Dream Log: December 7, 2000

Me and some old friends were attending something resembling a UN-meeting, as spectators. A lot of other people were too, since the meeting was held in a _huge_ fullpacked stadium. Don't ask me why. The chairman held an opening statement in a seremonial tone, standing on a 5x7m square ramp down in some pit in the middle. When he finished, the crowd started clapping and cheering, and the ramp ascended quickly 10 meters or so. It stopped level with and inside a 5x7m hole in a 7x9m square, and the chairman stepped forward onto the outer square, to signify that the conference was opened or something.

The chairman spoke some more, announcing someone (I never caught any of what they said), and stepped aside as a delegate or some such came down to the podium and started speaking. Suddenly an announcement interrupted the speaker, booming out across the stadium, sounding something like this:

"This audio is illegally transmitted with the aid of mp3 technology. Your illegal use of mp3 to play copyrighted audio has been logged. This recording will now end."

Silence. My friends and I understood that the audio was beeing sent through some network, and that a monitoring program had triggered on the audio-format and added the message before stopping the stream. The show had technical problems, and the men in suits down at the podium appeared to squirm in the unwanted mirth of the audience, who also understod what had happened.

Then someone raised a cry: Napster we love ya!. Someone repeated it, and suddenly one half of the crowd was shouting it at the other half, who responded in turn. Napster we love ya!. Some were just laughing or explaining theories of what had happened to their neighbours, while others did the wave or raised fists in the air. I thought how cool it would be to node this dream, and promptly woke.

This is a a weird one. Well, aren't they all! Apologies for the rambling narrative (almost dream like, one might say).
It starts off, me and my girlfriend were going to take a plane to somewhere, I think Australia. We got to the airport late so we had to rush through the terminal, straight onto the tarmac to the plane. There I realised that since we hadn't checked in, we hadn't handed our bags over and we still had them on our shoulders. Oh dear. Anyway, we get to the gangway(?? is that the right word) and an attendant (not dressed in either the airport uniform or that of the airline) gives us each a ticket stub. We then proceed to "enplane" (who the hell makes up words when there is already a perfectly effective way of saying it already). The only 2 seats left are the ones by themselves next to the windows. It's at this point that I notice that the floor is the same steel plating that they like to use on outdoor walkways. I sit down, strap in, (the buckle is nothing more than a 2 long plastic clips that fit together) and the plane starts to taxi.

My view transfers to the cockpit and I can see out of the windscreen. We are taxiing and we get to the end of the runway, pass some Gendermes and carry on past the end onto what can only be described as a tree bordered C road. We carry on, getting faster and faster since the road is going downhill. We pass a village that looks suspiciously like one of the ones on the Tour de France coverage and proceed to head towards a big drop that marks the beginning of some sort sewer type floodway thingy. The plane goes over the edge, crashes, and we all get out (it wasn't very high, not more than a couple of dozen metres).

I look around and thinking about it now, it resembles a scene from Tomb Raider with the fall over the ledge that means you can't go back up, the green slimy walls that are perfectly vertical and the little tunnel leading to a beach just off to the right. We all go through the tunnel, which we know roughly where it will take us and get to the beach. We take our bearings and head off towards a seaside town. In the town, we have to dodge all sorts of street trams and finally make our way to the station where we all get on a tram and the alarm goes off.

I was talking to clearpebbles on the phone and she said that she had my slingshot and she will bring it to me. We hung up and I heard the doorbell about twenty seconds later. I thought, "Man that was fast." I opened the door and there is my friend JP, it seems as though he needs to work on my computer. I say, "Sure."

I went to the bathroom to do my business (no the bed was not wet when I woke up) and I heard the doorbell again. I washed my hands and walked to the living room to see who it was. JP had already answered the door and I heard him talking to clearpebbles.

"What's that?" JP asked. "You brought a slingshot?"

"JP, go to the room," I said and walked out closing the door.

I walked on to my porch and clearpebbles was waiting at the end of my roof. I walked over to her and there was my slingshot in her hand. I got real close to her and grabbed it. Our faces were about an inch apart now and I reached out to kiss her. And her being the tease that she is, allowed me to touch her lips with mine but then backed away. "GRRR," I thought.

So I tried again and she did yet the same thing so I now had her sweater in both of my hands. "Come on," I said and I started lightly pushing her towards the brick wall. She pushed with me and I tried to kiss her yet again and yet again she teased me.

Now she was pushed up against the brick wall and I tried to kiss her, success! I stopped kissing her and then we looked at each other, our faces this time about two inches away and she reached to kiss me. I teased her and backed away. She does a 360 and now my back is to the wall. She tried to kiss me again and I said, "Naw aw aw." And turned my face.

That's all I remember of the dream, quite interesting actually.

I commanded a small attack group that went inside a large facility.. My conscripts could make bunkers of sandbags around them like GI's in RA2, but it took longer, as it would in real life. I had only five units, and though they all got killed, I managed to get the information I needed. The facility was guarded by human-sized robotic mech's, commanded by a kid with telekinetic abilities. I got into the facility, and after sneaking past the defences got to the kid himself. He tried to telepathically blow my brains, but I managed to fight it long enough to reach him and strike him into eye. He fell and his concentration failed, and I dropped on my knees and broke his nosewith my elbow I threw myself on him and choked him unable to couch properly, his breath turning into gurgle as the blood flowed down his throat and into his lungs. I heard paramedics heading my way, so I got up from him and ran out through the backdoor, blending to the crowd outside the facility. The kid was taken to an ambulance, and I heard that his brains had been damaged by oxygen loss and he would spend rest of his life as a vegetable. As they closed the doors of the ambulance, I smiled and left crowd..

g / r

• She knew Bashi, and was discussing it with our guide, who knew over 200 languages, and kept reminding us of that. She didn't think he was as pridefully irritating as I did. I felt completely unprepared, more so when I was told my assignment was was to a planet which had been in civil war for centuries. In the tunnel we three crouched behind a stalagmite and watched the soldiers with melted faces hurry past. Up on land, crossing the street toward Borders, I accidentally got in a soldier's way and the antenna on something deadly he was carrying snagged on my pants. He glared at me and I realized there was nothing to keep him from shooting on the street - I knew I had to be more careful and/or get a weapon.

  I called Pete to tell him about my asignment and he asked when we were going to begin shooting. I remembered he didn't know there were other planets, or didn't believe.

• I accidentally destoryed the fence that held in the ducks and was frantically trying to find something that would make do. There was nothing. And we were out of grain, so they would leave in search of things to eat, I was sure. I walked around in the swampy back yard, saying goodbye, watching them go. The pheasant rubbed against my ankles like a cat. I ran over to my uncle's house to see if they had anything to feed or contain them - not much.

  As I was leaving with a bunch of old broken potatoes and donuts, my uncle came home and started yelling before I was even within earshot - when he got closer, I could tell he was making fun of me - I gave him the finger. It was an awkward gesture - my hands were full - but he saw what I meant. I was afraid he might hit me, but he didn't; I left.

  Later, back in their house, still upset. Apparently he'd told my aunt I was insane. She scraped burnt popcorn kernels around and around in the bottom of a bowl and told me a parable about another girl who'd gone mad. I knew she was wrong, and I wanted to leave, but she'd enchanted me, and the story was so nice, and maybe she was right, and I fell asleep, though I knew I'd be dead when I woke up.

• I told the agency I would only strip for people I knew, but now they wanted me to work a 14-year-old's birthday party. What the hell, why not.

• I slept on the beach and got up at midnight to run. I snagged my hands on sharp invisible briars but kept going - the ground cleared and I was free.

• Whoopi Goldberg had to wear a push-up bra, now that she was a secret agent. She offered her breasts to ehr partner; she declined. Whoopi sighed ruefully at the stylish new purse she had to carry.

• At the banquet I was looking down so I missed the first blood - apparently the boy managed a lucky hit and gored the warrior with his trident. Everyone screamed.

• His penis was split down the underside and had white feelers growing out of it.

• Will Smith slung his arm around me, heavy and hot, as we walked around the corner of the house. I shoved him off, again. He started to tell me a riddle; I told him I'd already heard it three times, from him, and the answer was fifty cents. He got mad and threw all his change at me - I caught it and counted almost four dollars. I was confused.

  I went up the steps and through what I realized was the wrong door; this one didn't lock. Will was right behind me, wanting to come in. No. He struggled with me, the flimsy screen door between us. I screamed and screamed.   He's trying to rape me! Don't you care?   Everyone on the sidewalk stopped for a moment, shook their heads no, moved on.

  I turned and ran deeper into the house. Slammed a door between myself and Will, locked it, ran through another, locked it. He was always right behind the door, moving as quickly as I was. Then it was a girl, not Will. She was mean and laughing. All the locks were on the wrong side of the doors now, so they were easier for her to undo than for me to do.

  There were no stairs when I needed there to be stairs - I wanted to sneak upstairs and hide or jump out a window. I closed my eyes and wished stairs and there they were and I woke up.

At one point last night I was awakened by the cat scratching my ass violently. It hurt. Soon after I fell back asleep and had a mildly disturbing dream.

I somehow hit the cat and messed up its spine. It was fine, but was like talking or something, and told me that its back hurt. I grab the cat by the shoulders and butt and gave a quick snap and it helped its back re-align, but it still was obviously hurting. I then gave a quick little snap the other way and it was ok. The spine aligned. The cat was saying something after that...

I was in NYC again, a part I didn't actually go to, though it had bits and pieces of the places I did see while I was there scattered about the dreamscape.

I was walking with yossarian, telling him to slow down a little because he was leaving me behind and I was afraid that I'd get lost in a crowd or even in the slightly hectic streets. He slowed a bit and I asked if I could hold his hand so that we didn't get separated, and then we carried on. We met up with some people I did not know, and went to a "youth club", which was slightly peculiar. There was a bar, but we did not go into it, we simply sat outside and a young man came up and asked me and yoss if we wanted to listen to music. We paid him with little token things, yoss bought mine for me, they were five dollars (we used Canadian currency, oddly enough). After I listened to what I think was Matthew Good Band for a while, and he listened to whatever it was he was listening to, some other people showed up.

Now, I don't know exactly what ideath looks like, but I distinctly recall her and yoss curled up on a couch, and being really comfortable with eachother. They were laughing and then, mindlessly, yoss leaned over and kissed ideath quickly, the casual kiss of two lovers who were oh so used to eachother's lips, arms, presence. She looked shocked, and yoss apologized profusely, ideath was thinking, "what about fez?" (I could hear her thoughts, bless you dreamland), and then, she looked up into yoss's eyes and kissed him again. I forget what they said to eachother after that, I just remember thinking something bad was going to come of it all.

And then, I was in Boston, in my dreamy leetle one's bedroom and we were cuddled up on one of his chairs. I was laying my head on him, running my fingers through his chest hair and it was oh so dreamy.

All in all, a decent night of dreams..

I was waiting for someone to pick me up outside of a big concrete building... a museum, maybe. Anyway, I've been sitting there a long time, and then I decide to walk home. On my way, I stop at my paternal grandmother's house, and go into the basement / rec room. My aunt is there, and she is glaring at me. Her face is uglier than usual, and she's not a pretty sight to behold to begin with. She starts circling around me like I'm her prey, and she's looking for a weak spot to dig into. Her teeth are crooked and coffee stained, and her hair is frizzy. My anxiety level keeps building as she's circling, and she keeps moving closer to me.

Finally, after what feels like forever, I start attacking her, yelling and screaming as I try to swipe at her face. I am telling her that my father's suicide was not my fault, and that if she couldn't see what a nutjob he was, then she deserved her miserable ignorant existence.

I woke up and came to the realization that my dad's family is still honestly deluded enough to think that I was the root of his suicide. They send gifts and letters to my sisters, but avoid me. I had assault & battery charges filed against my dad at the time of his death. Well, good riddance to bad rubbish.

I was in my small room up in the Frozen North, except all the furniture had been rearranged and the bed was in the center of the room. You were on it and I was helping you shed your skin, peeling it off in large pieces. It felt like thin, warm, dusty latex but didn’t have much stretch to it. Underneath your skin had a yellowish cast to it, and was slightly mottled. Your body looked like that of a young girl, as if is shedding your skin you had also shed many years off your life.

When you were free of your old skin I touched you but you squirmed and gasped under my touch as if it was painful. You then turned over and I saw on your back small things that looked like wings. They were made of the same skin that covered you body, and they fit against you back like a beetle's shell. They moved slightly but were still attached to your back in places. I knew that they were not supposed to look like that and I suddenly felt a welling up of sadness as I realized you would never fly.

The dream was not in a full state of slumber, rather, in a semi-conscious awareness of my being, and why I feel the way I do and the way the various aspects of my life relate to one another.

Because of the flu by which I am currently plagued, it was difficult to remain asleep. I would constantly awaken, just to verify that I was still alive. The dream, however, understood fully the extent of the discomfort that I was feeling, correlating it with equally uncomfortable tasks at work.

I find myself feeling incredibly sick to my stomach. I am feeling a dichotomy of emotion at the time. The half-awake part of me is in bed, realizing that it is all the drainage running down into my tummy that makes it feel so sour. However, the half-asleep part of me is at work being told by my boss that the discomfort is caused by a Lotus spreadsheet that just downloads garbage every now and then. If I just find a way to exit the program, then I will feel better.

However, when I move the mouse up to the title bar, the X in the corner disappears! When I hit ALT-F4, nothing happens! I become increasingly sicker as the program downloads more and more garbage from an unknown server out on the network somewhere.

Then I return to the more awake part of my existence and realize that I am not at work and that quitting a program is not going to make my stomach feel any better.

Repeat until 6:00 a.m. when I give up and go to the shower to begin my day.

The only thing that I can remeber from last nights dream was forgeting how to touch type, and an imperative need to type something quickly. It was a huge feeling of helplesness, like not being able to remember a word but much, much worse. The feeling was probably made worse for me because I'm a computer scientist, and being able to type is very important for me.

Kermit-The-Frog Here

• I drive to Stanford University in order to pick up something from my girlfriend's co-op house, Columbae. Before I leave, I grab a kermit the frog puppet and play ventriloquist for the people I pass as I walk through the kitchen, the lounge, out the front door, and down the stairs of the front porch.