What are you looking at?

4/17/11 - notes on dream banishment for next session

I found myself in a village somewhere in the Caribbean or Central America, judging by both the broad-leaf palms outside and the general feelings of relaxation and openness pervading my surroundings.  On San Pedro and Tortola, I was struck by the fluid, open nature of the communities -- no doors or windows were ever shut, people were always strolling by or through -- a result perhaps of the heat and untamed wildness of the areas.  Wherever last night's drifting landed me (it might have been "us" at one point, I truly do not remember), the buildings and jungle felt equally public.

I stood alone in an empty cafeteria, between meal times, and watched a Chinese man and woman enter.  They were not a couple, although the gangling, awkward man certainly wanted such a status, the way he reached after the woman's cold shoulders.  She walked away past me, a spoiled, haughty feline.  Her skimpy, sequined white tube top and skirt jogged my memory: She worked on her knees and back in porn.  My disdain for her rose along with sympathy for the naive, wealthy businessman who now sat at an abandoned table by the door watching her stretch out elsewhere in the room.  He clearly did not understand her.  I approached, eager to explain her nature to him.

"She wants aggressive, demeaning, a strong man to control and tell her what to do," I said, or words with a similar meaning.  "You don't have to be romantic and sweet with her."  I could feel the malicious smirk on my face as I armed him to bring her down.  He nodded thankfully and walked over to act on my advice.

Unfortunately, while my back had been turned, the cafeteria filled with a tough, insensitive crowd.  These ruffians had no sympathy for the misguided businessman.  When she rejected his next advance with rude words, the nearby men instantly adopted her as one of their own and jumped the Chinese man in retaliation, beating him into unconsciousness.  Shamefully, I stood and watched with cold detachment.  Then I saw an open-topped Jeep pull up outside, brimming with dark-skinned islanders.  One man in the front passenger seat leaned over to exchange greetings with the pornstar and her new friends through an open window.  This man acted like a celebrity, and overhead chatter quickly confirmed my impression of him.

"Yeah, his money's all in cinnamon, but he really did a lot to keep us afloat back in 2005."

"Big boss made sure we didn't all end up poor, he did."

The local kahuna drove on, and I followed his progress alongside and beyond the cafeteria with my eyes, even peeking out the door to see him park farther on in the village.  My interest did not go unnoticed.

Coming in just then, a sandy-haired, light-skinned man turned back to me and snapped, "You shouldn't be so curious, stranger.  What do you think you're lookin' at?"  I started to respond, but the man tossed his head sideways, marking me to someone out of sight.  Something jabbed into my neck and I crashed to the floor, looking up to see a burly man pull the needle-like end of a walking stick out of me.  I knew immediately that he had drugged me, and I would soon end up powerless in the hands of these heartless thugs.  I tried to protest, scared, but my sandy-haired accuser pulled a syringe and stuck me in the chest.

I burst awake, heart racing and a crick in my neck throbbing.  For a second time, someone had banished me from a dream.

I should mention it to the specialist when next we meet, though I worry that he prefers to observe rather than cure me...

Residue of Dreams

Sometimes, even though I cannot remember my dreams, the silty residue they leave behind colors my day.  At those times, it feels like the night's emotions were somehow mixed with the dust I raised on the dream road, and the whole mess deposited just out of sight on the edges of my eyes.  When no clear images remain of my night-side journeys, I still sense shades of my encounters lurking just beyond my solar-powered vision.  Like all good haunts, the silt ghosts want something from me, in this case the chance to tell their stories.  They are specters grown out of frustration, dissatisfaction, and a lack of resolution.  Until I take a minute to wash, and really clean away the sandy leavings from my eyes, daytime feels tinged with roiling mist, as if at any moment I might get sucked down into the muddy currents of the dreaming once again.

Modeling Nightmare

From Sex, Magick, & the City

My world had twisted into a modeler's fantasy land, where sorcery, decor, and even people could be worked on with putty, paint, and hobby knife.  Clearly, Games Workshop and its products occupy the interest of even my sleeping mind.  The new restaurant my dream self had found work in required some renovations and work on the interior before we could open.  So one of the senior waitstaff brought me over to the side bar and explained the paint job I needed to complete ahead of my first serving shift.  This second bar had been built along a narrow extension of the restaurant that ran beside the blocky kitchen.  To open the space up, the designers had replaced the original windows with floor-to-ceiling doors that could open onto patio seating, making the entire side into a long, outdoor bar.  More recently, someone had built the end of the bar up with a combination of metal candle holders, wax, and "green stuff" to create a dripping tree of candles, a veritable mountain spire of ridged wax flows and and solitary towers that could be topped with flame.  This tumbling cascade of glossy petrified ooze spilled over the edge of the bar and coated its side in a solid, green-and-white sheath.  The effect was visually stunning, but unfinished.  It looked like a final design to me, yet the veteran server explained that we needed to paint it.

To prepare, we stepped behind the bar and helped ourselves to tumblers of the fine liquid inventory standing ready in front of the wall mirror.  The senior server proceeded to fill me in one the plans for basecoating, highlighting layers, and a final varnish.  He was using the glass to make broad, demonstrative gestures when two burly men -- bouncers and security staff in the employ of the restaurant -- accosted him.

I had no idea what was happening, and experienced only vague fright that the veteran had broken policy by showing me the intricacies of the bar design and pouring us illicit shots of booze.  Then, my twinges of fear turned to sheer terror, as the men held the server's arms and dragged him over to the chopping board installed next to the bar sink for slicing garnishes.  The bouncers muscled his forearms together and onto the wood surface, then took up a huge kitchen knife and carved it down through the veteran's wrists, taking off both his hands in the process.  I felt my stomach clenching, my throat ached, and besides incoherent cries, I could do nothing.  I watched a coworker get his hands chopped off for no good reason and I couldn't manage more than a peep in his defense.

As his hands toppled off, there was no blood, the stumps of his wrists merely chalky pink flesh with ragged edges where the cutting had been less than smooth.  My mind refused to take any more, and I jerked into wakefulness.  I blinked a few times, stood up and got water, trying to dislodge the nightmare.  But it stuck with me.  I still have no idea why the server deserved such horrendous punishment.  Had the owners truly cared so much about two shots of liquor?  Was the end of the bar a secret build meant only to be seen after paint was layered on?

Most frightening of all, I wonder if the bouncers did not intend to punish the server at all, but rather sought to improve his barely adequate hands.  Were he and I just models awaiting new components, tacked on with green stuff and painted to blend with the rest of our bodies?

National Park Spectacle

I think we had some delays and bickered a little trying to get out the door, but the specifics escape me now.  Family trips can be like that, you know?  I mean, my older sister and I are notoriously slow to clean up, and Dad is always tapping his feet because, "The taxi is ready to leave!"  And it can be hard to get five people agreeing on an itinerary, let alone the extra friends you sometimes drag along with you.  Still, the right destination (or a jaunt on the dream road) makes you forget there were any bumps in the beginning.

Dad parked in a dirt lot, and we stepped out into what had to be a national park or nature preserve.  Towering pine trees rose all around us.  I could see Dad and my sister walking with me, and I could sense our brother was there, too.  Mom noticed the crazy rock formations first, and my attention got drawn down a path to where Mom stood in front of a typical wooden sign describing the natural phenomenon and its history.  Through a break in the trees, you could see the ground turned into a short cliff, maybe ten feet high, with all these sparkling minerals and crystals sprinkled among the chunks of rock.  But the coolest part was the few spots where nearby branches had curved down to brush the cliff.  Somehow runoff or crystal growth had managed to extend the cliffs up the branches, till they were overhung or encased in thin layers of cement almost.  In one place, a tree looked like it had bulked up and was forming new wood back over the rocky arch extending up from the cliff face.

While we enjoyed the natural wonder of the park, we soon moved along the path to the first major exhibition built by the park curators.  A domed, modern hut sat in a low clearing with brown pine needles covering the ground.  Octagonal in shape, the hut's eight sides each had a square-off arch in the center, leaving the interior open to the elements save for the sheltering dome.  Beneath the roof's apex, the curators had installed a large chunk of meteoric rock.  Pitted and warped, the oddly blue-tinged stone rested behind a railing on a short pedestal that held it upright where all the visitors to the hut could see it.

We wandered around the piece of space-rock, looking for a sign to explain its history and significance.  Before an explanation of the exhibit revealed itself, however, a woman swung into the hut under the nearest arch.  She must have been on the roof outside, because her black-gloved hands reached inside to grasp the frame of the arch, followed by her swinging body.  The woman pulled herself up, so that she hung by ankles and hands, then paused.  A hush came over all of us visiting the hut.  We collectively recognized this as a sort of test, with the figure in her black, leathery outfit attempting an acrobatic feat.  Something about the meteor needed this kind of physical display, whether to allow study or unlock a secret I could not tell.  Still, as the woman curled upward to a leaning crouch, preparatory to a long leap at the rock, I knew we were in for a show.  Unfortunately, a curtain of daylight rose then, cutting off the spectacle until another time.

Sent through the gate between December 10th and 11, 2010.

Return of the Dream Wolves

The second time the dream wolves caught up to me on the sleep-drifter's road, I was busy assisting an assorted team of monster hunters and occult investigators.  (I have experience with that sort of thing.)  I don't remember having any idea what our mission was, although I knew the three wolfish teens had been introduced as our backup muscle.  Maybe we represented Team Jacob, who knows.  In any case, their shape-shifting abilities fit in pretty naturally on a team that included an alien girl, a goth telepath, and a hoodie-wearing skater punk whose talent was conducting electricity.  But some part of me didn't trust the wolves from the start, and I was looking out for excuses to blast their treacherous hides.

Soon after meeting the six or seven dream folk that comprised our team, one dull-witted lycanthrope wandered through the common area of our base in oblivious defiance of our leader's order to stand guard.  Even when she called him on it, the stubby runt simply shrugged his leather jacket a little, then went about the business of making himself a meaty sandwich in the kitchen.  Our boss, an unremarkable blond, cuffed him across the ear and ordered him back to his post.  Snarling, wolf-boy instead wandered into the bedroom we guys all shared.  Perhaps anticipating trouble, our leader, myself, and a skinny kid with black hair and lots of piercings followed.  I entered last, and was immediately shoved to the ground by the muscular wolf, who had a knife across the boss's throat.  I saw the slim goth boy pressed up against the dresser where I kept my gun.

I realized that was what the wolf had come in to get, but he didn't know where the firearm was.  Other drawers were yanked out or rested on the floor in rifled-through shambles.  Without a word having been spoken, I understood the threat: Our leader was dead unless I told wolf-boy where the gun hid, and I guessed that once I turned it over, we were all dead.

If only someone else could reach the gun first!

Fortunately, the goth kid's skill was telepathy, and he read both my desire and the simple plan that followed.  I turned my body toward the under-bed storage, drawing the wolf's eyes, and it gave my skinny teammate a chance to shoot the beast dead from behind.  Silver bullets dog-face, I wanted to shout, we're monster hunters!

Outside, the other two wolves had attacked, as well.  The blue alien girl had downed one with a laser pistol when they first charged, but now she was stuck in unarmed combat on the narrow balconies ringing the second and third floors of our headquarters.  As we watched, the third teen-wolf struck her in the forehead and sent her tumbling over the second-storey rail.  Grinning, wolfie turned to corner our last visible teammate, a lanky skater boy in a concealing black hoodie.  Claws swiped toward the youth, but he shouted angrily and unleashed a cloud of blue Zs, the way a cartoon eel might discharge its electricity.  The wolf fell, fried.  Impressed, my concern was nonetheless with the alien girl.  The omniscience of the sleeping reassured me that she lived, but before I could follow up, daytime banished the scene.

Now, once again, I might have ignored the vision -- my boyfriend Mark hadn't dreamt of wolves this time.  But on my way out the door to work that morning, I remembered a final detail: At some point the skater-punk's hood had fallen away, to reveal a familiar face, one with shifting blue-brown eyes.