The Rice Road and Illusions/Delusions

This dream was from the night of the 21st
My best friend and I were back in high school. Graduation was coming up, and to celebrate some of the popular kids were going to a hotel at an island location for the weekend in a classmate's plane. Somehow we were invited. I was so excited until I realized that I hadn't packed my bag. I saw the other girls walking around with extra bags at school that day, exchanging excited and knowing glances. I interrupted the girl who had invited me to ask about what I should have packed, and could she tell me the details of where to meet again? She graciously did but it made me feel like an outsider. I decided not to go, I was afraid because I would have had to lie to my parents to go, and what if there was a plane wreck and they didn't know where I was. They would feel so betrayed. So I didn't go. The scene switched to me my mom and my bff walking down a country road. It was paved in white gravel, I wasn't wearing shoes and it felt like walking on rice. Cooked rice. To the right there was a strange plant. It was tall, maybe up to my shoulders, and coming off the stalk were bright rainbow colored long leaves, like a dreacena. I pointed it out and we were all taken in by its exotic beauty. They went into the field to look at it, but I complained because I wasn't wearing shoes and the grass and stickers hurt. I don't know how, but I ended up at the plant. I didn't even get a good look at it because I was watching where my feet were and then they wanted to keep walking. I hopped from soft spot to soft spot back to the road of rice. I don't know where we were going, but I knew we wouldn't get there before nightfall and I was worried.

scene switch

I am driving with my dad and bff to the east campus. We are on an elevated highway in the bad side of town. I pulled into a parking lot and my dad went inside the school to do some business. BFF and I looked around, we were in the middle of a large area filled with mind-blowing buildings. There was one made of copper tubes with a clock tower that chimed really loud every hour. The area we were in was made of gray concrete which made the other buildings that much more beautiful. There was a courtyard area with a concrete clock tower. The whole area was beautiful as I never knew monotonously colored concrete could be. This concrete area was void of people, still and silent, with crystal clear air. My dad came back and we drove off. The sun was setting and shone brightly on a building made of glass. I looked down as we passed it on the elevated highway, and saw the sun glistening off all the cracks. It was cracked glass, but on purpose. Beautiful and sturdy with the illusion of fragility. I was mesmerized. During the day it looked like regular glass, it was only when the sun set that the cracks were illuminated. I remembered thinking, "How could I never have known this place was here?" I had always thought that area was ghetto. As we went over the overpass away from the area, I turned for one last look at this magical part of the city but it was gone. It was never there.

Blush and A Judas Story

Bits and pieces reassembled...

I was in a car with someone and we kept driving around. We drove by a woman unsteadily standing in a doorway of a dark alley downtown. I slowed the car and pulled over, and I saw it was my grandmother. She had a chin-length bob and was wearing make-up. I remembered thinking she was wearing too much blush. I don't remember what was said but it was clear she was looking for customers if you know what I mean. I didn't know what to say and she didn't recognize me, so we drove off. We came back around, and I felt compelled to stop again. I knew she must have just gotten out of the hospital/nursing home, and I was surprised by the whole situation because I don't have any memories of my grandmother speaking coherently. I don't have any memories of her wearing make-up, jewelry, or having her hair done. I've seen pictures of those days, and she was a lovely woman, but time has not been kind. Nor has her husband, but so is life. This time I remember asking her to get in the car. I wanted to save her. I wanted to take her away from this place, from this desperate/incoherent need to sell herself for money. I don't think she realized what she was doing, she was disoriented and didn't know who she was. She wouldn't even look at me, she only looked at the passenger in my car. Everything was dark and a soft spotlight shone on her face. The thick foundation, the excessive blush, her butchered bob that was without shine. I remembered telling her that she was beautiful and I wanted her to come with me. She brightened up when she heard she looked beautiful, and said, "Really?" I told her she really was beautiful and I liked her blush (I said it to flatter her, like you would tell a child playing dress-up when you don't expect them to accomplish a task perfectly but you are surprised by how well they did for their age). She still wouldn't get in the car and couldn't remember why or what she was doing.

I was with a ridiculously good looking middle-aged man. We were on a date. I had just met him but I really liked him. We were in his car, and he was taking me somewhere that was a surprise. We pulled into a large garage that turned out to be the warehouse in the back of a grocery store. I realized it was the store where my ex-husband worked, and I told him, "I can't go inside, and I don't know you well enough to say why." When I turned to look at him, he had changed into a lanky black guy younger than me with a tamed fro. I knew it was the same man from before that I really liked so I didn't treat him any differently. He said something that convinced me to go inside with him. He grabbed my hand as we walked through the store, but I pulled my hoodie over my head, covered my face with my hand, and tried to act casual while scanning every face that passed. I spotted someone I knew, and then everyone was staring and pointing at me. So I ran back to the car. He followed, and we got out of there. As we drove off he turned back in to the middle-aged looker. We were driving down country roads with the top down. I felt the cool breeze on my skin, and it was delightful, almost carefree. Almost. But why were we in the middle of nowhere? I asked him where we were going. He pulled the car over but I didn't feel worried. Then a car pulled up behind us, he morphed back into the young guy. Out of the car jumped my ex-husband his mother and some other people. The guy I liked had tricked me! Judas! He took me to that grocery store on purpose, took me out to the country to hand me over to my pursuer. The one I had hidden from for so long.
This dream reinforces my vow of celibacy. God is telling me that all men have brought me is trouble. I have
learned my lesson. I do get wistful sometimes and need a dream-scare to shake it off. Thank You!

CornPickle Soup, Escape from Trenchtown, Convolutions

I don't entirely recall my dreams last night, but here are the bits and pieces reassembled.

I was at a buffet and I started building my plate with a hamburger. It was only a thin McDonald's like patty with ketchup, mayo, a pickle, and a few onion rings on top. I wasn't happy about it, but I took it. As I looked around the buffet I was even more disappointed. It was all gross looking, worse than a truck-stop buffet at 1 a.m. There was a vat of corn, so I grabbed the ladle, and poured a scoop. Corn, corn juice, and a big pickle plopped into my bowl. Yes a big pickle like you buy at a hockey game. I thought, surely this is a mistake. I got another ladle full, and there was a pickle in that one too! I dumped my bowl back in the vat, and went back for a second burger. As I ate the patties, I bit into a piece of gristle. It was baaaad.
(This sounds a lot like my love life. Bad selection, settling, and getting something unexpected)

I was in a crappy apartment and I felt like I was trapped. It was dull, plain, and not well lit. But the bedroom had a large window that looked on the ocean. I was standing there looking out of the window at all the people walking on the beach, so free and happy in the sunlight. I left the apartment, and walked along the beach. Feeling the sand inbetween my toes, looking at all the happy people just chillin'. My friend Murdock came and got me to go back to the apartment. I felt sad looking at how crappy the apartment was that I CHOSE to live in. Then my husband showed up. Things got bad, him being violent, and I told him I was leaving. I went into the living room, leaving him to no doubt destroy my stuff, and talked with Murdock. I went in the room to get my bag, and it was packed and my husband was gone. I asked Murdock about my tv and he said husband had packed it for me. "Really?" I was so ecstatic that he let me keep something valuable of mine. Murdock and I went to the dock and were talking. Then my husband's best friend came up to us. I asked him to leave and he said no. I told him he wasn't wanted. He threateningly said no, husband had sent him to make sure nothing happened between me and Murdock. I just rolled my eyes and left.

I was at the YMCA. All the walls were a tan color made orange by the bad lighting. I was walking around looking for my old friend Mark. The layout was all convoluted and I was pondering what sort of architect was responsible. I came across a room with a small hot tub sized pool with very blue water. and I wanted to take a dip. Then I saw Mark. We started talking and I asked if we could go to his apartment to talk because I didn't want to be there. I was following him up some steps; there were about 10 steps and the rest of the stairway was a slide with a handrail that you had to climb up. Mark easily climbed up and offered me his hand. As I took it I was telling him I had a child. He got this horrified look on his face and let go of my hand. I struggled not to fall down the slide and back to the steps, but I wasn't strong enough. I kept calling for him to come back, but he wouldn't. I wandered the hallways looking for him, but it was no use. I went back to the pool, and looked up the stairs/slide thinking "I could never carry a child up that."

Time Continuum

I was gazing out of my parent's upstairs window and saw a black ford truck pulling in the driveway. We were having a big family gathering, and one of my uncles asked who was driving up. I said, "It's my dad." He said, "No its not, your dad is in his room." I went and looked and sure enough my dad was lying in bed. I ran back to the window to look again and said, "No its definitely my dad." I ran outside to the driveway, and my dad got out of the truck. He was younger with a handlebar moustache and big 80's style tinted glasses. I said, "Dad, you must be time traveling! Maybe its from the solar flares!" My dad went into the house and sat on a trunk and then he disappeared, like static. I started looking around sadly, and then he reappeared. I told him I wanted him to stay. I was so excited because it was a younger version of my dad and maybe if he stayed I would have more time left with him. Time to prevent illness. Time I would cherish more because I now know the fragility of life. The scene switches and now I am in the garage standing in a truck bed helping my young cousin arrange hangers by color and material. He was going to do some sort of MacGyver maneuver later that evening when the lightning came. Then my uncle Al walked through the garage. He was also younger tan, and wearing a navy blue baseball cap with a gold sailor aemblem embroidered on the front. I hopped off the truck and went to talk to him. As I began to speak he said, "I can't talk right now, I have to see my mom." My heart grew sad because I knew his mom, my grandmother, had passed away. I knew he wasn't in his right mind, that brain damage had crossed the time threshold. I just smiled and said ok, and let him go. My cousin said, "Dad!!" and ran to his father, my uncle. When my uncle didn't recognize him, we looked at eachother with a pain that both of us understood, in our own way. I knew my cousin wasn't wishing his 80s dad could stay, knowing more of his life was stolen from him. Watching one father suffer is more than enough, 2 fathers suffering is unbearable. He let go of my uncle's hand and he disappeared through the doorway. We resumed our work in the truck bed and silently, without making anymore eye contact.

Prickly Parrots

So I had two particularly interesting dreams last night. My dreams are so vivid and real, like watching a movie - in my mind! A cliffhanger that doesn't make sense and doesn't transition well.

DREAM 1
So my uncle Billy owned a drive-through convenience store and pet shop, in the ghetto. Despite its location, he kept it pretty clean. Well I was down on my luck and had just moved in to his slummy apartment. On the way home one day, I stopped by his store to get a Dr. Pepper and was speechless when I got to the window. The store was in shambles, the window stood ajar, and the entire store was covered in grime and filth. His 5 large fancy bird cages were covered in poop, their doors also ajar. One two birds remained, and they were in bad shape. Both parrots were bald, one had a splotch of blood on the side of his beak, and they were listlessly walking around their cages with dead eyes. My uncle walked up and I asked what had happened to the birds. He said his employee had been feeding them strange things. I told him I had seen him feeding the birds cut up hot dogs but didn't think much about it. Uncle Billy looked at the birds and said their plumes used to be as long as a moon pie, while stretching his arms out to span 3 feet (I don't know where he finds these huge moon pies, maybe home-made?). He just handed me my Dr. Pepper and walked off. As I drove home the entire neighborhood was in shambles, as if it were a town in the middle east that had just suffered a bomb. Buildings were in shambles and everything was just a shade of brown or gray. As I went in to the apartment, my former manager and now neighbor Len came up to me. He told me he couldn't make his rent anymore and said I could be his roommate if I wanted to. So I went and toured the apartment. The walls were Tiffany's blue but looked patina-ed from all the nicotine clinging to them. The apartment was larger (and dirtier )than expected, but there was only one bedroom. Len said I could just move my bed in the room too and we would put a partition between them. On either end of the room were tri-fold mirrors on the wall, just high enough to put a desk underneath to have a make-shift vanity. I opened a door to the balcony, and put my baby in the car seat to walk down the fire escape stairs. As I turned to close the doors, my baby fell out and tumbled down the flight of stairs and landed on the concrete. I screamed at the top of my lungs and ran to where the child fell. As soon as I got to the spot, a magical chihuahua made the scene replay, but now I watched from the new vantage point. I had forgotten to strap the safety belts, but I dropped the whole car seat which protected the baby who was fine. When I looked down to get my baby, there was nothing, just barren concrete, like a dream. I asked the chihuahua to replay the scene again, but this time it stopped short and I couldn't find out where my baby went. A museum curator came to where I was crouching, and showed me a rattlesnake fang that was a foot long and hollow.

DREAM 2

I was back in high school, and asking this kid to show me where he had cut off the tip of his finger (this really did happen in hs). Then my friend was giving me a piggy back ride through the halls while I was waiting for my pizza to bake. Then the alarms started going off because there was a fire. As people were evacuating, I hopped off my friend's back and told her I was going to check on my pizza. The kitchen was at the other end of the campus so I would just grab it and run out. As I got to the oven I saw the pizza needed a few more minutes. I checked all the doors and saw no fire, so I waited. I was looking out of the glass doors upon the plains and saw fire race in front of the door and surrounded the kitchen! Inspired by a recent episode of Walker Texas Ranger, I kicked the door open (leaving the pizza) and ran full throttle through the fire. As soon as I was to cross the fire's path, God sent rain that put it out. Whew, close one - thanks God! I started running to find my parents, but they weren't in the parking lot with everyone else. I checked the procession of cars leaving, and didn't see their car there either. They must have left me! I hopped on a white and brown spotted horse to catch up to them. I rode through the hilly farmland in pursuit, looking at the beautiful houses and crops, feeling inspired by the overcast skies. It looked like a scene from a magazine, all the picture perfect houses with bright colors that really popped against the gray skies. All the sudden I had caught up to my parents who also seemed to be on horseback, being led by a small bearded man. The small man stopped and set a rock on the ground. The grass where the rock was disappeared and left a spot of rich, dark red dirt. He drew an X in the dirt, and vanished. As he did, a circle of ground caved in to reveal wooden railroad tracks. My parents got off their horses and hopped in to escape the fire. (the fire was no where in sight but was going to eventually consume the whole land) I had a funny feeling about it so I told them I would wait. Well my horse hopped in the hole, so I pulled on the reins, but he wouldn't budge. Taking aim, I leapt into the hole and right onto the horses back. We were in a person's house, and now there was a child on the horse in front of me. The horse took us to a corner of the house, with low-slung ceilings, where 2 steps led to a doorway. The paint was also the Tiffany's green, and the doorway and hand rail were painted white and flaking. The horse put his front feet up the two steps into the shadowy doorway. The child knocked, and the door cracked open just enough for me to see a hand emerge from the darkness within. The child passed several toys, including a plastic purple Easter egg, to the hand. Then it was just me in front of the cracked door, feeling compelled to enter. The child had paid my way in, and it was up to me to continue this journey. I pushed opened the door and took a step. I fell in to the room (kind of like Alice in Wonderland) and there were my parents, suspended in time. By the dim lighting of the oil lamps, I could see my mother sitting in a rocking chair and staring at the wall. They were under some sort of spell, and had forgotten all about the fire which would surely consume us if we didn't keep running. I knew I had to save us, but how could I break the spell? Did I want to break the spell? I am getting sleepy and this delusion is drawing me in, I feel like molasses, and my thinking is cloudy. What was I trying to do?

Pupa Casings

It was a chilly fall day, and I had gone to visit my beloved aunt. As we were raking leaves the commercial for the Magic Mesh Door Screen popped into my head. I told my aunt she should invest in one not only to get a breeze through her house without worry of bugs, but so that we could pile the leaves on the screen, and then toss them up into the air and have a leaf shower. Like a slow-motion scene from a movie, us laughing and twirling in a slow-motion dance of sheer existential joy. And then out of the corner of my periphery I saw her old neighbor lady creep out of her house and saunter down the driveway in her over-sized glasses and worn bathrobe. She looked around, and then opened the back doors of her conversion (serial killer) van. I watched as she pulled a mason jar out of her robe pocket and began reaching in the van and pulling out small brown things to put in the jar. I went around the side of the tree for a better angle, and for hiding purposes, and I saw that her van was full of pupa casings! I told my aunt, "Look, its a pupa hoarder!!!" As she picked up the casings one-by-one, holding them up for inspection, I tried to surreptitiously capture the horror on my camera.

What a strange dream that was. In the middle of the night I texted myself notes on the dream because that one was too good to forget! I did just watch the screen door infomercial and I am sold. I love to air out the abode, but there's nothing worse than a fly in my tea. I don't kill insects as a matter of principle, but I do go on fly killing frenzies because they drive me crazy! But now with the new Magic Mesh Door Screen, this will no longer be a problem.

When I was a little girl, I had a love of insects (I am still intrigued) instilled in me by my mother. She made a point of showing me all the neat insects she happened to catch. Anything from a lady bug, to a shiny green beetle, and even tarantulas were captured and studied in our household. I had a book all about bugs that I loved to read. One year the locusts were out and about, and my mom gave me a mason jar and let me collect their hollow shells. I took the mostly empty jar with me when we visited my mom's friend, and I searched every tree and plant in her backyard for my treasures. When we left I had nearly filled it to the top! Maybe this memory came back as a subconscious fear that my life of strange interests and recent vow of celibacy will ultimately lead me to become... a pupa hoarder!

The Praying Mantis Pose

I decided to create this blog to capture the fantastical, crazy, random, and unbelievably long dreams I have. All throughout my life I have had bizarre dreams, and its only now that they are being recorded. Imagine all you have missed out on over the years.

Last night I awoke from one of the best dreams I have had. Why was it so wonderful? Because Stephen Colbert made his debut appearance. Without further ado...

My mother and I were walking through Burger King in much anticipation of food. Covering the walls were artistic photos of chicken nuggets, Asian style: orange chicken, sweet and sour chicken, barbeque chicken, peanut chicken. In a voice of hushed awe my mother was commenting on how delicious their new chicken looked. Exasperatedly I told her it was a marketing ploy, the entrees were just chicken nuggets covered in sauce. They were charging more money to put the sauce on for you, and I wasn't going to be deceived. As we sat to eat our fancy nuggets, I noticed Stephen Colbert sitting adjacent to us. I was soooooo excited, he's my fav! He was in a navy suit, and his hair was so voluminous and perfectly styled, like a news anchor. He was busy talking with someone, but I could not help myself from interrupting. I skipped over there and very giddily started gushing about how much I loved his show. "Thanks, I love my show too. You're pretty even though you need to lose weight." (Even my subconscious won't forgive the extra weight that comes along with carrying a child) "Well that was rude, but that's why I LOVE you. You're candor and sharp wit are so refreshing and hilarious and I can't get enough of it. The best moment of my television viewing career was when you and Placido Domingo sang La Donna E Mobile. Brilliant! I had to tune my Pandora in to the opera station for the rest of the day. I love that song and I always sing it but make up my own words. (read this part in an operatic voice) I had orange chicken, but it was not that good, next time I'll order, the whopper value meal..." I'll spare you the latter 5 mintues of raving about how awesome he is. "Will you be in a photo with me?" At this moment a snooty high school classmate of mine showed up to take our photo. The first photo was normal, just smiles. But as we kept talking somehow we ended up sitting on the floor, and the snooty girl said, "Oh my gosh, are yall posing like a praying mantis?" I looked at us and our bodies had made a replica of said praying mantis, he was the arms and head, I was the body. Amidst uproarious laughter I told her she MUST photograph this moment. Then Colbert suggested we take more fun photos. "Here, let's make a circle. I'll be the bottom part!" So he laid on the floor and stuck his arms and legs in the air expecting me to match my feet and hands to his for him to hold me in the air. (Funny and strong) It took a few tries, but we somehow managed to form a very wobbly circle. (The whole time the snooty girl was making faces and talking crap but I didn't care. I mean, I got to hang out with Colbert!)

This is where I woke up, in a dark room, Colbert nowhere to be found. I knew that tomorrow would be the day I began blogging. Then I started thinking, what if my dream blog became famous and I got to meet Colbert and we reenacted the praying mantis photo on his show!!? These things seem more likely at 3am. For your entertainment, here is the video of said magical duet...

The Colbert Report
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