8 Years Later in 5 Minutes

During the  the mere five minutes between my alarms I was able to squeeze in a dream about being at a post graduation ceremony... 8 years later. My whole family turned up: Dad, Mum, Grandma (but no Granddad this time as he died 8 years ago, but thankfully he did just make it to my actual graduation), D&K and Baby J.
The only person I recognised from my first graduation was MB.

Disclaimer

I use the initials or nicknames of people when I write about them for their own privacy and if they ever read this I wouldn't want to weird them out.

 It should be noted that I've known many people over the years who have the same initials so, just in case you see your initials it doesn't mean to say I've been dreaming about you. Feel free to ask me though...

Lions to Lions, Dust to Dust

A dozen or so of us were standing in a forest clearing as the evening fell when we all became aware of the eyes watching us from the bushes. Multiple pairs of eyes. Lions' eyes.

We huddled together hoping that forming a large impenetrable mass would deter them. It didn't. One of our number fell and was made short work of but we continued to stand steadfast in the chaos. When the ruckus died down we resolved to bury the carcass (what few bits remained) but we had no spade with which to dig only a dibber. So we dibbed in the hard packed earth and as last clods were replaced a fragment of tooth shot out from the makeshift grave, flew between my legs and into the mouth of a waiting lion behind me.

A large chunk of flesh fell from the sky right towards my face; I leaped and caught it with my teeth then shredded it with my claws as I hungrily devoured it. I can't pinpoint exactly when it was that I became one of them, but one of them I now was. I sloped off with my full stomach to join the rest of the pride.

2 Little Skiers

An handsome fellow stood in my doorway.

 Shorter than me but handsome nonetheless.

He'd knocked and I'd opened the door knowing a man would be there, and there to talk to me about the prospect of skiing together. Only, I've never skiied before in my life. No matter, he was there to teach me, apparently. He spun a good spiel but I just couldn't convince myself to step out the door and go with him. I closed the door in his face and felt a bit bad to be honest.

No sooner had I done that when he knocked again. And I opened the door again, only it wasn't him this time -but someone bearing more than a slight  resemblance to him. He also gave me the skiing spiel and this time I took it up. I stepped out the door into snow and away down the hill we swiftly sped. Such fun. I'm sure I was grinning between my ears.

But all was not well when we reached the top again; he'd spotted another girl in the crowd and with a fleeting flash of a sheepish smile, melted into the crowd and was never seen again. Stoopid, stoopid devastated me.

2 Black Dogs

I was hiking down a hillside passing to the right of a sizable boulder which had a shrub clinging ruggedly to it, NB was following behind and passed to the left of the boulder.

Then I heard a pack of dogs closing in. I did what one does in scary situations. I sat down on the ground and reclined in to the hill whilst placing a brown knitted blanket across my knees -to protect them from the coming onslaught. The onslaught never came quite as an onslaught, but two nasty-looking black dogs bounded up and leaped at my face, before realising that NB was on the other side of the boulder and rounding him up.

They shunted him into their immaculate green yard where there were line dancers caked head to toe in mud... He must've got the steps wrong or something because it wasn't long before they were slow motion, zombie-like, closing in on him. Of course he found it exceedingly easy to extricate himself from such slow moving foes.

Meanwhile I'd only made it as far as the front porch where AL was hiring out massive folders of DVDs for only $16 and ten cents. I joined my thumbs and fingers together then whispered to indicate that I had no money on me.

Earlobe

When I looked in the mirror this morning I noticed that my left earlobe was 4 times larger than my right earlobe. I lifted my hand and tugged on it; it was cold and flabby.

How have I not realised this before?
Why has no one ever teased me about this?

Of Red Books, Inflatable Kayaks and Babies

I cast my eyes about the room, everything in it's place -just the same as always. Something had to change. I thought I would go look for a new place to rent. I turned and locked the door behind me but on second thoughts, trotted down to the library instead. Once inside I found it more like a cavernous old museum with soft lighting, and rich textile covers on displays of books. Something caught my eye -in each grouping of books (on topics like: physics, geography, quilting, art etc) there were one or two plain red volumes which struck me for their plainess. No sooner had I but gingerly fingered them than their whole contents had flipped out and toppled, Jonny5-esque, into my brain. As it turned out these unassuming texts were the key to each topic. One had only to read them to gain a fine-and-dandy working knowledge of all things pertaining thereto (much like a less touted version of the "for Dummies" series). After slaking my thirst at the knowledge pool, I thought it high time to get on my way. I wandered down the main street of somewhere checking out the "to lets" in the agent's windows. I chanced a glance back over my right shoulder at precisely the moment a beach ball came bounding from the roof of a multi-storied appartment complex in appearance a verdant air traffic control tower. I shaded my eyes to see, and no, they didn't deceive me for there, indeed, was not just Simon Barnett, but the whole MoreFM crew, banners, flags and loud hailers at the ready. Something was going on, I had to find out what. To kindle my jealousy, the guy who managed to catch the wayward ball announced that he was going there to claim his prize which was an inflatable kayak. UNfair -that thing almost knocked me down and what do I get for my fright? They were drumming up a crowd and were more than pleased to see me there. Turns out they would give me a spot prize if I joined a game of leap-frog. But as it was "televised" live and I would have to submit myself to being judged, olympic style, I vehemently declined. All was not lost. They gave me another mission instead. To deliver a baby girl. All I had to do was ascend the grassy slope (on the outside of this circular building -corkscrew fashion) in a clockwise direction until I reached the top. Simple. I set off but was greatly impeded by some hefty great cracks in the clay substrate; some spanning a good half foot or so. Imperial foot that is. 'Just wait til I tell J.E. about these cracks in the "lawn"' I thought. I finally reached the top and flaked in the doorway. There to greet me was, bizarrely, my old pastor and his family and, last I heard, they were in Seattle. So there I was lying on the baked grass and what should happen to crawl out of my baby backpack but David's cat, Smudge. Oh the baby was still in there too, and no worse for the wear either. Feeling much refreshed, I peered over the balcony look down and see the flying machines something is not right spies are all around amorphous paua shell blob that glows then tuns into a blue bowl

Dreaming in a Four Part Mini-Series

That's right. If you follow these steps for a bizarre dream... or two or three or four! You might just end up in your very own mini-series like I did last night. Step 1. Go to bed late (so that you'll be tired and go into a deep sleep quickly) Step 2. Drink two glasses of water (or at least make sure your bladder is full-ish. This is to wake you up {hopefully!} before you've finished the dream -so you can still remember it.) Step 3. Snack on something high in tryptophan (A Thought From My Head: Cheese Dreams). This is a spethial ingredient and people who eat food high in tryptophan yield a higher dream recollection rate and more vivid dreams. It's found in highest concentration in: Egg White, Spirulina, Atlantic Cod, Raw soybeans, Parmesan Cheese, Caribou, Sesame Seeds, Cheddar Cheese, Sunflower Seeds, Pork Chops, Turkey, Chicken, Beef, Salmon, Lamb Chop, Atlantic Perch, Eggs, Wheat Flour, Milk, White Rice, Russet Potatoes, and Bananas. Yay! Go for it! They say that your dreams are influenced but real life worries but I don't see the conection with what I got... I started of with receiving a phone call to go on a special mission involving invisible spacecrafts hovering in downtown, Richard the 1. king of England, midwives disguised as sheepdogs, ships cutting the sea, assasins assasinating assasins of other assasins' assasins (I know, weird, right?), an empty sushi platter floating in a tank of ice water and running a shortcut through a dilapidated medical library at the airport to catch up with some friends (plus a WHOLE bunch of other stuff like catching miniature people in the fluffy recesses of the roof). There were lots of blowing-ups and fast-paced action -it was all rather exciting. And it ended with me sitting on the steps of the museum with another girl who made a phone call and the voice on the receiving end was none other than ME -in the past.

Narita's: Forest Edition

Want to hear a funny story? (And but funny I mean unusual sequence of events and by story I mean actual dream). I didn't know where Narita's was so I looked on Google maps... that very night I dreamed it was Friday already and somebody had changed the location; we were now going to Narita's: Forest Edition. Accessed by a winding road into a forest and just before we reached the restaurant a tiger (for which I blame Jon Rafman's 9-eyes Google street view project) prowled into our path and 2 ranger guys diverted us to the left, to the service entry. My friend (who I don't know) was driving & parked as close to the back door as possible. We scampered up a ramp and through a series of three interlocking doors... and entered Narita's. There was a campfire in the middle of the floor. We said who we were and the wait staff welcomed us with a song then handed us menus & seated us. We ordered and went to pay but my friend had left her wallet in the car so just popped out to go get it. Out the sliding door on yonder side. She was halfway up the hill when I remembered the tiger... I bolted for the door to warn her but I was too late. I saw the raging orange streak go flying past and was helpless to save her... She'd made it round the corner by then so I hoped she might've reached the car... but then I heard her scream. I knew then that she didn't make it.

Tenting

5 December

Really chillingly bitingly cold, wet and running in the dark with a group of others. We need to race to set up our tent, it's all a blur but it somehow goes up.


In the morning I wake and stare at the tent roof. I feel trapped, pinned to the floor. It's easily fixed though, I just have to unzip my sleeping bag. When I sit up I'm still on the floor because I have no mattress. And now I notice that the tent has three compartments and I got to have the middle part all to myself. CA has the back compartment. Also, each side of my sleeping bag is attached to the internal tent walls so that as I unzip they peel back and nothing I do can close the bag up again. There seems to be nothing for it but to just get up. Which is just as well, as my compartment is needed to be joined up to the first compartment to make a makshift dinning room.

There are four little white square tables in a row and people crammed around so there is no space to move.

Bumblebee Mob

4 December

Small brown papier mache figurines in a paddock getting rained on.

Run into the house. Bumblebees start appearing from nowhere. They mob together in hovering clusters of a dozen or so looking like 3-D balls of endometrial cells. This corner of the lounge smells strangely like lavender. That must be what the attraction is. (It's at this point that I figure someting strange is going on as bumblebees are loners and don't hang out in groups like other bees. I make a point of saying this)

I wonder where they're coming from? Closing the windows only serves to increase their numbers -how can this be? Following the direction of their flight path leads me to the source -a crack in an internal wall cavity, hooked up to the external ventilation system. Plugging up the hole and opening the windows now works to disperse the bees.

However, there is a new threat/attraction. The giant green gummy lizard. It's stretchy and globby and tastes like lime (if you lick it) and most of the time it just clings to the wall like a mounted trophy. But if you look away and then quickly back, it always changes position. But it's not alive; it wont move if you get close and you can poke it but your finger just rebounds like from a gummy bear. Sometimes it sneaks in between the wall boards but it always leaves a paw visible so you know where to find it. It's quite a talking point. People come to visit us just to see our new "pet".

Kids camp

3 December

I was at Camp making some sort of food and serving it out to the kids.
I walked around the corner of the door and there was a two year old boy staring up at me and I bent down to have a closer look. SJ came up behind him and for some reason it brought tears to my eyes.

Dozing on the bus...
random associations of words stick themselves together and I can remember them:
Very modest.
Ladies fingers.
Swear by it.

Josiah Trent

30 November

I was weeding little weeds from the front garden of our house (but not one I recognise now). Dad was teaching some boys inside and I wanted to go through to the back garden and continue weeding but to do so I would've had to walk right through their group -so being polite in company I skirted round the "back way", only to find there was no back way. Every time I opened a door it was a bedroom. Even if from the outside it looked like it was only a cupboard -when I flung wide the door there would be two single beds. This went on 5 or 6 times until I found one that had a window.

This room had obviously been a bathroom at some point and smelt like Nana. There were curtains which I was about to rip down until I peeked under them and realised why they were shut -the next door neighbour's house was only one metre away. Although there was typical bathroom stippled window glass details would clearly be seen. The curtains would have to stay. The next door window was brimming with typical bathroom paraphernalia: soap, sponge, squirty bottle thing, a Lancome lipstick and square perfume bottle with a chunky gold stopper and containing yellow liquid. In the metre gap between the houses was a lone twig scratching away at my window.

I mentally followed the twig to it's branch and then I was outside. I'd made it to the "back" garden (which was more of a side garden) -squity little thing that it was.



Finally, in a great change of tack I was heavily pregnant and about to labour. Only then did I contemplate names and decided on Josiah Trent -even though they hold no special meaning for me (and aren't even my favourite boy's names). Actually, the final thing was the Dr wanted to take a stool sample to test for salmonella, but I woke up before he could, hahaha hahaha.

Needless to say, I was busting.

Free at Last: A Long, Disjointed Dream

Walking through a bush-clad, narrow valley with one other person; a male. Stopped to perch on a high mossy rock and take in the surroundings below. Nonchalantly dropping pieces of broken canellonni pasta. Aware that we needed to stay VERY still and quiet so as not to attract the attention of a band of pusuers. To no avail. They found us and forced us to stand in the bottom of the ravine whilst they flooded the depression and then left -figuring they'd killed us. As the water level was rising I found myself wondering how they didn't know about this thing called "floating" or "swimming"...

Trapped in a building 5 stories up.
Plasma TV screen smashes in the empty carpark below.
Monkey swing down a level but asian family tries to return us.
In the public toilets we meet a girl with extended knobly arms.
escape outside.


Now we (about 6 of us) are at the edge of a river with a raft loading it with building supplies and provisions. We push off from the left bank into the flow. It takes us to a marshy place truncating in boulders leading to a path between two cliffs. We all set to work building to disguise the entrance to this place -hmmm, methinks we've been here before.

After we'd all but blocked the entrance it became a one way entry in so we had to get out by scrambling up the valley which opened out into a brambly space like half an empty section or a wide alley. Just as we were getting out to the road a dump truck reversed up and hurled, from a great height, 20 cubic feet of dead chickens. We had no option but to keep still and hang on to the nearest branch whilst they poured all around us. There was one attached to a keychain.

Out in the open no one knew what we'd been through. We were just normal people -a bunch of rag-tag misfits, sure, but nothing to stare at. Not wanted. No longer hunted. Our pasts were forgotten, slipped into a thing of myth. We were free at last. Walking liberated.

One of the girls is trailing a rope. It rustles through the dust. We get used to it.

Every Night I Dream

Some people only remember their dreams once in a while and some never do. I can't understand this, as I've always been able to recall my dreams. Whether they have any meaning I'm not sure; often I can trace the events in real life that led to the events in the dream but sometimes they're just totally out of the box.