DREAM THREAD Part Pi.Pi!

[Volpone]

Had a bit of an "Inception" moment last night. We all lived on a submarine. Not a yellow submarine. A nasty black cast iron one that was all cold and wet. Some kind of apocalyptic thing. But we came up at, like some harbor and I couldn't take it anymore so I agitated for us to go ashore and managed to get it to happen. Of course as soon as I got on shore I realized I'd forgotten my shoes but if I went back, they might not let me off again. So then I saw a kind of Soviet Goodwill store that had a big rack of shoes and I got everyone to go checkout the store. The staff was annoyed because they never had any customers so they never had to work, but the owner/manager (who spoke very good English) let us all in. She was helping me get the shoes, because they were under a rack of clothes. But we'd move something and not get to the shoes. So then we'd move something else. Eventually we'd moved everything and still couldn't find the shoes. They were gone. And I thought to myself, "this is the kind of thing that would happen in one of my dreams," somehow without realizing from the rest of the scenario that I was dreaming. Then I eventually woke up and was like "Huh. How do you like that?"

 

[whisky]

I was on a sailing boat, it may have been part of a reality TV show, all I remember is that the choice of food in the galley was not great

 

[Volpone]

Ooh. Very involved last night. Some were at least nominally related too:

First one, I had 3 churches (or maybe old college campuses) that I like because they're cool and spooky and have neat hidden spots. The first one was awesome. The second one was "meh." The third one I skipped for some reason and instead wound up in some kind of tourist trap in the middle of Dust Bowl Nowhere. It was like a little house with a gift shop and some other stuff I forget. Then...in the basement?...there was a living room furnished up like the late 1950s. Joe and Jill Biden were there and Elvis (young Elvis) was sitting on a stool, getting ready to perform a song. Buddy Holly, (maybe) Marylin Monroe, and a few other famous dead people, along with Dolly Parton were all sitting around down there. And I got to chat with Dolly and Buddy a bit (or listen to them chat).

Then we left and we (I think I had a date for this dream(!) decided to race another couple to the next destination (the last church?). This didn't go so well in that I almost immediately ran into something, badly damaging the car and suddenly we we'd gone from the middle of nowhere Great Plains USA to, like, an Italian city in the 1960s. And our modern cars had turned into some kid of rat-rod racecars that were basically an engine, cockpit, and a big cylindrical gas tank, strapped on its side behind the seats, on wheels. And it was like a video game where we kept running into things and cobblestones were flying everywhere. And at this point we were in the middle of some kind of road race--no, wait! It was a *movie* about a road race because we were screwing up the script but they kept filming because there wasn't anything else the could do and the footage was pretty good.

Then I woke up for a bit before getting into a dream where I was supposed to go to some kind of costume thing and this cute Young Anne Hathaway/Young Liv Tyler amalgam wanted to do a themed couple costume with me so I kind of winked at her and implied that there'd be more than a costume party involved if I did that so she told me I'd better not think that because nothing was going to happen--but then she kind of winked back at me and smiled. It was a decent dream.

 

[whisky]

Strange mixture, I was part of the crew on fast and furious, the rock left in a huff then got off with three women, I was attacked by three or four people who kept stabbing me in the balls, after that I had to work as part of a LMFAO tribute band.

 

[Volpone]

Last night Captain America was living in a cave because he was on the run from some shadowy global conspiracy. He killed a bear and smoked the meat over a smoldering log. Then he kept a cache of the meat under a sheet in his cave. I liked to hang out in his cave to get away from people but I never had any of his bear meat because that would've been rude. Then other people started hanging out in his cave too. He eventually got a little refrigerator for the cave and there was also a big projection TV that I was watching something on until the landlord/upstairs neighbor came down to complain about the volume and how it was always on. I tried shutting it off, but the little box the image would project from never would actually shut off--if you looked down into it you could see a TV show and hear the audio a little bit quieter than conversation. We tried shutting it off a few times but decided that was the way it worked. It was annoying to the guy sitting next to it.

 

[The Question]

Last night's was interesting. I had to face off against Rooster Cogburn (the Jeff Bridges version) except neither one of us had a gun and we were both too tired for a fistfight, so we just sat there drinking whiskey and insulting each other.

 

[Volpone]

Boy, howdy. A lot going on over a long period last night:

First dream, I was in a class that had some kind of big omnibus homework assignment/test (that may have been on that old mimeographed paper with the purple ink). I'd gotten stuck on one of the assignments and ran out of time without answering more than a couple questions on the test. It was time for some kind of vacation/break, so the teacher collected all the assignments into a reusable grocery bag or other tote. Since she wasn't allowed to grade them over the holidays or something, they would go home with me. I was happy because this would give me a chance to finish the work. Then I realized not only could I finish the work, I could just copy it off everyone else's work. But then it turned out that the work would, in fact, be going home with the teacher. Or something like that. At any rate, I wouldn't get it. This dream had a definite elementary school kind of feel.

The next part was more of a college undergrad feel, but still incomplete homework related. We had to do an art project. We had to bring it to the instructor as it was being developed for critiques. Mine was coming along nicely. Last thing I had to do was matte it. As I was waiting in line to do my presentation I noticed the matte had some...puckering?...from the glue drying so I tried to gently stretch it and the art popped out of the matte and splintered into pieces. I was late for a big wedding reception that was happening literally next door and I was trying to get credit, based on what the instructor had already seen but he said I had to redo everything. I got excused from having to go through the receiving line and mingle at the wedding, but I was long from done with the project and the buffet line had opened for the wedding. I was considering blowing off the project when that dream ended.

Next phase was still undergrad college. The college was giving away free sex with whores, but as we were waiting in line we realized it was a ploy to vaccinate us. The guy in line ahead of me stormed off in disgust and that kind of killed the dream. So then I had to get home. It was snowing and there was a kind of crossing guard that would stop traffic if an ambulance was coming. But only for an ambulance. She was annoyed one time because she thought an ambulance was coming but it was only a robot street sweeper or a cab or something.

There were probably other dreams and details too, but that's all I could remember. And that was involved enough that I scribbled notes onto the back of an envelope so I wouldn't forget anything before I got around to writing.

 

[Volpone]

I've been having some wild ones lately. But I went through a phase where they were all so odd and disjointed that they'd be like trying to explain the ending to a Stanley Kubrik movie--even if I remembered enough of them. Then they got more narrative again for a bit but I didn't have any power and I wasn't going to waste precious library time typing them up--even if I remembered them by then. Now they're back to little snippets of weird and random things.

 

[Volpone]

Finally, a decent dream cycle. How did it go?....

Ah, right. I'm in...grad school? There's a social function at a bar and I get introduced to a couple female German exchange students. They're playing pool and I'm just kind of hanging out. Popped outside for a bit. I don't smoke but my dream needed me to be outside so a car full of girls could drive past and one could all horny about me out a window (sunroof?) as they drove past. I think this is a recurring character and the fact that I still haven't managed to have sex with her means this has never happened IRL, only in dreams (not that I manage to have much more sex IRL than I do in dreams, but that's another story). Anyway, after the car drives past, I resolve to go flirt with the German girls--although I'm embarrassed to realize I've forgotten their names.

Then it's WWII and I'm in Washington DC as part of a civilian war planning team. We're at the White House, working with Winston Churchill to persuade FDR to use a plan Churchill likes and not some crazy plan someone else is pushing for. I go in to bring something to FDR and Howard Hughes is there, pitching the "Spruce Goose." FDR likes it but has to throw his weight around and tell Hughes that he could have him disappeared if he wanted to. I pick up a document that I think is about the "Spruce Goose" and go back to our working group. But it turns out it's actually a transparency overlay that has a little plastic green army bomber/cargo plane glued to it. Churchill gets excited by this and begins looking for landmarks on one of our maps that relate to the transparency so he can line up where the plane is supposed to be. (Is it crashed in the ocean? Full of treasure? We'll never know.)

Next phase is modern time, nominally in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There aren't a bunch of superheroes running around, but it has that look and feel of the movies. Some of us are doing traffic control for...some event? I don't know. The guy in the orange vest who is supposed to be directing traffic realizes his whistle isn't working. Meanwhile this commuter...bus? Train?... is coming down the street and about to run into...a building? Something. It's slowing down but not fast enough. So I step out behind it and grab a handhold on the back to try to help stop it. No one else helps. Then Black Panther jumps out in front of it, laying on the street. This seems stupid and I'm trying to remember if Black Panther has any level of super powers that would allow him to stop a train/bus this way. That's when I woke up.

 

[Volpone]

The longest and most coherent dream from last night managed to role the "military training" and "guns don't work" themes of my dreams in--with just a hint of "I never get laid." Some kind of rifle qualification. I'm up to shoot with the next relay, but we need to consolidate our remaining ammo from 4 magazines to two. I've filled up one but it didn't take as many shells as it should've. It turns out in the middle of the stack a few of the bullets have turned lengthwise in the clip. Then as I'm fishing them out I start to notice most of the primers are defective (around this point in the dream, the ammo all turned to some kind of weird blanks too, where there was, like, red wax capping the brass instead of a bullet. I missed my turn to shoot and the rest of the group was moving to a new target and they told me to come along when I got my stuff sorted out (they would never just leave someone by themself with live ammo IRL--only in dreams). I showed the ammunition officer (there also isn't an "ammunition officer" IRL) the defective rounds and she said to bring them and we'd sort it out at the next firing point. (It turned out she was married to another Marine so she was off-limits.) I finally get to the next location with my fucked-up ammo and some big-wig political spectator tells me to get up to one of the firing points. I try to comply but quickly realize all the firing points are already occupied so I go back to trying to get my gear sorted out.

The dreams after that were just me fighting assorted people--at one point I'm hanging out with Burt Reynolds and some 'roided up friend of his and I'm slapping Burt's big friend around pretty good. At another point I was slapping around a cat in an old-timey police uniform (the blue hat with the visor and the blue wool coat with the stand-up collar and brass buttons). And I don't mean "cat" as slang, I mean an actual housecat in a police uniform. An I'm totally ineffectual at beating up this cat.

 

[Mirah]

Last night I slept in a new place and I dreamt that there was a guy hiding out behind a rock in the snow and the swat team came out and shot him and then they used my place to rest. There were women and men all dressed in black and they all went to sleep where ever they could find. Meanwhile I was wide awake, in my dream and most of the night for real.

I also dreamt I had a frog in my eye. That was fun.
Real fun.

I cant wait for night 2.

 

[whisky]

Me and some other people had a small farm in an occupied land, two bad guys came, maybe they were Isis, maybe Russians, they started chaining off the farm intending us to starve to death there but they ran out of chain, then one of them said I guess we'll just have to kill them. I tried to get away, but the world turned black, and after that I was awake.

 

[Volpone]

Been having dreams, but nothing long enough or coherent enough to remember/write down. Although I will mention one tidbit of how oddly mundane my dreams can be:

I've got a floor lamp in the corner of one room. Outlet is say, 5' away. Carpet floor. Rather than just have an ugly black cord running along the floor, I neatly tucked it between the baseboard and the carpet, so there's only a few inches on each end where it comes out from under the baseboard.

Well the other day I was doing something in that room and realized the cord had gotten pulled out. At first I was wondering if it had to do with the recent storm, since the Internet router is also on that outlet but then I realized it was probably The Cat and that I'd have to tuck it back in when I got around to it.

Today I'm vacuuming in that room and the cord is just the way it is supposed to be--tucked neatly out of sight. I suppose it is possible that I did it right away, when I noticed it, but I don't remember it that way, so most likely I just dreamed it.

Who dreams something so mundane as a cord being out of place? And what does it say about my anal-retentive tendencies?

 

[Volpone]

Annoyed that I lost tonight's. There were at least 2 that were pretty good. Only thing I remember, for some reason I had to put a bunch of BBs/ball bearings in my mouth and I accidentally swallowed one and it got lodged in my throat. It woke me up, still believing it was real and I had to logically convince myself it was a dream.

 

[The Question]

Had a pretty good one last night. For who knows what reason, I was at a Die Antvoord concert, and every time that wierd-goofy-alien-looking bitch tried to sing, somebody ran out on stage and decked her, causing the audience to cheer.

 

[Volpone]

Well this was...odd. First bit was fairly standard dreamstuff. Second part was...what the hell, I'll share it.

Oh, I had a prequel dream where someone I worked with the military who is on Facebook reached out to me about something. This was just a little warmup to get over a short bout of insomnia.

Then we get to a mall with my Mom. Sit down on a bench and I decide to see if I can fly us both and the bench (a little the way ET flies on the bicycle with Eliot). I've been getting actually quite good at flying in dreams so I thought I'd try it and, sure enough, we're flying around the mall. Well it turns out the mall has a special team who are on the lookout for people who can fly. They wear green windbreakers and can also fly. And they're looking to add people to their team. So I land to talk to them and they start scanning my Mom with their midichlorian/PK meter devices and I'm like "excuse me, I'm the one who can fly," but they're like "yeah, right," so I just hover up about 8' in the air and go "Hellooo?"

They're all set to give me my green jacket when I hear about/remember some event I wanted to go to across town, so I decide to go full-on Superman and see how fast and superhero I can fly (I usually just float a little more like a blimp or something). Now I'm naked except for a sheet that isn't covering up that much so I chuckle to myself about not being Superman but the "Flash". I see a girl I know (only in the dream, sadly), wearing fetish clothes, leaving the event. I think I've missed it but maybe she just left early? So I get there. There's, like, a main event and then a side event that is a little seedier, edgier, and less well advertised. I of course go to that. The girl at the door remembers me even though it's been a long time and she says she has plans for me as long as I'll help her with a scene first. They've got some guy that they're basically initiating and she wants me to come on him. Fuck him? I don't think so. Just jack off on him. So I'm waiting for the time for this to happen and trying to prep for it when a bus or limo or something lets off a bunch of people who are dressed like they're going to some vanilla fetish-themed thing. When they see what's going on in the room they pretty quickly leave. Eventually it's about time so I need to get oiled up. Then I get in line with, like, a dozen other guys and I realize this is basically going to be a gay bukkake. And in this case the "I never get laid in dreams" glitch comes in handy and I wake up.

 

[Mirah]

I was going to go meet some friends
they called and told me where to meet them
Only I realized I didn't have my vehicle
So I took my garbage bin on wheels instead
wtf
I was just cruising that through traffic like it was
a vehicle
Then when I arrived I got into an arguement with
my friend and I slapped her
Then my other friend was being wierd
and now I am awake

 

[Volpone]

Had a few last night, but the only one I remembered, for some reason I'm back in Portland, at a soccer game, with a dream friend (just some random dude my brain made up to be my friend in the dream). Some guy sitting next to us accused me of microaggression or something and came back with security. I said I didn't know anything about it and it was no big deal. But I was told my friend and I had to go report to some microaggression training given by the Chief of Police. Since I don't particularly care about soccer, I'm wandering around in the back office corridors, deliberately not finding the classroom and stewing about how, with all the property crime, murder, homelessness, and drug abuse, maybe the Portland Chief of Police has better things to do than teach soccer fans to say "please" and "excuse me" when entering or leaving their seats. I mean, have they seen fan behavior in European soccer?

There was a little side-quest dream where a cute girl named "Cindy" came past me while saying goodbye to her friend. Then, after Cindy had gone through a door, the friend remembered she had something to give to her. Since I was going that way anyhow, I offered to take it. Then I heard people talking to Cindy but from a different direction than where I thought she'd gone. So I called out for "Cindy" and this blonde girl came out when the other Cindy was black. I was pretty sure it was the wrong Cindy and by now the odds of finding the other one were slipping and the friend who gave me the stuff had left too, so I went back to stewing about the BS microaggression class.

 

[whisky]

It started off in my flat, as many dreams do, I was looking through binoculars and saw a new indoors pool a few miles away, suddenly I was getting off a bus with my mum and her brother trying to find this pool, but we ended up walking through an abandoned warehouse near the river, it was getting darker in there so had to light the torch on my phone, depsite this both of them fell into a hole in the floor, I thought they both had died, but when I jumped down to get them, both of them were ok with no broken bones, I woke before I could figure out how to get them out of the hole

 

[Volpone]

That sounds eerily similar to the gameplay on the "E.T." game for the Atari VCS.