Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Celebrity Stalker/ Plays on Pintos

I dreamed I was being stalked by old Richard Dreyfuss in a red Pinto. It was slightly terrifying because he was going to kill me. He kept leaving threatening messages on my phone, describing where I lived, my routine, and he would laugh at me.

So I was driving through the streets of Athens with my father and Freida Pinto, when I saw the red Pinto watching us from two blocks away. Richard Dreyfuss didn't know that we spotted him.

"Looks like those counter-surveillance classes paid off," Dad said, and we tried to lose him. We slowly pulled away and turned a corner, then a second corner, and stopped in a parking lot. I kept a lookout, and though he didn't know exactly where we were, he kept driving close to us, looking around. Each time he went down a nearby street, we moved on. We went down a hill, under an overpass, and kept turning, once, twice, or three times. Finally, I saw him turn the wrong way, and I knew we had lost him. We were so happy!

Then, on the way home, our street was blocked by a police car, and two policewomen. They didn't seem to be doing much. We sat in the car, tense. I looked over my shoulder, and saw the red pinto drive up behind us. Richard Dreyfuss had this ugly smile on his face. He didn't see me, but I could see him, and the young man sitting next to him in the passenger's seat of his car. I knew then that the policewomen were helping him look for our car.

We somehow made it to our home - it was a white condominium type building, with a staircase leading up from the carport to the house. On the way up, I set up an alarm system on the steps, so that he couldn't follow us. Outside, across the street, the red pinto parked. Dreyfuss called our house, and said he was going to get me. I watched him get out of the car, and start up the steps. He set off the alarm, which brought out all the neighbors. He then started crying about how someone had rigged his own steps to go off, and demanded to know who would be so cruel to an old man.

"All I want to do is go into my house," he said sadly, but I knew he was lying and that he was trying to turn the neighborhood against us. He started shouting for the "hoodlums" upstairs to come down, so I did. A man was standing next to my gate, who looked tired.

"Ella re," I said in Greek, and everyone on the street chuckled. "Kalisperasis," I said to the man in a tired voice, nonchalant.
"Kalisperasis," he said, and then I could hear him thinking - what is this old man's problem? And then I realized that I was a better actress than Richard Dreyfuss, and I pretended to be confused.
"But, this is my house," I said. "I set up the burglar alarm. Are you sure you're not confused, sir?" Everyone nodded. Richard Dreyfuss looked like he was going to skin me alive. I knew he was waiting till his lady cop friends arrived, so I started to ask my neighbors if anyone knew him. They didn't, but they remembered me.

Richard Dreyfus had to leave!


At least, that's what I think happened, because my dog woke me up at this point. I remember it all sort of starting falling apart once I decided to have an "act off" with stalker Richard Dreyfuss...strange

Also, I don't know why Freida Pinto was there - maybe it was a subliminal link to the word "pinto."


-----------------

Fragments from later - after my dog woke me up at 5am


I was on a runway, to fly a fighter jet. I pushed the throttle forward, and started racing down the runway. Then, at the last moment, I pulled back on the throttle. I decided I didn't want to fly the plane after all.

-----

Morgan Freeman? He was working in a DMV under an assumed name

-----

A medieval war. I was angry that our side was being blackmailed into surrendering, so I broke an arrow in half and slammed it into the opposing general's shoulder. Then I jumped up to a balcony....

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Oceans F-4

Start of dream: A "Lord of the Rings" style woods. I was being tracked by an assassin, but we knew this and were prepping for it, Fellowship style (that is, fighting and training). I found myself in a port city, with Merry, selling food and tobacco to sailors for cash. We were bartering. But that sense of being followed was still with me.

We took a "wrong" turn (in that I don't really remember how we got there from the boats), and wound up in a canyon which looked a little like Petra, except there was access to the sea. The water was this beautiful shade of green...I could see the person stalking me now - a figure in a blue oriental mask. The figure was perched in a tree with no leaves.

There was an elevator in the rock face. I got on, and when the doors opened I was in a hotel lobby, where there was a modern art show going on. There was a giant rainbow ball made of fiberglass cords, and there was a crowd moving through the area. I walked through the lobby, down an underground parking garage/hallway thing, and found myself on a tarmac at night.

The airport looked empty, and I suddenly had this great idea to take a joy ride on the F-4 Phantom. I had a remote control that would let me steer the planes, and I remember thinking that I could just steer the F-4 and not get into it. But the F-4 was a lot harder to control than a simple prop plane, and I almost rammed it into a fuel tanker. So I climbed out of my trainer plane and ran over to the F-4. I think my nephew was with me. I thought I could just drive the Phantom around a little, and no one would know because it was empty, but as I started to climb into the plane, I saw a hanger open not too far away, revealing a full military parade! Then an air show started - the F-22A Raptor was being towed in front of me.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" I kept repeating to myself, hopping in the Phantom. Trying not to get busted, I decided to park the plane on the other side of this chain link fence which separated the base from everything else. I did so, as one would a rental car.

"Bravo, Bravo. Identify yourself," said the radio. Off in the "distance" (fourth wall stuff), I could hear voices arguing about who was in the F-4, demands for attack, and lots of military lingo. I was tempted to say my name, and that they shouldn't worry because I wasn't stealing the airplane, only borrowing it. But instead I climbed out and took off across the desert-like tarmac back to the underground parking structure/hallway place. I didn't want to get caught. There I found my dad. I told him what had happened.

"Shit hot," he said. Then I felt handcuffs around my wrists, and two military officers were at my shoulders. I was under arrest, and they started leading me away. I kept telling them that I wasn't trying to break any laws, and that I wasn't stealing, but they didn't believe me. I was strangely euphoric through this whole section. I felt like I knew I was going to get caught all along, so getting caught didn't matter. It wasn't serious, like they were making it out to be. Before being put in prison, they stopped at a Starbucks which sold strawberries. Then I think they put me in a holding cell.


****

I feel like there was a gift store moment in between all this - like an old Cracker Barrel style gift store. They wanted me to buy something (a throw?) but I decided not to.

****

This dream ended rather abruptly - I woke up with no help at 6:39am, feeling that same sense of calm and slight euphoria. Then I couldn't believe I had tried to joyride a military jet. Overall, even with the first part of the dream being fantasy, the second part held the bigger emotional weight I suppose. Interesting that my dream self looked at incarceration as inevitable, and was nonplussed about being carted away.


I know - I've not been a good with the updates. I've been dreaming, then chronicling them in my paper journal. I will try to do better at putting them here as well.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

The Epic Gauntlet

First, there was a parade of sorts in a sunny market street, with vendors and such. I was in the crowd, but I recognized people, like P. and A. from my time in Spain. I remember I was really surprised to recognize them. And then we were at a theater, and it was a baroque theater with cherry wood paneling and lace, and gilt everywhere. The play was a wedding, only it wasn't just a play. It also felt real. I had a couple of lines, which I sort of made up (I don't think I was supposed to be on stage), and the audience laughed. There was a mailing envelope with confidential documents in it, which I was supposed to steal. I just kept feeling like I knew who everyone was, even though they didn't look like anyone I knew.

It almost felt like I was in a familiar past - like I would see myself soon.
Masks.

Then I had to get some papers down a hallway. I started walking, when a knife flew out of the wall . I dodged it, then realized that the whole hallway was one giant gauntlet. As I walked, axes swung through slots on the wall across the way, and down the center of the hallway. Then there were darts shooting out of the wall at intervals, which I had to jump over. I hugged the walls as best I could. There were table saws slicing through the floor, and it was all sort of barely lit. Just when I thought I was through, there was a big round section of the hallway, with people. There was a guy with a giant wig which was burning, and he was throwing sulfur on people, setting them on fire. There was this dead woman who tried to eat me. And there were hammers falling everywhere, and small explosions, and people in cages. But I figured out that all the monster/people were moving on diagonals, and so I was able to dodge them. I made it through the next hallway, which was quiet I think - there might have been a really sad woman in an old wedding dress and some mirrors - and dropped off the package I was carrying, which I think was either the envelope, or a big black bag. On the way back, I passed the ticket/administration desk, and bumped into a man named Steve. He had shaggy brown hair and bright brown eyes. I liked him, and decided I would come back. I have no idea why I didn't have to go through the administration area. I did come back a second time, skipping the gauntlet and going through a side door, and talked with Steve about meeting later. Then I winked at Steve, which made the other people at the desk laugh.

There was a political family reason for the giant gauntlet. There were two guys in charge - young men. There was an uncle who wanted to kill them. He thought they were irresponsible, which they were. They built/threw giant pool parties, to which I was invited. There was a three tiered hot tub system, and Steve was there, and wanted me to jump in. I was wearing my theater costume still, which was this renaissance outfit of heavy skirts. I was nervous about hopping in, but I did. It was boring, even when Steve kissed me. I remember feeling like I was getting what I wanted, but I didn't really want it. Because I knew one of the young men in charge, and I wanted him instead. I wound up sitting in the middle hot tub by myself. A small blimp flew overhead, with the evil uncle inside it.

I was in a parking lot with cars, meeting the uncle. He looked like Dennis Hopper, and he was telling me how irresponsible one of his nephews was, how they were wasting money and destroying everything. I climbed into one of the cars, and we started driving over their estate, which was immense. I wanted to know what he wanted me to do. He explained that I was going to have to be the one who negotiated one of the nephew's release, after he kidnapped him. Then he put on a giant wig about three times the size of his head and goggles, then climbed on a unicycle and went off to destroy one of the boys. In retrospect, he looked like a weird, real-world version of the villain from Sonic the Hedgehog, except clown wig and no giant mustache. My subconscious read Sonic, but I bet I'm thinking of some other video game villain.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Museum, Hotel, Farm, Ballroom - oh, and celebrities

I was in some sort of museum. It was under construction - scaffolding and sheets covered parts of exhibits. There were marble statues, and Baroque art, and a large, incomplete Egyptian wing. I was there with a toddler who wasn't mine. His name was Max. We found another toddler wandering around, who was named Ian. Ian jumped down a hole in the floor of the Egyptian wing, and emerged out another lower section next to some hieroglyphics, which he started to draw over. Then there were people in the wing, and Jonathan Groff, dressed in his "Taking Woodstock" outfit, tried to swim backwards up the hole (from the hieroglyphs to the hole), which was now filled with water. It took him way too long to do so, and when he came out of the floor he looked really upset.

We lost Ian - like he wandered off through traffic on a street at night in the rain. I looked for him, but I don't know if I ever found him. Same thing with Max - he just sort of dissipated somewhere in the dream. I think I found the people who were supposed to be looking after him, and I yelled at them.

-----

Third person - in a hotel, in the honeymoon suite, two characters from the show "Supernatural" were having really loud sex - Dean and Alex (Alex is a girl). The other rooms were making jokes about it. Then the couple who actually paid for the room came in, and threw a remote control at Dean's head for ruining their night.

-----

I was in a farming computer game, and it ran a little bit like the movie "Australia" and a game of Risk. Every turn I could take action based on how much land I owned, but I only owned five squares (?) of like a fifty square board. So I tried to grow some crops, and raise some cattle. Then this guy sent a tornado and destroyed all my stuff. So I walked off to the town council meeting - down a dirt path to a big white barn. Things were in black and white, and there was a black man in the audience in overalls, and all the farmers were being really racist towards him. I think it was the guy who plays Lafayette from "True Blood." I couldn't get any of the men to listen to me, because they were too busy making fun of the black farmer. And when I tried to tell them my problem, they just laughed at me too. I went back to looking at my farmland from above, trying to figure out how to win. I seem to remember flashes of cast iron stoves and old creaky furniture and tools too.

----

I was going through True Dungeon at Gen Con, in the giant Marriott ballroom. I was a bard, but there were only two other people in my party. Nothing looked completed, and there were no monsters. We made it through to the end, and were just about to leave, when we passed three cut out sections of wall. From these sections, randomly, jumped out three giant animatronic centipedes, each the size of a man. We fought them - well, the two other girls in my party fought them. I provided support. They looked amazingly well done. So we went to claim our experience points, but they told us we had to go again because nothing was set up properly, except for the dire centipedes

This was the last part of the dream, and I remember some people were wearing...sparkly princess hats and veils? The place was well lit, as opposed to how it usually is (dark). And at times it didn't look like a ballroom, it looked like a glade in a wood.

--------


Okay - so this dream had no flow. If I were a director, I would accuse this of being nothing more than a montage of bits. What is cool is that I remember the beginning as well as the end of this dream. Some of the middle bits are hazy, the dialogue forgotten, but this is a pretty full dream, despite my brief descriptions.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Iron Man Sunset

Extremely fragmented dream - because I woke up awkwardly (loud noises):

- Sunset over a clear water pond. Nephew was with me, and I told him to that the catfish came out when the sun went down. Then there were catfish in the water - giant polka dotted catfish. By that I mean they were pink and peach colored, with dark spots on them. The males were pinky-peach, the females had spots. One got caught on a hook by accident, and was pulled up from the water. It was taller than me, and a man gingerly removed it from the hook device and put it back in the water.

-I was in a car, watching a semi. The semi's back tires went off the road, and I thought the lady driver would recover, but then the whole back end went off the road and the truck flipped over. We were on Hwy 231, by a Walmart, except the whole road was raised, like a highway ramp. Her truck was filled with groceries...

-Robert Downy Jr. as Tony Stark (very hazy here). I think there was some sort of chase, or was he avoiding people? An apartment and a silver car. For some reason, I think he had a bag of onions in the front seat.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Fishing

Ah, another dream about my favorite element: water

------

Daytime. I was fishing on a pier. Next to me were two men in a rickety row boat. There was another little girl on the pier next to me, and maybe another man. I could see the shadows of fish in the water. The lake was big, but I could see the trees that made up its borders. The water was bright blue green, like the shallow waters of the Caribbean. Except it wasn't clear - it was cloudy.

Suddenly, I found myself swimming on the far side of the lake. The water was cold and murky brown. "In them waters there is where you can catch alligator, catfish..." One of the men in the rowboat was saying. I did not feel like eating alligator or catfish, so I swam back the pier, and the warm green water. The man continued listing fish as I crossed through different patches of the lake. I got to the pier and pulled myself up. I could feel fish brushing against my skin.

I grabbed a fishing pole, except the pole was snapped in the middle. I tried to cast, and threw a long cast to the far shore of the lake. I felt a tug, and tried to reel in the fish, but my line got tangled with one of the rowboat men's lines. We tugged together, and I knew that I had lost my fish. The man was really excited for some reason. We tugged and reeled, and finally we pulled out a large trophy. It was his lost trophy.

"Great," I said. "I love fishing for other people's prizes."

"Yours is out there too," said someone. And I could see the top of my trophy sticking out of the water, lodged I guess in the mud of the lake. I started to cast again....

__________

I did not recognize anyone in this dream. They all seemed like rural strangers, friendly in a rural way.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Small dream

I have only one sentence for this dream:


I was Sacajawea, and I was rollerskating.


------


There - psycho-analyze that!

Rube Goldberg dance

Sigh - I really could use a dream that wasn't so overtly weird...

Okay, so I was in three theater productions at once. All of them were on these tiny little stages. Each theater piece followed the other, and each was set up like some sort of crazy rube goldberg device. In one I had to jump up the outline of hill, except the outline was made with buckets of water. So I had to jump up buckets of water, then jump down them. There were metal cymbals, pinwheels, and champagne glasses. I had to duck around and spin. It was all very hectic. Finally, I landed, and there was applause. Everything shifted, and the next show started. The second show had lots of little houses on hills, and I was supposed to...I think I was supposed to dance around them (but it's hazy now and I can't remember). It was like being on a conveyor belt, and having to act different for each scene piece.

I remember spotlights, and cheering - it was theatrical, and though I was getting tired of putting on the shows, it never occurred to me to stop acting.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The hiatus

The hiatus over the past month was me abroad, getting my teaching certificate.

Did I dream? Of course. I did not, however, write them down. In fact, I only really remember two dreams, one of which I will share:

I was overlooking a large city at night. I was standing on a cliff. The city had an orange/purple glow, as big cities do at night. Overhead, I saw a streak of green light. I grabbed a pair of binoculars to get a better look. It was a comet, streaking overhead. I wanted a better view, so I jumped off the cliff, and flew up over the city to watch the sky.

-----

Nice. Simple. Hopeful.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The Creepiest Angel of All (Nightmare)

This may be my only attempt at putting a nightmare onto this blog. We'll see.

This is the last thing I saw before I woke up:

A bed in a darkened room. On it was the filthiest naked angel lying on his side. He was covered in hair, and his chest was coated with oil or sweat. His face was about a foot long, and a mouth full of sharp teeth. He had auburn hair that curled down to his shoulders, and big, creepy eyes. In fact, his face looked like a gross human-esque version of Hades from Hercules
A woman climbed into bed with him, but I couldn't see her in full. More like I could see one of her legs,an arm - just pieces.
"I can't help it," he said. "I just love her so much." He then proceeded to tear the woman apart with his teeth. It was violent, and the dream fell into disjointed images of what was happening

****

I hate it when I have dreams like this. That stupid face will stick with me for several days now *shudder*

There was more to this dream - A theater, a show - but the end is what woke me up at 6am

Friday, April 16, 2010

Dreams of Dinosaurs

This is not so much about one dream I've had, but about a recurring image over the past three days - giant lizards.


April 12/13: I remember very little, except for a moment towards the end. I was walking a long a big lake. I could see all the lake, but it was still pretty big - and reminded me of Lake Banet (no image to accompany) - sort of like a giant kidney bean. I walked to the edge, down a sort of steep incline, to a puddle of water which was all slimy and black, which I understood to be the "beach/tide" area. Out on the water, giant creatures were breaching the surface, like whales coming up to breathe. Giant snapping turtles with thick, armor plating, and ankylosaurus (plural: anklyosauri? - see image below) which did not seem to have legs. I did not go in the water, because I was uneasy with just how many giant reptiles were in the water.


April 13/14: Again, I remember only the end. I was running through a very hilly place - the hills were large and sloping, and there were always twists and bends, deep ravines, but climbable. I was part of some sort of war party, and we were fighting these giant snakes that emerged from the hills. The snakes were covered in moss and clay - they looked like they were made of earth. Sometimes they looked like dragons, with massive jaws and sinuous bodies. Then there was a woman, of sorts - she had human legs, but she had a thousand arms that whipped around her like tentacles. She had a large head and black eyes, and she laughed whenever we tried to hit her with...whatever it was we were using. She too was made of moss and mud. We ran all through the hills, hitting things and fighting, but it never felt like we were actually doing anything - not dying, not winning, not losing. Just fighting and running.


I wonder why reptiles seem to play such a large role in my dreams of late, and why I'm more neutral about them than frightened. Unease is the worst I feel, but never real fear. And even with the fighting dream, it felt strangely harmless despite all the action. Hmm....

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

April 3-4: Shrek 4 trailer run Amok

A big castle. Ogre resistance movement. There was a lot of climbing through a hidden duct system which involved toilets and slot machines. The system itself was very clean, and very strange. There were optical illusion doors that looked too small to get through unless you pushed on the sides of walls and things like that. I was hiding from assassins atop a giant owl/hawk statue at one point, and I watched them leaping from scaffolding. They never really saw me, though I wasn't hiding that well. I really don't know if I was an ogre or a human being, but then a group of humans came in. A black woman wanted to start a revolt, and asked to be led through the tunnels. I climbed through a series of progressively smaller ducts, and eventually wound up in a sort of theme park/casino. Lots of hippies and gold coins...

Outside, by a bridge, there were crocodiles/alligators in the water. I told some kids not to go int the water, but a large African American student swam to the bottom and laughed. The croc/alligators acted like they were going to attack him, but stopped just short. Everyone pointed and laughed when one of the crocs tried to mate with the student.

Theme park - swimming in a vast water park. Hotel rising out of the water nearby. Daniel was there, and we saw some bubbles in the water. The bubbles moved over to us and pulled him under, but then let him up. The bubbles, he said, were fish. Hundreds of "friendly" goldfish who tickled him.

Pirates at the theme park - and lots of balloons for a party.


****


Okay, I'll admit that this is one of my least interesting dreams, in that I can't remember most of it. I do know that in retrospect, I think my brain built the entire ogre resistance bit off of the trailer for "Shrek 4" except that in my dream, the ogres were thinner, meaner, and much smarter. Like, deadly, non-Shrek ogres...eh, maybe I'll delete this post later.

Also, there was this old man who didn't want to fight. I was supposed to help him get out...or something like that...

April 2-3: Adventures in Water City, and more!

This dream was vague when I woke up, but there are distinct bits that I remember.
__________

There was a city in "the South" - skyscrapers, massive reservoirs and aqueducts. Water was falling in sheets over the aqueducts above us, and water coated the roads in clear sheets. We drove under the aqueducts. I was seeing "family" or something. There was a big gathering - there were Native Americans dancing. A man with wild black hair and a crooked nose (who I think was our "guide?"). There was a ceremony - a hunt? Twenty or forty men mounted gleaming/illuminated white horses and ran for dust clouds in the distance. A man (different from guide) tried to join them, but was forbidden. He fell off his brown horse, but he helped one of the Indians up.

There were evil living shadows there, in the city. They followed me back to my "house," but I was stuck, or invisible, or changed somehow. They were listening to the man with black hair giving information to a girl in a pink southern belle costume. I swung a golden chain at the shadow(s), but it moved from wall to wall. I finally hit it, and it disappeared.


At some point in all of this, Chace Crawford died and possessed the body of a crow - or could change into a crow. When I killed the shadow, he turned back into Chace Crawford.

-This whole section of the dream was far more intricate. There was a reason for the hunt, the shapechanging, etc.

***

I was on Hwy 114, and there were lots of hotels. Parmele Hotel in tacky peach and black lace interiors. I was trying to find a room for some people - I was their guide? This one young man kept kissing me, but I don't think I was bothered by it.

***

I was on SJC campus, reenacting the first part of this dream(?) But I had to wear a New Kids on the Block sweater and sweatpants. I was outside Hallas Hall. D*** (name omitted) saw me and walked over to laugh at me. I was driving a small, beat-up car.

****

Miscellaneous images from this dream, but I can't remember where they go:

-I think we were asked to leave the southern city for some reason
-No one lived in the city. It was abandoned
-I loved all the water
-The people we were visiting felt like old family. John Goodman's voice was there, and maybe the woman who played Mrs. Bennet from A&E's "Pride and Prejudice"
-Alternating playful and serious, mixed with random "happy endings"
-A schoolroom?

Saturday, March 27, 2010

March 24-25

This is a recap of sections of jet-lag dreams from my trip to Paris:

1. March 24-25: This dream was a series of violent replays of clips from tv shows. There are two things I remember: One, an old arcade in an old, drafty building. Two: A snow-covered road. I was driving along, and I had forgotten the road was icy, so I slammed on the brakes. I slid and serpentined, and finally stopped. I was scared I'd go off the road into a ditch, so I turned around and drove back "home." Later in the dream, I was back on this ice covered road, and I spun in a 360 degree turn, and almost wound up in the ditch. I climbed out of my car, and tried to pull it. It was unnaturally light, and I pulled it so hard I almost dragged it into the ditch on the opposite side of the road. I climbed in, and stared at the road. I wanted to get to my destination, but I hate driving on the ice and snow, and didn't know how long the road went on like this. I was nervous about being hit by other cars while I stood there. I realized I couldn't just go back home again, so I got in the car and started driving really slowly down the road.


2. March 25-26: I was a a heavy metal concert, and Michael Buble was performing. There were all these angry people around, in leather and spikes and whatnot. Some were in costumes, some were on motorcycles. I was some sort of roadie, setting things up for the concert. All of a sudden, there was a giant bear at the concert - this bear was maybe twenty feet tall. It had wrist bands on, with spikes. It started ripping people to shreds, and I ran away. I could hear it talking to people. I climbed up a scaffold (or was it a cliff or a building) - anyways, from up above I watched it. It was joined by a giant lynx or something, which had no skin and was just a mass of muscles and fibers. Lightning rippled off its skin. They were killing a lot of people - the whole concert was a mess. They kept saying they were only taking the "privileged chosen" to meet the "master." A guy who looked like Dennis Leary walked up the bear and said he was ready to go. The bear touched his forehead, and said "You are not of the chosen." The Dennis Leary biker guy was very upset.


I know, I know - Michael Buble at a heavy metal concert.....

Monday, March 22, 2010

March 19/20: Pluto and Don Juan

This dream was, as I remember it, split into two parts:

Part I:
I was traveling with an old woman. It was somewhere foreign - fog, drizzle, faint sun. We were in a city of sorts, except that to get to the city we had to go down giant escalators. The city itself was built in a giant crater, and it went underground around us. I had the distinct idea that this is what life on Pluto would feel like. We were warned by a passerby to look out for the moon, as it had a close orbit.

At one point, a giant, oblong, rotating rock floated through the town. It looked like misshapen pumice. It was the moon, and I remember thinking "Oh my, there weren't kidding!" I had to duck round it, which wasn't difficult as the moon wasn't moving that fast. I helped the old woman climb over the moon onto a ledge.

Note: In retrospect, the town reminded me vaguely of Copenhagen or London. There was a spire of sorts - or it might have been a weather vane, which was in the center of the crater. There were flags strung from it. The old woman reminded me of a nun I know. We were tourists...


Part II:
Scene change

It was just me, and I was at what I will now call "Don Juan University." The whole section of this dream ran like a vaudeville show. Lots of young people, running around, making out - frivolous romances. They were trying to outsmart the priests, who kept trying to make them all go to church. I saw police tape, and red LED light signs...

I was chasing/running through hallways with wooden floors which sometimes looked like the backroom of my old college church.

Green rolling hills. Laughter. Trysts - but nothing serious.
Dark wooden confessionals - empty.
A statue of two women in frilly dresses, in an amorous embrace.

A man - thin, not too tall (maybe in a top hat?) telling all his "students" what to do and how to love. The class, smiling for a picture. But running - chasing all over again. A great sense of movement. Period costumes.

******

As you can see, the second half fell off as I woke up.

So, this is my most recent dream

March 12: Alligators

Though I keep a dream journal in print form, this is the dream that sort of motivated me to start a blog about it. It's not my longest dream, or my scariest, or my most meaningful. It did, however, stick around with me for a week. Here it is:

In all the drainage ditches, there were alligators swimming under the water. I saw them where ever I went - long dark shadows swimming after me. There were many of them. At one point, I was walking along a reservoir with my father towards a city. It was winter, and all the alligators were frozen under water, except under bridges and in big drainage pipes. A giant alligator, the fattest alligator I've ever seen, climbed out of the water and started coming after us. It was slow though. It followed us, and I was nervous, but it stopped eventually, once we reached a giant overpass.

Later (as in another section of the dream which I remember but can't link to the above), I found myself at some sort of villa. It was sunset, and the weather was perfectly cool but not cold. There were hedges, and a door knocker in the shape of either a lion or a lizard. A man appeared in a tuxedo and wanted to dance with me. He had brown hair, and a was a good dancer. We danced. He wanted to marry me, and I remember thinking that though he was not a great looking person, he was a good soul. In the dream, that seemed crucial somehow...

*****

I have many dreams involving snakes, but not alligators. I remember being wary, but not terrified of them - as though I knew it was unlikely they would catch me, but I still didn't like seeing them there. When it comes to snakes, my dreams about them are almost always positive. It's rare I have a bad dream involving reptiles.

The Beginning

This is my first post, so an introduction would be in order.

This is an online dream journal. I already keep a print version, but I thought that there might be those of you out there who might enjoy looking at what a subconscious mind has to offer. It would also be good for me, to keep up with a good practice that too often I forget to do in the haste of the morning. Dreams carry weight, and they are a bunch of fun to pick apart.

Some of these entries will be long, if I remember a lot. They might be small if I only remember a few images or scenes. I may or may not put the more questionable (read overly dark or sexual) dreams up, because most of the time I'd rather forget them than put them in print. If I don't have dreams for awhile, I'll put some of my "archived" dreams from old journals up.

Feel free to comment - if you think you know what an image symbolizes or what you think my dream means. I ask though that you keep the language clean, and do not attribute my dreams to substance abuse. That's not cool.

Finally, I picked the moniker "magpie" because they collect shiny objects. Keeping track of one's dreams is like collecting shiny objects, because only a few bright pieces tend to stand out. If you're lucky, then you get a whole necklace, but more often than not you have only a few beads and a thin thread on which to string them.

Enjoy!