I don't remember how we got there, but suddenly me and this other guy were at the house's front door, and werewolves were trying to get in. The four adolescents looked human enough, but I knew fur and lupine snouts hid under their white skins. Something about them just broadcast pack hunting and predatory intent. By similar omniscience, I knew the guy next to me was on my side, stuck in that house facing a bunch of wolf-hearted teens. My companion didn't look like anyone special. Sandy blond hair ringed his face in downward spikes, the kind of messy bowl cut half the Irish boys in Boston sport. When he turned to mouth a warning to me about the prowling young-bloods, blue eyes flashed, though I could have sworn they were brown the first time. But my debate had to pause, as one of the wolf kids lifted a gun and the warning became clear. My companion and I dodged three hasty shots that cracked wood and glass in the door. Then we crashed forward and slammed the front door into the would-be invaders. It worked. Our ploy had to, or we'd have been shot, and my all-knowing sleepy brain refused to let that happen.
This was still my dream.
Anyway, my blue-brown pal knocked the gun away under the porch, and some quick wrestling extracted us mostly unharmed from the snarling teens. I took off for the stairs, letting my companion drift out of focus into that state of dreamy irrelevance whereby all sidebars are ignored till we want them again. The stairs were great: They climbed up using all four sides of the house's foyer until three floors up they ended in a balcony landing in front of the attic door. Having ascended that far, and sensing snapping jaws behind me, I did the logical, cinematic thing and leapt over the balcony rail.
Unfortunately the fall hurt, my legs crumpling as I tumbled to the floor. To compound my woe, the pack had anticipated my action -- the adolescents obviously weened on a similar movie diet -- and one wolf- boy hopped on top of me, ready to tear and bite. But my egocentric mind had one more epiphany to share: These werewolves were just kids, and I was in no danger. I could easily win the physical struggle.
At that point, the dream battle lost my interest. I realized the wolf teens were wasting my time, and I resented their keeping me in that house. A couple mental twists on that floor, and I awoke. It's the ultimate expression of control in the night realm, choosing to be done dreaming.
It had been my dream the whole time.
I might have gone through my day and gleefully forgotten the visions. Except then, my boyfriend woke up and mumbled, "Gosh, Roland, I had the worst dream. These teen-wolf types were running me ragged through my grandparents' farm!"
And that was my first encounter with the dream wolves.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Weird Day's Journey by Night
I've heard this from enough people that I'm comfortable saying, what you see by day often ends up in your dreams. Some things hop directly out of the daylight and into your shut-eyed visions, like angry bosses, sports you play, or the girl from third-period English class. (Those last two examples may come with some nighttime embellishments, but you get the idea.) Other things are left to ferment in your memory until they're sucked up by a passing sand wave and plopped as one big, muddy mix behind your eyes. Last night, my dream self stumbled headlong into one of those muddy mixes:
However things began, I ended up in the middle of a dramatic conclusion, wherein a frustrated soldier was attempting to prove his worthiness to join an elite squadron. I stood with the conflicted man in the lobby of a luxury hotel, whose levels of interior balconies, dangling vines, and stone warrior statues were probably pulled straight out of my in-laws' latest vacation slide show. The soldier had obtained a set of torso armor and a closed helmet, both made from glossy blue metal with gold ornamentation along the edges. The war-gear rested on his head and shoulders like antique football pads, but I knew instinctively that he hoped this power armor would enhance his abilities and usher him into the ranks of the Space Marines. (Clearly, my ongoing fascination with Games Workshop has begun populating my dreams.) So accoutered, the soldier charged up a nearby stairway to a third-floor balcony, where he confronted the planetary governor and demanded a spot among his retinue. Of course, the governor's bodyguards immediately burst from cover with guns leveled and ordered everyone to stand down. So I left.
Walking around a corner, I rejoined my parents, brother, and wife, who were all hurriedly packing. We were about to miss our train, and I was the hold-up. We stuffed our bags, checked our watches -- it was 2:55, we needed tickets by 3:00 -- and started running for the platform, which we could glimpse across the hotel lobby through our room's window. As we charged down a side hallway, my wife assured me that the train would not leave until 3:15, and we had plenty of time. (She told me something similar the other day as we ran to catch our train home: "Don't worry, it's only 1:25, we can easily catch the 1:30." "Then why are we running?!") Still, in our rush up the next escalator, my brother and I tangled, tripped, and brought all five of us down in a heap sure to stall our travel plans. I hopped up.
And suddenly we were back home in my parents' kitchen. The room appeared exactly as I had last seen it, including the piles of snow on the driveway outside. Moreover, three of our guy friends were there. They had come for Christmas, but were now putting on footwear before leaving. We exchanged hugs, and I was pleased that one of my buddies was making good use out of the Hercules-style sandals my mother-in-law had been trying to foist on every male in the house during our last visit. The three walked out of the house, and the closing door woke me.
Now, that kind of dream melange rampages through my brain all the time, full of images that come from easily recognizable sources. Nonetheless, I do also get truly left-field weirdness. Like, after awakening briefly when the door closed in my parents' kitchen, I went back to sleep and was dropped into a rough, flashy nightclub. I had been entered into a crazy karaoke contest where I had to perform a Lady Gaga song while threatening some old lady with a giant cleaver. Only halfway through, I really needed to pee. So I headed over to a convenient urinal and took care of business while some mountain-man type threw up in the stall behind me. And all the time I kept singing along and aiming the cleaver at the old lady's forehead.
If you want to offer an explanation of where I got that last bit, be my guest!
Sent through the gate between January 29th and 30th, 2011.
However things began, I ended up in the middle of a dramatic conclusion, wherein a frustrated soldier was attempting to prove his worthiness to join an elite squadron. I stood with the conflicted man in the lobby of a luxury hotel, whose levels of interior balconies, dangling vines, and stone warrior statues were probably pulled straight out of my in-laws' latest vacation slide show. The soldier had obtained a set of torso armor and a closed helmet, both made from glossy blue metal with gold ornamentation along the edges. The war-gear rested on his head and shoulders like antique football pads, but I knew instinctively that he hoped this power armor would enhance his abilities and usher him into the ranks of the Space Marines. (Clearly, my ongoing fascination with Games Workshop has begun populating my dreams.) So accoutered, the soldier charged up a nearby stairway to a third-floor balcony, where he confronted the planetary governor and demanded a spot among his retinue. Of course, the governor's bodyguards immediately burst from cover with guns leveled and ordered everyone to stand down. So I left.
Walking around a corner, I rejoined my parents, brother, and wife, who were all hurriedly packing. We were about to miss our train, and I was the hold-up. We stuffed our bags, checked our watches -- it was 2:55, we needed tickets by 3:00 -- and started running for the platform, which we could glimpse across the hotel lobby through our room's window. As we charged down a side hallway, my wife assured me that the train would not leave until 3:15, and we had plenty of time. (She told me something similar the other day as we ran to catch our train home: "Don't worry, it's only 1:25, we can easily catch the 1:30." "Then why are we running?!") Still, in our rush up the next escalator, my brother and I tangled, tripped, and brought all five of us down in a heap sure to stall our travel plans. I hopped up.
And suddenly we were back home in my parents' kitchen. The room appeared exactly as I had last seen it, including the piles of snow on the driveway outside. Moreover, three of our guy friends were there. They had come for Christmas, but were now putting on footwear before leaving. We exchanged hugs, and I was pleased that one of my buddies was making good use out of the Hercules-style sandals my mother-in-law had been trying to foist on every male in the house during our last visit. The three walked out of the house, and the closing door woke me.
Now, that kind of dream melange rampages through my brain all the time, full of images that come from easily recognizable sources. Nonetheless, I do also get truly left-field weirdness. Like, after awakening briefly when the door closed in my parents' kitchen, I went back to sleep and was dropped into a rough, flashy nightclub. I had been entered into a crazy karaoke contest where I had to perform a Lady Gaga song while threatening some old lady with a giant cleaver. Only halfway through, I really needed to pee. So I headed over to a convenient urinal and took care of business while some mountain-man type threw up in the stall behind me. And all the time I kept singing along and aiming the cleaver at the old lady's forehead.
If you want to offer an explanation of where I got that last bit, be my guest!
Sent through the gate between January 29th and 30th, 2011.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Belize Boat Ride
Getting to the airport in Belize City involved a lot more gators and water than I remembered. And while ultimately the trip raised questions having nothing to do with my honeymoon in one of Central America's up-and-coming frontier countries, I think my stay there left some interesting impressions. See, I distinctly recall my first taxi ride through Belize City from the airport to the dock. Belize's big coastal city was the poorest-looking place I had ever been, and that look featured heavily in the dream, even if the streets were ridiculously, irrationally flooded and become canals. The faded paint, shabby roofs, drifters on stoops, and general dilapidation remained as it had been, even as I rode by on a small San Pedro skiff. Indeed, the swarming alligators all around us surprised me less than how faithfully the dream's cheap motels, shop-home combos, and half-built structures mirrored reality. Nevertheless, the prehistoric survivals with their armored hides and gaping jaws hogged my attention.
We took a left and started down a side street by a public park. There, a line of gators waited with only their bony heads above the surface. It looked comical, the kind of set-up you might find in a cartoon, or a James Bond flick. What else could we do but oblige by zipping forward over the top of them? Bump, bump, bump we skipped along. And in a classic dream-time move, my POV hung back to watch our boat go hopping by, gators jaws leaping open as the keel smacked their heads.
My eyes jumped suddenly back into their proper perspective as our skiff curved onto a wide canal. Here our dark pilot was weaving down the flooded avenue, gesturing wildly for me to grab an oar. As he swerved once more, I saw a yawning pair of jaws aiming jagged teeth right at us. So I swung the oar right quick, and we ran the gauntlet after that, with our pilot dodging and me swatting down the boulevard.
When we first got to the airport, there was barely a change or transition. We were all suddenly there: me, my wife, our piloted boat, the flooded byways, and the green alligators. At least the scaly beasts didn't swarm here so much as lurk, sitting in corners until a traveler got careless. We checked in still on-board, then followed the signs until we found the ramp down to security. After negotiating how to get to the bottom uneaten -- boat first, then people, FYI -- we drifted slowly to the gate and boarded a larger, gator-free craft.
So, what struck me odd about the whole journey was the general authenticity of my setting, you know, despite the ubiquitous reptiles and agua. The pervasive poverty in Belize City I've already mentioned. And I have no excuse for my suburban American bias with that one. But I also remember that feeling in the Belizean countryside of having critters everywhere looking to bite me. Whether the omnipresent mosquitoes, the jaguar print we found while hiking, or the flying ants buzzing wasp-like around every meal, I always had a bite threatening. That might explain the comic look of the gators, the lack of danger, don't you think?
Well, in any case, I'm just happy the dream ended before I saw what LaGuardia airport turned into. It's a jungle out there!
We took a left and started down a side street by a public park. There, a line of gators waited with only their bony heads above the surface. It looked comical, the kind of set-up you might find in a cartoon, or a James Bond flick. What else could we do but oblige by zipping forward over the top of them? Bump, bump, bump we skipped along. And in a classic dream-time move, my POV hung back to watch our boat go hopping by, gators jaws leaping open as the keel smacked their heads.
My eyes jumped suddenly back into their proper perspective as our skiff curved onto a wide canal. Here our dark pilot was weaving down the flooded avenue, gesturing wildly for me to grab an oar. As he swerved once more, I saw a yawning pair of jaws aiming jagged teeth right at us. So I swung the oar right quick, and we ran the gauntlet after that, with our pilot dodging and me swatting down the boulevard.
When we first got to the airport, there was barely a change or transition. We were all suddenly there: me, my wife, our piloted boat, the flooded byways, and the green alligators. At least the scaly beasts didn't swarm here so much as lurk, sitting in corners until a traveler got careless. We checked in still on-board, then followed the signs until we found the ramp down to security. After negotiating how to get to the bottom uneaten -- boat first, then people, FYI -- we drifted slowly to the gate and boarded a larger, gator-free craft.
So, what struck me odd about the whole journey was the general authenticity of my setting, you know, despite the ubiquitous reptiles and agua. The pervasive poverty in Belize City I've already mentioned. And I have no excuse for my suburban American bias with that one. But I also remember that feeling in the Belizean countryside of having critters everywhere looking to bite me. Whether the omnipresent mosquitoes, the jaguar print we found while hiking, or the flying ants buzzing wasp-like around every meal, I always had a bite threatening. That might explain the comic look of the gators, the lack of danger, don't you think?
Well, in any case, I'm just happy the dream ended before I saw what LaGuardia airport turned into. It's a jungle out there!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Night Investigations
My 9:00 a.m. brain is having trouble sorting out how many dreams there were, and whether last night's images had one unifying plot, or several unrelated threads. Near the end of one dream, or the beginning of another, I was piloting a blocky spacecraft and trying to use positioning satellites to deliver a load of industrial equipment. Really, it could have been a bare-bones flight simulator, the kind of flash-based video game built as an experiment and posted on a free gaming forum. My cockpit was little more than a rectangular window. Within the frame of that window I was maneuvering a tangle of mechanical parts, the industrial equipment, through a grid of triangular claws, the satellites. My dream self knew that I was controlling the path of the equipment, but I do not remember a robotic arm or any thoughts of something more high-tech like a gravity beam. As the tangle of gears touched each satellite, the claw grabbed it, then the whole apparatus spun to another bearing and pushed the load along. It was entertaining, engaging even, but I think my conscious mind is reaching by attributing any plot significance to the action.
What has 9:00 a.m. me confused is that the following dream, full of cops and robbers, felt like it had begun with theft or sabotage. I was an investigator, hired privately, and my team of four was trying to figure out whodunit. The crime had taken place in a multilevel building that reminded me of a shopping mall blended with one of those midtown subway stations where trains converge on several platforms stacked on top of each other. We had followed a lead to an up-ramp, trying to determine how the culprit had gotten away. Suddenly, the two investigators in front of me pressed a button, or hit a certain frequency on their scanners, and they began to float upward on a localized anti-gravity field. I had this overwhelming feeling of satisfaction, like we had the guy nailed, we knew who and how all of a sudden, like this was the final clue we needed. Stepping back, clear of the metal walkway directly above my head, I sort of spread myself out and drifted up three floors on an anti-gravity field of my own in search of a wider view of the whole mall.
I found him.
Running down a hallway further on, a figure in a black, hooded cloak -- uniform of slasher-movie villains everywhere -- was fleeing our crime scene. I was after him like a shot, propelled through the building on an invisible flight pack or driven by will on my personal energy field. Dropping to the ground as the culprit turned a corner, I confronted the cloaked figure, who turned out to be a dark-haired man in a superhero-style eye mask. He immediately raised a crossbow and started firing bolts at me, which I countered by loosing arrows from an energized short bow that just appeared in my hands. Our terrible, cinematic aim resulted in lots of missiles zipping around us as we remained entirely unharmed. The commotion, as we ranged up a short flight of stairs and in-between store fronts, attracted the attention of a real policeman, a character in an astronaut's round-helmed, puffy uniform of shiny gold fabric. He appeared on the catwalk above us and added shots from his own bolt gun to our firefight.
It didn't take long for this intense action to roust me out of the dreamscape, back into my bed. But the jumble of information I received in those last moments has left me confused, pondering. The policeman seemed after me as much as the criminal, like I had somehow committed a crime or implicated myself over the course of our investigation. And I cannot shake the impression that the equipment delivery I had first participated in was related to the eventual crime. Now, my daytime self has an investigation to conduct, as I try to figure out what really happened in the realm of sleep.
What has 9:00 a.m. me confused is that the following dream, full of cops and robbers, felt like it had begun with theft or sabotage. I was an investigator, hired privately, and my team of four was trying to figure out whodunit. The crime had taken place in a multilevel building that reminded me of a shopping mall blended with one of those midtown subway stations where trains converge on several platforms stacked on top of each other. We had followed a lead to an up-ramp, trying to determine how the culprit had gotten away. Suddenly, the two investigators in front of me pressed a button, or hit a certain frequency on their scanners, and they began to float upward on a localized anti-gravity field. I had this overwhelming feeling of satisfaction, like we had the guy nailed, we knew who and how all of a sudden, like this was the final clue we needed. Stepping back, clear of the metal walkway directly above my head, I sort of spread myself out and drifted up three floors on an anti-gravity field of my own in search of a wider view of the whole mall.
I found him.
Running down a hallway further on, a figure in a black, hooded cloak -- uniform of slasher-movie villains everywhere -- was fleeing our crime scene. I was after him like a shot, propelled through the building on an invisible flight pack or driven by will on my personal energy field. Dropping to the ground as the culprit turned a corner, I confronted the cloaked figure, who turned out to be a dark-haired man in a superhero-style eye mask. He immediately raised a crossbow and started firing bolts at me, which I countered by loosing arrows from an energized short bow that just appeared in my hands. Our terrible, cinematic aim resulted in lots of missiles zipping around us as we remained entirely unharmed. The commotion, as we ranged up a short flight of stairs and in-between store fronts, attracted the attention of a real policeman, a character in an astronaut's round-helmed, puffy uniform of shiny gold fabric. He appeared on the catwalk above us and added shots from his own bolt gun to our firefight.
It didn't take long for this intense action to roust me out of the dreamscape, back into my bed. But the jumble of information I received in those last moments has left me confused, pondering. The policeman seemed after me as much as the criminal, like I had somehow committed a crime or implicated myself over the course of our investigation. And I cannot shake the impression that the equipment delivery I had first participated in was related to the eventual crime. Now, my daytime self has an investigation to conduct, as I try to figure out what really happened in the realm of sleep.
Sent through the gate between January 22nd and 23rd, 2011.
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