Giant Dinosaur Mask

I was in a convention in a really nice hotel in Hawaii or someplace tropical, and I was surprised to see that a woman was walking out of the convention lobby with something that looked like a purse, but also like a large alien pod. It was clear with sharp wavy triangular tentacles, and it glowed red at intervals. It was beautiful, but I was scared because at first I thought it was a bomb. When her husband arrived, he was wearing a HUGE triceratops mask made of the same clear and glowing material. When I expressed my surprise at his mask, he said, "Well, if you're in danger, and it might be some time before any help comes, these come in handy." Then I was almost awake, but still dreaming. I decided to go back into the dream and see if I could fly. I was back in the dream, and I was flying, but it was hard to fly with my eyes open because if I opened my eyes I would really wake up. It was wonderful to fly with my eyes only slightly open.

Reykjavik, mostly

I was at an event where a large group of people were dancing some martial arts style dance.  I was somehow nominated to choose a team of dancers from the group so I had to pay attention to each person and it was a lot of pressure.  Then I was with a group of people from college, at a friend's wedding reception.  Everyone was split up into small rooms and "the cool crowd" was jam-packed into a room.  I decided to boycott the cool crowd because it was so overcrowded and competitive to get a drink and the bride & groom's attention.  I was a little bit pouty about it.

Then I was with a large group of friends and we found out we were going to Reykjavik, Iceland in a few hours.  It was a ridiculous idea but no one wanted to miss the opportunity.  So we got packed up to go.  As we flew over Iceland, I asked "Is this real?" because we were in small planes, the size of about 3 rollercoaster cars.  It was beautiful - clear skies, mountains, a lush green landscape below.  I kept thinking of Bjork and how it made so much sense that she was from here.  It was strange that there was no sign of volcanic ash in the sky and that we were cleared to fly.  I actually thought maybe we were on a 3-D ride at Disneyworld because these planes or helicopters were so small and rollercoaster-like.  They were so small that we were even able to zip through Reykjavik downtown and see shops, restaurants and cobblestone roads.  It looked like a great city.  At the hostel, our group bustled around finding our rooms and settling in.  Reem was there and wanted to watch a Cameron Diaz movie.  She kept asking others if it was a good movie, as she was really skeptical.  But she really wanted to watch it.  I remember thinking how lame it was that I was dreaming about a Cameron Diaz movie instead of dreaming of exploring Reykjavic on account of Reem.

Scary Sexy Superheros

I was in the woods with 3 friends. I don't know who they were. We were camping, but then saw some terrifying things. Evil Superheros were gathering, all in amazing costumes, flying, and easily killing things. We decided to join them and be spies. I had to wear a hat and wig so they wouldn't recognize me as not one-of-them. We did a "practice run" of evil, that was surprisingly easy. We had to kill some small animals and I found that in this group's presence I could kill easily and even fly a little. Not bad! The woods we were hanging out in were really scary, with haunted trees and caves. These evil scary superheros were actually pretty cool. The leader was an extremely sexy woman. I came up to her and whispered in her ear that I would love to sleep with her and that I was really awesome in bed. Really. Somehow that worked, and she said, "Okay meet me at 3pm on Friday and we'll do it then." When the time came I was very excited and kept adjusting my hat and wig, and started to worry that she would find out that I was a mere mortal and not a superhero, though still good in bed. Unfortunately, she didn't show up.

reception and flying

mike and i were at a wedding reception, i think, with our favorite band and their girlfriends and crew.  they were guests, too.  we were all dressed up, sipping cocktails in a giant, old ballroom, having a grand time.  good ol' friendsies. 

the next day i was snooping around the venue and was in a large office-y storage area.  it was all white with lots of windows wrapped around it and some desks and boxes scattered here and there.  somehow, i realized that i could fly.  i sort of leaped off something and soared by curving my spine and arms.  i believe this was based on a real-life experience where i tried one of those sky-diving simulators and you bend and arch and such to speed your fall or slow it down. 

the large room had those weird, white ceiling tiles and i accidentally soared up too quickly and bumped into the ceiling which caused the ceiling tiles of the whole room to shift off the grid.  i felt sheepish and quietly left before anyone could come and notice.

when describing this dream to mike today, two uncanny things occurred.  first, when i was trying to compare the ballroom to one he could reference, i couldn't think of the name of the damn eagles ballroom in oskhosh.  he blindly guessed "the eagles?" and i was all, "yeah!."  that was only a little uncanny.  but then!  he said that he had a dream about those white ceiling tiles, last night, too.  ooooooo.  something about installing them.  so we were laying right next to each other dreaming about ceiling tiles.  but i could fly and he couldn't. 

and now, here's a video of my favorite band, state radio.

Lost and a Play

It's a long one...get ready...

I dreamed that I was sitting outside a cabin with a bunch of people. We sat around a fire. I think it was my family and then some people I vaguely knew. Things felt weird, sort of socially uncomfortable, and like people weren't totally happy being there. Some people were having silent disagreements. I was nervous.

I'm not sure how it transitioned into this next part, but somebody told me that my friend C was inside the cabin and he wasn't okay. I thought they meant he was dead. I ran inside to find my brother dozing in and out of sleep on the couch, and my friend C laying on the floor. He looked at me and was crying. He was telling me "I can't do this anymore." Then he was in an old-timey-looking armchair. I held on to him and he cried and sweated and I kissed him on the shoulder. I told him he needed to keep trying other things. The room was dark with only the light flickering from the television, and Emil was there this whole time.

After a really long period of silence, I put my hand over one of his, and they started convulsing insanely. I removed my hand. At this point the entire "foyer" of the cabin filled with my parents and all these strangers, all old fashioned looking. It was like the entire cast of Oliver Twist or something. They kept telling me that it was time, that they'd have to take him. I knew they meant to a mental institution. My mother looked at me sadly and I knew she agreed that he had to go. I screamed and debated and carried on. I don't think I've ever screamed like this in real life. I begged for just a little more time to fix him myself. One man, the ringleader, had an olde timey mustache and tiny, round glasses (he would have talked like "yeah, see? That's the ticket!"). He pointed a black umbrella in the air, and the umbrella grew to be about ten feet long. It had a really sharp point, and I knew they were going to stab C with it if I didn't do anything.

Everything faded out.

All of a sudden, I'm at an effing play with my family, sitting in the front row. I couldn't follow the story line, but there were a ton of princes, and it may have been loosely based around Cinderella. The evil stepmother was dressed like I Dream of Jeanie, but in green. At the end of the play, there was a "Procession of Queens," one from each country of the world. I tried to identify them by their outfits, but the only one I was sure of was The Queen of the North Pole because she was dressed all in red with white furry accents, a la Santa Claus.

After that, one of the actresses leaned right over my mother. My mother put each of her index fingers on the actresses shoulders and gently pushed her away. "Wait," the actress mouthed to my mother. I looked up to see C, about to fly on stage on a zip line. He wore a white undershirt and black pants. He flew in, right behind this actress, and landed in front of us, but there was definitely no zip line - this guy was flying, for real. The final dance number happened, and C beat on this drum and on the floor and on the railing that separated us, all with his bare hands, and cried from happiness. He looked straight at my mother and thanked her over and over again.

After the play, I found myself walking alone, trying to get somewhere in Chicago. I saw the river and walked alongside it, but got terribly lost. I kept asking people which direction was west, and people would laugh, or be like "Oh you're WAY off," or tell me to find Boston Rd. And one man told me that we were too remote. "I just want to know which way is west!" I said, almost crying. "I'm having a really hard day!" He ignored me and walked away.

I finally went into a 7-11 or something like it and talked to the manager. He was about 22 or so and had really curly blonde hair. I also told him that I was having a hard day. He was really nice and gave me a free ice cream and walked outside with me for awhile. He pointed me in a direction under a tunnel and told me to find Boston Rd. He said once I found Boston Rd, I'd be fine. He also gave me his card so that we could see each other again. I walked for what seemed like hours, feeling really alone and lost and unsure until I finally saw the Chicago skyline and felt better. At least I recognized something...

I woke up to a piercing smoke alarm and felt sad and exhausted for awhile. But looking back now, the funny parts are really effing funny, you know? And C in a musical? Awesome.

Birds Inside

I dreamed that there were three different birds inside my home. One was yellow, one was a female cardinal, and one was a male cardinal. The apartment was filled with these double-door combinations...like a main door and a screen door. It made chasing them outside very difficult.

Mostly I tried to ignore that the birds were inside, because I have a really hard time with flying things indoors (bats, birds, whatever). But once in awhile I'd try and coax them outside.

At one point, the yellow one was perched on the outside screen door, trying to get outside but not quite making it. I stood about 6 inches from it and realized how tiny it was. I thought about how if I held it in one hand, I'd probably crush it. After I stared at it for awhile, it finally flew away.

Going to India

I dreamed I was on a plane heading for India. I was with my parents and siblings and we were all put in different rows of the plane. The plane was huge; there were three seats on either side of the plane like a usual giant plane, but in the middle, the row must have held about 10 seats. My mother was in the middle of that, I was on one of the sides, and my sister was a few rows behind me.

I mostly remembered the food they served because we got a choice of caesar salad or "other," which was the same as caesar but with no dressing. I got regular and regretted it. The rest of it was mushy piles of things in other colors. I think it's funny because everybody on the plane was really mad and grossed out about having to eat Indian food on the plane. My mom stood up in the middle of the row of seats, hands on her hips, exasperated look on her face. I think she was trying to lead a protest or something. But we were going to India, guys! What gives?

At one point, there were rumors flying around about how the pilot was considering stopping randomly to pick up one woman in another country. Everybody was mad about this. Right when our food was being served, the place took a sudden nosedive. I could see that we were landing at some airport (I somehow had a view looking straight out the front of the plane) and as the plane went down, I made some strange noises and said really quietly and bored-ly "nooooo..." We stopped in "Europe" and let on like 8 guys who looked exactly the same: big and fat and hairy. My father complained to somebody at the airport saying it wasn't fair that we were paying all this money and these guys got to ride for free. I started to go to stop him, but Emil stopped me. "It's for the workers," he told me. Dad's arguing to get them a better wage."

Later, when we were in India, I couldn't ever decide what to wear, and every time we got in a car and drove somewhere, I could see us (kind of in a cartoon-y way) on an actual map, a tiny car following a line from one city to the next. It was hot in India, and we all had a ton of cell phones that we made a lot of calls on.

Later, I was playing cards (Gin, or Rummy 500, or whatever you want to call it - I don't know) and I bet "my mother's ring," which really was just this giant purple tacky ring I own. This bitchy girl won it, but I was like "no way, asshole, that's my mother's ring." She was mad and told me "You knew this game was for real." But I refused. The cops came, and all of a sudden there were people everywhere, and I think maybe a few dead bodies...yuck.

Flying and Trying

I love dreams in which I can fly. I have them pretty regularly and they are awesome. I feel very free and easy and can go way up high and go really fast. Last night I was trying to prove to someone that I could fly but I couldn't! I pointed my chin up to the ceiling and struggled but it was exhausting and at most I could only get about 2 inches off the floor. Finally I got a little bit better but it was still much harder than the usual flying dreams. I think it was because I was trying so hard. Usually it just happens without much effort. There's probably a lesson in there.

Dead Cat Shrine

I was invited to write on this blog many moons ago but sadly almost NEVER remember my dreams. Not nearly enough to write about them.

But last night...

I was travelling through the woods and came across a vampire. I was scared but found that I could fly effortlessly up and away. I flew to a house in which there was a VERY attractive housekeeper. She was tall and blond and had some type of accent. She was cooking food for herself and some of her housekeeper co-workers. I was very drawn to her so I tried talking with her but was awkward. She showed me an elaborate gravestone/shrine she had created for her cat. Her cat was not dead yet, but she knew it would die eventually so she was prepared. Then the vampire returned and I realized the vampire was my girlfriend and I was a vampire slayer. Our love was misunderstood and dangerous on many levels. We embraced and I returned to the kitchen to find that there was a woman who died in that room. The housekeeper and her co-workers who had been milling about were all gone. So I scraped the food she had been cooking down the drain.

Getting Places

I dreamed that I was with Sarah L. in Chicago and we had to get across town to go see DeVotchKa. We looked up and saw the Eiffel Tower, which meant that we had a long way to go. Sarah started flying. "Can't you just fly me too?" I asked? She did. It was awesome. She did it effortlessly.

Later, I was tricked into going into a warehouse where a man was making a map of where the strippers should walk on stage. They each had their own territories, marked in different color markers. One of my friends tried to escape out this back door but the door slammed shut and I think it's possible that her hand got cut off...

Then there was a basketball game in the warehouse, but I was next to the bleachers, kind of underneath and could only hear - not see - what was going on in the game. There was a teenage girl talking to the point guard on the team. "Let's go to the top of the bleachers so we'll be able to see better," he said, and she followed. "They're not trying to see better," I whispered to nobody in particular. "They're on a date."

I finally got outside the warehouse and Emil picked me up in his blue car. We drove under the L tracks and somehow "by accident" we ended up just having parked the car in a garage. We told the guy working there that we needed it back so we could go see Moby. He was Italian, and friendly, and he got us to the car right away. As we drove, Emil pointed to the dashboard. "Good," he said, "look how many Saturday Night Live episodes downloaded while we were in there! We can watch them on the way home." He pointed his finger towards what I assumed it would be a number, but I looked, and it was the letter R. "Seventeen episodes!" I said. "Not bad!"