Getting back to this...

Wow - it's been many years, but was recently reminded of this blog. Figured it would be a good place to write dreams down if only for myself.

Two recent ones that stand out:

1) We have a friend JD, who is in his 60s, but in the dream we saw an old movie on TV and recognized him in it - as a young man. In the movie, he was sort of a tough guy - stoner, burnout type - dressed like Vinnie from Welcome Back Cotter (this is probably because recently he told us that he was a big pothead when he was in high school).  But then as the movie went on, at some point, he kissed another tough guy.

2) Went over to my friend J's place and saw his ex-wife (who had cheated on him) there, along with the current wife (who didn't look like herself and instead looked like another friend M). I was like, "What the fuck?" and took off.  But J, who was really drunk/stoned, followed me out, and as we sat on a bench outside a bus/train station, tried to kiss me. As I said, no, stop it, there was a woman on the bench next to us, who intervened and tried to get him to stop too. He left, and I apologized to her, but she was cool with it.

Lemmy

Dreamed I was hanging out with Lemmy in a kitchen and he made me a gourmet black and white milkshake, with really good chocolate syrup. Who knew Lemmy was a gourmand?

My not-so-great idea

I had an idea in my dream in which cassette singles (from the 80s) were replaced by paper card singles.  Kids could buy songs on paper cards -- that way they could buy them with cash, and not have to use their parent's credit card online.  Then the card could be inserted (like an SD card) into your cell phone or mp3 player and you could play the song from the card.

That's not a bouncy ball

I was playing with 2 1/2 year old nephew Christian.  He had a bunch of pool balls, but he was playing with them the way he plays with his other balls - throwing them, and trying to bounce them off the floor.  So I had to tell him, "That's not a bouncy ball!  You can't do that, Christian, you'll break something!" 

Mike Skinner ice

I was hanging out backstage with Mike Skinner of The Streets - I had probably won a contest or something.  He handed me a circular ice cube - didn't put it in a drink or anything, just put it in my hand.  "Here's an ice cube with my face on it," he said.  (I had seen a news story recently on Virgin Airlines serving ice cubes with Richard Branson's face on them in first-class passengers' drinks.) "Wow, it looks just like you!" I replied.  And it really did.

More big wave dreams

One day a Freudian psychoanalyst will have to tell me what my recurring dreams about big waves and big water mean...  I have had 2 more lately.

In one, I was in a glass cube house - it was pretty much made up entirely of panes of glass, cathedral height glass walls, and flat glass paned ceilings.  The house belonged to my brother.   It was raining heavily outside, pounding against all that glass, and I began to get worried.  My worries became reality when water started leaking from between the panes.  The water level outside started rising as well, increasing flood waters visible through the glass walls.

In the other dream, less than a week later, I was on the shore of Antarctica, high on a cliff or platform looking down at the coastline.  There were people on the shore and I watched as the waves started getting bigger and bigger - 30-40 feet and wondered if the people would survive the sub-zero temperature water that was starting to hit everyone.

Recent dreams

I have been remiss in writing lately...  Some recent dreams involved:

1)  My recurring dream of huge waves and tsunami-force waters again.  The twist this time is that I was indoors, in the hypothetical Hawaii house of our graphic designer -- which had a wall of windows upon which the waters rose.

2)  My pink stuffed animal pig was black, and I was in bed holding it.  Someone else was in bed with me, and we were trying hard not to touch.

3)  I went with my parents to visit my friend GH who was staying in a huge luxe multi-room hotel suite.  He got a phone call from what sounded like a girlfriend, so we left him and went off to explore the suite.  I opened a closet door, and a tall blond guy jumped out on me. Apparently he was GH's friend and they would ambush each other Inspector Clouseau-Kato style.

Money and murder

I had this dream the night after Christmas.

I was going to NYC with two of my good friends.  Somehow we decided we were going to take a helicopter to get there.  (Rich folks sometimes take helicopters just to cross the Hudson without needing to take the bridge or tunnels, but I don't think many folks take them up from where I live.)

As we were flying in, I could see the skyscraper we were going to, on the south side of Manhatten.  It was a towering skyscraper sorta by itself.  The top floor was just a glass box giving you a view around you in 360 degrees.  The sorta place that would give you vertigo if you were there, looking out and seeing how high up you were.

Then we started maneuvering between buildings as we approached, like a video game, swerving right and left to avoid obstacles.

Then the helicopter landed on the close side of the river, unexpectedly.  We had to get out, and were going to take a limo the rest of the way.  But we were stopped in a dirty, industrial area, and I remember thinking that we were going to get scammed or kidnapped or something bad.

At this point things get fuzzy.  A driver showed up, but he was sketchy, and we didn't want to get into the car with him.  Somehow or another we witnessed, or just realized, that he had just killed someone and stolen $100,000.

He tries to get us into the car, and we keep refusing.  Now we're walking around this nice, grassy area, and then some walkways surrounding some beautiful pools, like you might find at resorts or high end hotels.  He's chasing us, but it's at a walking pace, maybe because there were other people around and he's trying not to get their attention.  He tells us he is going to call the police on us (maybe we were refusing to pay him?), and we tell him sure, go for it, and then we'll rat him out for the murder.

Somehow we manage to steal his keychain and keys, which somehow we knew were used to lock up the stolen money.  He notices, and demands them back.  I somehow slip the important key off and palm it when i return his keyring. 

Then we sneak off to a dirty garage and steal the money back.  Then the dream ended.

Recent dream snippets

My stuffed animal pig had turned a deep red (instead of her usual powder pink).  I said it was because she was sun-burned.

Was in a mall food court and saw an ex-boyfriend (looking exactly like his mid-20s self) even though it's been over 12 years.  But when I stopped him, he seemed bewildered.

Louis C.K. was in my dream, can't remember what he was doing.

Had a couple hairless baby pandas in my kitchen.  They started doing back flips all over the place, and I thought about opening the back door to let them outside, but then was afraid they'd run away.  So I try to get them under a cardboard box with holes cut into it.

A guy who created super-powerful scents, using his own bodily smell. He was constantly sniffing his own crotch.  His scents were sold black-market though, like drugs.

Peeing endlessly on the carpet.

Vincent Cassel wearing a Crips blue bandana do-rag on his head.  I was in France with him and a German girl backpacker -- I couldn't speak any German.

Hiding out

I was on a tour/ride in a big old mansion, but I wasn't paying much attention, and instead was busy texting.  Someone said something to me about it, and I said, "But I've seen this movie before." Somehow I knew what was about to happen -- that the "tour" people were going to give us some hallucinogenic substance and pull some crazy shit to freak everyone out.  So when an emergency siren went off and snakes started crawling all over the floors, I very quietly stuck down to the basement where there was an apartment, locked the door, grabbed a crank-powered flashlight radio and a plate of food, and crawled into a cubbyhole I had built into a closet.  I also left a note for Redneckhunter (who I had left upstairs on the tour) in case something went wrong and I died in the closet.

So I was happily eating my plate of beef stew, in the closet, when I heard voices and footsteps coming down to the apartment.  So I crawled completely into the closet - behind the hanging clothes and under a big black blanket.  It was my friend Joyce and some men, and they apparently were the bad guy masterminds behind the whole thing.  I must have made a noise or something because Joyce decided to look in the closet.  I tried to hide completely under the blanket, wrapping it tightly around me.  She was literally poking the blanket, and trying to pull it up.  I was amazed she didn't find me, but at some point she gave up, and they all went back upstairs.

After things calmed down upstairs and Redneckhunter came back down.  I jumped out and gave him a big hug.

My OCD comes out

I was masquerading as a teenager, hanging out with a bunch of kids who were trying to start a band. We got invited over to play for this older (40-something) Indian guy. But I was found out - a girl asked me, how old are you? When I told her to guess, she said 25, and I said, you got me (when really I'm close to 40...). Anyway, as the rest of the band was chatting with the Indian guy, I noticed how filthy the keys of the keyboard were, and I started wiping them with a Wetnap. The Indian guy called me out again, but I just had to keep cleaning it. While I was cleaning, they actually started playing music, so I was left out, but I was very happy when the keyboard was finally clean.

Water ride NYC

I was driving in with a couple people into New York City, and I decided to ditch them for the train at the last minute before going into the tunnel, so that I could go on this underground water ride. From the subway, you could ride on an innertube over rapids, while people tickled your feet and butt from below. It was a little odd having strangers touch you, but I was assured that all the volunteer ticklers had a strict ethos of non-groping -- it was a community and everyone looked out for everyone else. At the end of the ride, you exited out into a nice cafe with free snacks and beverages and mingling.

Bizarre Foods

I was with Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods and we were in a boat in China helping our hosts pull up thousand-year-old eggs that had been made not by being buried in lye, but instead had been preserved underwater in a river.

My mom passed by somehow and asked what it was, and was surprised when Andrew Zimmern told her pi-dan (Chinese for preserved egg) because she had never seen them made this way underwater. I told him he should be proud to be eating something my mom had never even heard of.

Speechless with Tom Waits

Redneckhunter and I were at a funeral/parade out on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia. Then we head to lunch with some other funeral-goers. As we sat down at our table, I noticed Tom Waits sitting at the table across from us! Turns out our friends the Worthingtons knew him and introduced him. While I, the superfan, was just dumbstruck and couldn't think of anything to say to him, Redneckhunter was just chatting up a storm with Tom about some spot on the California coast that they both liked.

Underdressed and underwater

I had to attend a dedication ceremony for a dormitory at Princeton, and I looked down and realized I was wearing jeans with holes in them, and I needed to go home to change. It was a long walk home, and I was running late.

Then I found myself having to do a reality-tv-style challenge that involved wading into the ocean. Some of the other challengers chose to wear flotation devices, but I figured the water was cold and I'd probably last longer keeping myself warm by treading water. However, as I waded in, the water didn't get any deeper than a few inches. There wasn't enough water to properly do the challenge, the judges thought, so they decided to move the challenge to a pool. Since it didn't seem to be as fair or interesting in a swimming pool, they decided to change the challenge to having us choreograph an underwater dance routine in the pool.

Arab Chinatown

I woke up on a tour bus traveling through what seemed to be a Chinatown in a Muslim country (Egypt perhaps?). Signs were in Chinese and Arabic. I realized I was on a Princeton trip, and I still had work I needed to do. Someone wanted me to make an animated e-card with ET flying past the moon.

Then I was no longer with the tour, but instead with just my family in a van. My uncle was driving the van, and my cousin was navigating with help from the GPS. Looking out the window I saw someone dressed in a military uniform (in China, military surplus is quite popular attire) taking a dump on the sidewalk. When we got to our hotel, I decided to change out of the flimsy ballet flats I was wearing into more substantial shoes.

Cake Desk

I was in school with James Allan from the band Glasvegas. Then things got a bit horror movie-ish. I can't remember exactly...

Turns out though, it was just a movie, and I left the theater (a big theater, like Lincoln Center). As I was leaving, someone offered to show me a desk made entirely out of cake that apparently was a prop in the movie.

I met up with my cousins outside -- we were, naturally, on our way to go eat somewhere. Then I was in a hotel room, watching Italian television. The show on the TV was called "Lupo" and was some sort of gritty cop drama. The main character Lupo was a real asshole, and in the scene I was watching, he shoved his dick into a bad guy's mouth.

The Fortress

I was scaling a fortress wall of some kind, along with many other people. There were people on the inside of the fortress helping us over, and so a huge shirtless muscle-bound guy basically picked me up and lifted me over the wall.

Then we were in a cafeteria getting lunch. I couldn't decide what I wanted. There was a special on pork belly served over a salad, but I was leaning toward the spicy chicken rice bowl.

After that, it was like I was in the world of Game of Thrones, in a cathedral that looked kind of like the Princeton chapel. There was a "champion" who was supposed to accompany the king - he looked like Alside from True Blood. But the king didn't like him, and instead summoned two dragons which appeared from out of the cathedral rooftop, perhaps gargoyles come to life. Everyone had to cover their faces with orange Shamwows when the King passed. There was also a "talking head" in the King's entourage - the head sat on a platter, but was fully alive, with no body.

Scary Pets

I was with my friend Tricia in my parents' basement, and she had her "pets" with her. The main pet was a huge snake -- Anaconda-huge. Only not only did this snake strangle, it bit too. I was terrified, but she just laughed at me. She also had a baby giraffe, and I finally was startled awake when the snake lunged at the poor giraffe's head.

Lost in Penn Station

I was supposed to go to New York for work with a couple of work colleagues, and I was walking through Penn Station with them. We were in a hurry - in my head, I was thinking that we were going to miss the train from Princeton to New York (even though we already were in New York). Even though I was a daily commuter through Penn Station for 5 years, things looked familiar but confusing to me now. I took them down a set of stairs to what I thought would be the lower level, only it went down directly to the tracks, and instead of being full of other train riders waiting for the train, it was full of homeless people, people just loitering, drinking, and doing drugs. Instead of walking back up the stairs to back track, we thought we could cut through to a staircase we saw down the line that lead out to the street. However, in order to do so, we had to step over homeless people, squeeze past scary looking men hanging out on the steps, etc. Nobody really harassed us that bad, though some dodgy people tried to talk to us. When we got outside, I saw it had put us out on 37th Street, about 4 blocks north of the main Penn Station entrance. Again, the city streets there looked completely different than what I was expecting.