Dream between 2:30am and 9:30am on December 11th, 2009

I often have dreams about the end of the world, but today's was more disturbing than normal.

Dream:

One of the first things I remember acknowledging in the dream is that it was in fact an end of the world dream. I'm typically the hero in such dreams, but I noticed that it was in fact Travis that would be the hero this time. That scenario quickly died out, as I ended up being the "hero" of this awful dream.

The world was rife with pandemonium. People were killing each other gruesomely in public and pillaging aplenty. I was given we dream denizens referred to as the "World Nuke" by someone, or something. It an ominous bomb, black and red with a detonation attachment that was attached to a small cord. The purpose of the World Nuke was apparently - to destroy the world. People seemed to know about this, thus the unspeakable self-created Armageddon that boiled and seethed all around me.

It was my goal to keep the World Nuke safe and out of the hands of people who would use it. My e-mail team brethren were there to help me, but after much running away from bad guys in a crowded apartment building and a daring bus escape, it was down to just me and Ray. Sometime in between, someone asked (perhaps even me asking) if I should just give the World Nuke to Obama, or sell it to China. It was the general consensus that doing either would be terrible.

The dream ended with an unsavory scene. Ray's mom was in an apartment building that was being ransacked, so we rushed to it to save her. We found her in bed and were glad that she was safe. As we were breathing sighs of relief, a shadow fell over her and her heart began beating out of her chest. It doing so in bursts, swelling up and out like a grotesque balloon before finally rupturing in a spray of blood. What a lovely way to start the day.

Dreams between 3am and 9:30am on December 9th, 2009

I've been lax about updating this lately because the dreams that I've remembered over the past few days have been short. In one, my boss Bill Zuver came to the house for tea to talk about something. Then it was suddenly Silent Hill, and I was helping two young women find shelter. One of the "monsters" just looked like a guy with white make-up on. It made it all the more unsettling to hit him repeatedly in the head with a metal pipe until he died.

The night before last I had a dream that I was at some hybrid of work and school - I was in a cafeteria but it was full of work people. Then it became a bar at some point. I had a really hard time breathing. I would take a breath and get just enough air, but not enough to fully fill my lungs. It was very unpleasant. On to last night's dreams.

Dream #1:

This was a bizarre hybrid of work and some feel-good family TV show. I was living with my mom and little brother in this three story house along with my boss Mel and some dream person. One of the duties we had to fulfill was writing down activities where we "go the extra mile." It's one of those difficult-to-explain dream logic scenarios.

Anyway, we all determined that my little brother (who in the dream was about seven or eight years old) was doing all of the chores and work. He was walking with cherry lip balm making sure that our lips weren't chapped. When he went downstairs to apply some to mom's lips, he came back up and said that she wasn't talking or some strange thing.

I went downstairs to see what the deal was and found the carpet to be littered with red splotches. Some of them obviously from the cherry lip balm being pressed against the rug - I made a mental note to scold my brother about it - but there were spots of a darker red that were worrisome. I only assumed that they were globs of wax that dripped from a candle onto the floor.

When I opened the door to my mom's room, she was just lying on her bed, still and quiet with my brother standing next to her. Before toddling off, he said something, I can't remember exactly what, that worried me.

I went to find the others in the house but everyone was gone. I began to panic, and dialed 911. The operator wasn't very receptive to my call, and I ended up putting her on hold after I found that my mom was in a laundry room putting things away. When I tried to talk to her she told me to go away. Also, she had become Sarah Jessica Parker. What in this dream is scarier?

Dream #2:

In this dream, I was on an adventure with Link. We were searching for treasure, and I found a talking scarecrow who gave me some hints on where we were supposed to go next. There was another anime-looking guy with us with scruffy dark hair and wearing sort of samurai robe. I remember him being comically exasperated.

Dream #3:
The last dream was me watching a video of Vanilla Ice beatboxing. That's it. Sigh.

Dream between 2:30am and 9:30am on December 2nd, 2009

I slept like a log last night.

Dream:

All I can remember from this is going into the basement of my old house in Illinois to help Dave with laundry. There was a lot more too it, but I was so out of it when I woke up this morning that I can't recall anything else. I would've skipped the entry today because of it, but the image of Dave standing in my old basement working on laundry sticks out massively.

Dreams between 3am and 1:15pm on November 30th, 2009

I've had several dreams that were interesting over the past few nights but they evaporated before I had time to write them down. One of them involved a small, grinning man whom I shared a bed with on the deck of a pirate ship. Another had something to do with me working for a porn magnate (probably Jackie Treehorn) at my old elementary school. Oh, well. That's the way the bee bumbles.

Dream:

Julia and I were walking through the extremely sunny landscapes of Africa dressed in our full wedding regalia. We were trying to find our way to where our wedding would take place, but we kept getting lost. We started out in a lightly-vegetated jungle with a map that wasn't of much help. I asked the random people scattered throughout if they could show me my destination, which was some African-sounding name that I can't remember outside of the dreamscape.

After we were put on the right track, we found a dusty road that lead us out of the forest and onto the Veldt. There were people walking up and down the path as well as people sitting or working around it. A group of white women walked passed us and said that Julia was too young for me (silly, because we're the same age). Julia found this offensive and I deflected it off on one of the other people in our entourage. On the subject of entourages, most of the people were supposed family members but I didn't recognize any of them.

The path started to go uphill, which caused me much duress about whether or not we would grow too tired to reach our wedding destination. The path forked downhill to a convenience store that we quickly hurried to. My buddy Dane was there, as well as a guy that I used to work with named Bret. Dressed in tuxedos, they were also on their way to our wedding. Dane bought a root beer for Julia and I could tell that it made her uncomfortable as she doesn't drink soda anymore. I took it for myself and offered to buy her a juice. My worry that I would have to pay a foreign transaction fee if I used my debit card in Africa was dashed when I saw that the man took American money. We were greatly relieved for the refreshment in the heat. The dream ended when the urge to pee roused me from the Land of Nod.

Dreams between 3:30am and 1:15pm on Thanksgiving 2009

It's been a while since I've been able to remember my dreams as of late. I suppose I just haven't been sleeping long enough.

Dream #1:

I was driving home from work and spied the red and blue flashing of a police car. In real life, this fills me with insurmountable terror, yet in the dream I found it almost humorous. The officer was a balding older man with a light goatee and sunglasses (despite it being dark out). He asked me for my license, registration, and proof of insurance. I dug them up and gave them to him. He seemed very cranky about the whole ordeal, and went away without telling me why he pulled me over. I started to rouse, and the dream faded. I was happy for this - who the hell likes dreaming about being pulled over by the cops?

Dream #2:

I was a what I can only explain as the black equivalent of myself, and I was stranded in this complex with several other people in a horrible dystopian future. We were all fighting to escape, but I don't remember what we were fighting. Robots maybe, I don't know. I remember some of the people with me looked like superheroes, and one of them looked like Tarzan, yet spoke intelligently.

I remember a lot of running around on platforms that overlooked blasted landscapes and fire geysers and rusted metal. All but two of us went to go find an escape pod or ship or something. The other person with me was the spirit of a young black girl. The robot-things were after her and I fought them off with a long metal pipe. When the others came back, they had weapons and started fighting as well. I only remember the Tarzan guy swinging across the platform and burying a broadsword hilt-deep into the wall while trying to get a robot. He claimed that his miss was intentional, but I was skeptical.

When all of the robots were destroyed, everyone made for the escape pod. They said that someone had to stay behind, so I sacrificed myself for the greater good. Then I woke up. Happy Thanksgiving!

Dream between 3:30am and 12:30pm on November 21st, 2009

My dreams have been barely memorable blips lately. The other night I dreamed that I was on the moon, and a huge green moon monster sat on the group of people I was with, squishing them into space goop. Dumb.

Dream:

I know that I had other dreams, but I couldn't remember them. In the only one I do remember, I'm watching an episode of Xena. A menacing creature was attacking Joxer the Mighty. It's body was obscured off-camera with the exception of a large grey tentacle. It was slapping at Joxer, who was blocking with his shield. Xena leaped up onto the tentacle and began stabbing it with a short blade of some fashion. The tentacle writhed around, threatening to throw her off. Some nameless Roman-looking soldier in a red cloak popped out and struck the tentacle with a heavy trident.

The battle went on for a bit before the monster was vanquished. The Roman guy was fatally wounded with a gouge in his side. Xena cast healing magic on it to no avail. It was sad.

Dreams between 1am and 2:30pm on November 17th, 2009

I vaguely remember my dreams from the 16th. Something to do with going to Tom Waits' house. I'm sick again and had a fever last night. After sleeping all day, I feel a lot better. On to the dreams.

Dream Series:

I had the continuous fever dream of there being millions upon millions of little bits in all colors and shapes. They were itty bitty and continuously poured out from some unknown place, filling my field of vision. I believed that it was my job to count them or analyze them, and the endless number of them was driving me crazy. As the night went on and my fever decreased, the pieces began slowing and their numbers shrinking. By about 7am or so, they were almost completely gone. Random shapes would fly by when I closed my eyes trying to go back to sleep throughout the rest of my slumber, but nothing terribly annoying.

Dream #1:

All I can remember from this dream was me being in a building, playing some sort of game. A man that I work with, Steve, was hollering at some Asian guys who were on his team. I couldn't see him, but his voice was booming and he was exceptionally pissed off. He was shouting racist remarks at them, and said something about the Triads. That's all I remember.

Dream #2:

This dream was bittersweet. In it, I was in my old house in Illinois and Nana was still alive. She looked great and her hair was done up nice. She dressed in the clothes she would wear when she would work as a perfume model: a tan jacket with shoulderpads with an ornate, sparkly pin on her lapel, light grey slacks and dangly earrings. She was very happy to see me, of course, as it had been a long time since we had seen each other. Julia was there, and I remember her being in my room on the bed. Also present, for some strange reason, was a man named Patrick that I volunteered with for the Special Olympics, and Andrea. Andrea was laying down some ground rules for something, and telling us all to be careful of a yellow car at the front of the house and a black car at the back of the house.

I peeped out of the window and saw a yellow car parked right outside. There was a man sitting in it, and I think he was smoking a cigarette. I went out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where Nana was washing dishes in some contraption attached to the refrigerator. I went into the back hall and closed the back door, as people driving though the medical building parking lot that was behind our house would be able to see in through the screen door. I got a good view of the basement, which always scared me. There were boxes and clothes scattered about at the foot of the stairs. I let Nana know not to leave the back door open and relayed what Andrea said. She asked about the yellow car up front and I decided to go and ask the man in it why he was in front of our house.

I could see the car through the screen door, but when I walked out onto the front porch, the car was gone and it was snowing like crazy. There were two deer running down the street, their backs covered in snow. From the opposite direction came an enormous jackrabbit that ran by so fast we could feel the woosh of air. In the front yard there was another rabbit, about the size of a small dog or a large cat. It had a hump in its back like a camel. Nana and I were intrigued by it, and she got out her camera. It was a nice digital one, and as is expected with me and a digital camera, I wasn't sure how to work it properly. The camel-rabbit, intrigued by us as well, hopped very close. It kept hopping around, making it difficult for me to get a good picture of it. I was trying to get one of it looking straight at the camera, for that extra "awwwwww" factor, but I was looking at the LCD from a bad angle and couldn't see where I was shooting. The creature was making cute little cooing sounds, and Nana rubbed its ears. It was all very adorable.

We went in the house out of the cold, and I ran into the bedroom to share my excitement for snow. Julia was still sitting on the bed, with a blanket on her lap. Patrick was still there as well. I asked Julia if she liked Illinois better than Oregon, and she said yes. I came and sat in a chair by the bed, next to Patrick. He said that his son gave him a card from me, something I don't remember doing in the dream, and told him that I was a "star child". He said it with awe in his voice, like I was some sort of chosen one. How off was he, huh?

Patrick left, and I asked Julia if she would consider staying in the house with my grandma, and she agreed. I was thrilled, as there were so many things I wanted to ask Nana about, like the words to the song she used to sing to me as a kid. It goes without saying that I was anything but happy when I woke up.

Dream #3

I had this dream just before I woke up for the day. I had decided to go and visit Andrea and Jason. I was sick in the dream, and had a hard time focusing on driving. I kept wanting to do crazy things, like jerk the wheel or let off the gas, but I knew that to do so would almost certainly mean death. It didn't help that I was cuddled up in the seat and steering with a remote control.

When I eventually made it to Andrea and Jason's, I realized that I wasn't wearing any pants or undies. I was horribly embarrassed, and I remember this happening to me once before. I pulled my shirt down to hide my shame, and put some sort of lid over my crotch. Their front door was open and I could see them through the screen door. It was twilight out, and they didn't have any lights on. They were both sitting on the couch watching TV and their sons were playing with cars. I let myself in, greeted them, and asked if I could borrow pants. I told them that I was sick and that my head wasn't screwed on straight. Andrea seemed less than enthused to have one of her sons give me a pair of jeans. The boy grabbed the jeans for a moment, then went back to playing. There were baby barricades all over the house, blocking off me and the pants, and I couldn't very well climb over them in the state that I was in. Jason didn't say a word to me the whole time I was there, and they seemed more interested in watching TV than anything else. I thought, "Forget this", and wiped out the dream with a blue streak of lightning.