of rats. Vomit.

I am literally playing hopscotch trying to avoid the rat pieces that are multiplying by the moment, trying to keep my lunch down. Finally I reach a house that would otherwise be beautiful if it wasn't covered in dead rat mass. There was a veranda framed by wisteria- but hell, even the beauty and fragrance of wisteria can't cover up this mess.

When I walk inside the house, I feel a formidable sense of dread. There is nowhere to sit down or move to- as now I can see where the rat bodies previously attached to the tails have accumulated.

I am scared, nervous, apprehensive. I'm about to meet someone who is bad enough that they would actually live in this hellhole.

Around the corner of the room peeks Georgia Speaker of the House Glenn Richardson. That's when I wake up in terror, drenched.

Mozart

I dreamt I was playing the Mozart Sonata in F Major, K 322, first movement, note for note, and couldn't get the trills and I thought to myself about how that high school girl was playing it better than me the other day. In real life, the phone woke me up and it was NPR, asking for money. That seems fitting.

Thick, Thick Gravy

*Actually from Sunday, January 7, 2007*

I dreamt I was trying to run, and I can never run in my dreams because it feels like slow motion. Like running through gravy. Thick, thick gravy.

So I realized that if I ran backwards, I would go at a normal speed. When I woke up, I was really excited about my revelation, and now will remind myself before I go to sleep at night that if I am running in my dream, I will need to turn around and run backwards. 

Also I dreamt that I was teaching a preschool class and there were 3-4 year old versions of the following people: Webster (aka Emmanual Lewis), Kenan Thompson (of the Saturday Night Live, Goodburger, and Kenan and Kel fame), and one of my students. My lesson plan included asking the question "What is the hardest thing?" My student answered "dealing with environmental activists."

Challenge!

I dreamt that I was in a large empty room with people standing about 3 feet apart, very evenly spread across the room. The Doorman was there, with a brohawk and darker hair than usual. He wore a black pinstriped suit and shiny black shoes. He began tap dancing. He was excellent. He would tap dance his way over to various people, challenging them to try and top him. He would do a short, 10 - 20 second routine, and then raise his arm in a grand arc above his head, and follow it down to the ground, where he would then touch the tip of his pointer finger to the toe of another's shoe, and proclaim "Challenge!" He did this to one man in particular who wore a similar pinstriped suit, a bowtie, and white patent leather shoes.

Later, all the people were in a different, smaller room with unfinished wood shelves lining the walls. Several men were performing an AC/DC song on acoustic guitars. I can't remember which one. Then two women got up and started performing the song "Pirates" by Mr. Gnome on two acoustic guitars, but it sounded exactly like the full band version. Both of their voices came together as just one. Everybody left the room except for me. I listened to the rest of the song.

The Company You Keep

I dreamt that local radio talk show hosts Connie and Fish were interviewing me on their show, most likely because I was a famous pop star. I answered all of their questions calmly and professionally. Finally they asked me if I had anything else to add, to which I replied "Yes I do." I then proceeded to yell at Fish because he is sexist and homophobic, and I told him "You should watch the company you keep." That sentence was meant to express the fact that a lot of impressionable young kids listen to his show, and that he should be a better role model. It summed it all up.

One Second Time Machine

This is a blog of dreams. Several different people are contributing.

The One Second Time Machine was one of the inventions that Stéphane gives Stéphanie in the movie The Science of Sleep.

These are dreams we have when we sleep, by the way. These are definitely not hopes and dreams. Don't be fooled.