Dream #506 (May 29, 2013) Bobby and Batman and Illegal Activities

OK.

In the beginning of this dream I wandered onto a property on the outskirts of a huge city in the middle of the night (the whole dream took place at night, though over several dates).  I found a warehouse there and looked into the window.  I saw a few people inside moving about suspiciously (I'm not sure what, exactly, was suspicious about their movements, but that was how I perceived them).  Suddenly, I was tackled from behind by a couple of strangers.  They flipped me over, put a ski mask on my head and introduced me to Coach Hannah (my former basketball who was apparently a crime lord in his free time).

He helped me up and introduced me to his criminal enterprise inside the warehouse.  He instructed me and the other goons with ski masks to carry a bunch of supplies (primarily explosives and zip ties) from a store in the warehouse, through a secret door, down a long hall, through another secret door, and into a secret room that stored their explosives and a bunch of classic cars.

I spent the rest of the night moving things into that room from the warehouse store.  When I was finished, Coach Hannah offered me a full-time position on his criminal crew, where I would commit to working 5 nights a week.  I accepted and went home to rest.

To wind down before bed I watched an episode of King of the Hill.  Now, in my dreams, King of the Hill (KOTH from now on) had reemerged with new episodes.  In the particular new episode I was watching, Bobby Hill, who was a young adult, came out of the closet and announced to the world that he was gay during a press conference.  In that same speech he declared war against the intolerant Batman (apparently the Batman and KOTH cartoons had collided in this show).

The show had a cliffhanger ending, and I had to wait a day to find out what would happen (yes, this cartoon aired every day).  After I slept, I returned to work at the warehouse, where I did the same old stuff (though this time I tried having conversations with the other criminals, but they thought I was goofy and only made fun of me).  I then went home and watched another episode of KOTH/Batman and in this one Bobby built a large pink car with elegant and lifelike wings (it could fly).  He and Batman had a great battle, which ended in a sort of draw.

Then I lived a sort of montage, where I would go to work and move stuff from the warehouse to the classic car room, then return home to watch Bobby Hill fight Batman.

At last the season finale was getting ready to air.  The day before, however, I received a Bobby vs. Batman graphic novel in the mail.  I was so excited that I brought it to work.  I asked my cocriminals if they had been keeping up with the series.  I also asked them if I was supposed to read the graphic novel before the season finale, or if it would spoil it.  Well, nobody else was watching/reading anything about it, and they all had a laugh at my expense, though I didn't care.

Finally, after work, I had a bit of extra time (I had taken off early), so I opened up the graphic novel.

Then I awoke.

Dream #505 (May 28, 2013) Combo Girl and Plastic Fork Stabbing

This was, as usual, bizarre.


I began the dream walking around an area surrounded by concrete walls that looked very much like a prison yard.  People were setting up hundreds of brown folding chairs in preparation for a movie that was going to be presented there later that afternoon.  I was with my brother and his girlfriend.

Now, in this dream, my brother's girlfriend was a combination of his current girlfriend and another girl with whom we are both acquainted, and it was a perfect 50/50 combinations.

My brother pulled me aside for a moment and confided in me, letting me know that he was growing tired of this particular girl and that he had no choice but to dump her onto me.  For some reason, I was unable to resist  this (literally - there was some sort of force controlling my dating life).  So, after a quick conversation, the girl was now my girlfriend, and I was her man.

The first order of business was to watch the movie together (a movie in which I had no interest).  I was nervous, so I snuck behind a set of bleachers (which was near the back wall of this prison yard) and found an old Oregon-Davis High School friend Jeremy Robinson.  I told him of my situation, and he merely laughed at me.  He proceeded to flick my ear, which I didn't find funny, so I left him and joined my new girlfriend.  We sat down together and sat in an uncomfortable silence.  Before long another old high school friend, Andrew Jensen, sat on my right side, and we began having a good conversations about what each of us had done since we had last talked.

Unfortunately, the Combo Girl didn't appreciate me paying my attention to anyone but herself, so she put an end to the conversation between Andrew and me.  Then she took my left arm and placed it around her back, resting my hand just under her hip bone.  I didn't like the way I could feel her skin resting on that bone, so I moved my hand just above it, which made me slightly less uncomfortable.

I then turned my attention to the movie, which was black and white and starring Jimmy Stewart.  My makeshift peace didn't last long enough, for the Combo Girl became bored with the movie and led me out of the prison yard and into an old, run-down tabernacle.  I followed her around the rubble for quite some time, with no real purpose.  At last, she left the place and walked over to a tabernacle (similar to the one at Prairie Camp) that was in working order.  I stood with her in the back as a preacher delivered a sermon to the onlooking congregation.

At last I built up enough courage to sneak away from the Combo Girl, which I did successfully.

I ran down the road until I found my way into a small city.  I entered a large hotel and began thinking back to my single days.  I wished to myself that I could be single again.

I soon ran into yet another former classmate Ryne Sweeney, and he told me to follow him up to the third floor of the hotel.  I did so and discovered that Jeff Kreider was lying in a bed, pretending to be sick so that he wouldn't have to go explore the town with Ryne and me.  We begged him over and over, but he wouldn't budge.  Finally, Ryne trying pulling him out of bed, which caused Jeff to go absolutely berserk, flailing his limbs all about.  He ended up kicking Ryne in the leg.  I heard what sounded to be the cracking of a bone and called a nurse up to the room, who then took Ryne away.

Amber, Jeff's wife, became terribly upset with Jeff, so she walked up to him, picked up a plastic fork, and stabbed Jeff in the neck

Blood began shooting all over the place, yet Jeff seemed to be alright.  Amber told me to leave while she and the nurses bandaged up the wound.

I met Ryne outside and saw him in crutches.  He informed me that his leg was indeed broken.

I no longer had company, so I entered another room in the hotel hoping to find a new companion who would walk around town with me (I was still avoiding the Combo Girl).  I was surprised to find Kareem Abdul-Jabbar eating dinner with his wife (completely a fictional character in appearance) and Louis C.K.

I watched them, and they completely ignored me.

Kareem demonstrated some hispanic food preparation he had learned, but was interrupted by a sudden urge to poop.  He rushed into the bathroom and did his business.  He soon discovered that there wasn't enough toilet paper to finish the job, so he snuck back out to the dining room table and grabbed some paper towel, claiming that he wanted to clean the mirror.  Suddenly a couple of large-toothed fish jumped out from a small fishbowl and bit into Kareem's arm.  A flower of skin grew from his arm and Louis C.K. tried to pluck it, only to be smacked away by Kareem's wife.


Then I awoke.

Dream #504 (May 19, 2013) The Bike Shop Girl and Wilt Bird

I feel like I dream all night sometimes.  This will be abbreviated due to its length.


The dream began in a city.  It wasn't day, nor was it night; it was something like a twilight with no memory of the sunset and no hope for a sunrise.

I was hanging out in my apartment on the fourth floor of an eight-story brick building.  My room was kindly lit by a few heavily diffused lamps.  I had a television that I never used.  I was reading a book by Sinclair Lewis (that, in real life, doesn't exist) about Native Americans living during the Industrial Revolution.

After reading for a while, I decided to go grocery shopping.  Before I could make it out my door, however, I was distracted by a yo-yo I had on my dresser.  I stopped to play with it for a while, then went on my way.

Outside the apartment I could hear faint hints of arguments, diluted by traffic and the wheezing of factories.  I walked to my red bicycle and, after unchaining it, realized I needed to take it into the bike shop to get a tune-up, so I forsook grocery shopping.

I walked my bike down the long, busy streets, past mimes, jugglers, and buskers, to the local bike shop.  There I was greeted by a black-haired teen employee who let me know how knowledgable he was of bikes before he took mine into the back.  As I waited I browsed the colorful and shiny bikes displayed in the store.  However, my eyes were soon distracted by a young woman who entered the shop to get a tune up for her bike.

I watched her hand the bike off to the same teen, and she seemed to have a grace about her.  She caught me looking at her, but I didn't, somehow, feel awkward.  She approached me and began talking to me as if we were longtime friends.  We connected so strongly, and I desired for the bike-smart teen to not be as knowledgable as he let on so that our tune-ups would take longer.

Regardless, the tune-up ended soon than I desired, and I was given my bike, and she was given hers.  We walked out of the store together and I was sure that we would work out a time to see each other again.

But that was disturbed by a young man with black hair, a patchy black "beard" (he would have called it a beard, but it may not have been worthy of the name), and a black polo.  He put his arm around the young woman with whom I'd gotten along so well and proceeded to mock me.  His aggression caused me to stutter as I tried to continue talking to the woman, giving the man more material with which he made me look (or feel) to be a fool.  He walked away with her, leaving me sad.

I didn't even ride my bike back to the apartment.  I had a difficult enough time putting one foot in front of the other.  It was more than my fallen hopes in this young woman.  When I returned to the apartment, I thought a shower would make me feel better.  I placed my bike in the bike rack and found an outdoor shower near my apartment where I proceeded to strip down to my boxers.  I jumped into the ice cold water, exposed to the public.  An older Italian man was shouting at me as I washed my back,  claiming that I was disturbing the peace and that I should leave, but I ignored him until my shower was finished.

I did eventually take his advice, and I hailed a cab and rode it out of the city and up a mountain.

(I'll skip some of these even more boring details).  I walked around a bit, observing the flowers that managed to grow out from rocks.  They were all bright white and yellow, contrasting the dreariness of the twilight and fog.

Eventually I was joined by Neil Silveus, and he persuaded me to come down from the mountain back into the city.  He told me he wanted me to accompany him to a film festival, so I followed him.

We walked through a strange cabin that was near the base of the mountain (after a long hike down), and ran into a couple characters from the sitcom "Friends" (I never watched the show, so I don't really know who is who other than Jennifer Aniston and perhaps a guy named Joey or Ross or both).  Jennifer and Joey (I think) were acting out a scene, arguing about something.  When we walked in, they acted as if were weren't there.  Soon after we entered, spirits of celebrities began to appear in the cabin.  First came Brendan Fraser, who said, "I knew the cameo was a bad idea!"  Then some famous female celebrity appeared, followed by the spirit of Wilt Chamberlain, who was wearing Big Bird's head.  Wilt looked down at me (through Big Bird's eyes) and said something muffled about basketball.

Neil finally pulled me out of the cabin and into the theater where the film festival was taking place.  I sat down next to Danny and Josh from Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. and watched a film about a swimming instructor who fell in love with a bicyclist.  After that film played, there was an intermission, and I followed the Jr. Jr. guys into a special fancy suite were beautiful and delicious food was sitting there waiting for us.  I ate of it and studied the interesting furniture supposedly designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.


Then I awoke.

Dream #503 (May 12, 2013) - Wrongfully Imprisoned on a Train

This was a dream I had.

In the beginning of the dream, I was in a subway station.  There were dozens of men in grey trench coats walking around, not bothering to make eye contact with anybody.  There were also tons of other people, but the men in grey stood out to me.

Suddenly, I was tackled by a tall and muscular police office, cuffed, and dragged through the subway station to a holding cell.  I don't know what they thought I did, but it must have been pretty bad.

The next thing I knew, a judge sentenced me to life in prison.

I immediately found myself on the prison train.  This was an ever-running train that contained large, open beds where prisoners sat.  There were also rock-breaking cars were a few prisoners at a time would smash rocks into smaller rocks.  And, finally, there were the cell cars where the prisoners slept.

I was sitting at the edge of one of the open-bed-cars next to a couple of nasty-lookin fellas.  The guy next to me, terribly tall with long black hair and a dark goatee, asked me how I "landed on the train."  I was still unsure, so I just resorted to, "Drugs."

With that answer, he smiled at me, and revealed a little chunk of crystal that he had hidden in his pocket, then gave a signal to a buddy of his (who looked a bit like my friend Eli Riechenbach, so I'll call him Eli), and I interpreted the signal to mean that I was cool.

Each prisoner riding on the bed had a clasp around his waist that was chained to the floor of the bed.  Each also had shackles on his wrists.  My shackles were especially tight, and I was consistently conscious of the pain in my wrists as long as I was wearing them.  After talking with the scary black-haired tall man beside me about his previous domination of the drug world in Detroit, the conductor/prison ward called Eli and me into the cell car, and we followed him inside.

There our shackles were taken off, and we were instructed to clean up each cell within the car.  We were under careful supervision as we made beds, folded clothes, and organized prisoner spaces.  At last, the conductor was called away briefly, and we had a bit of time to relax.  Eli motioned for me to come over to him and he showed me a stash of crystal that he had hidden inside his bed.  He patted me on the back and offered me a generous chunk, an offer that I was afraid to refuse.  Then, Eli asked me to join him in partaking in the drug.  The chosen method of drug use was crystals straight into the bloodstream.  Eli, using a sharp edge of a crystal, cut open his forearm slightly and rubbed the crystal into the wound.  I now had to figure out how to pretend to use the drug without actually doing it.  I looked down to the floor and noticed a few pieces of broken glass.  I subtly replaced my crystal with the glass, took off my shoes and used the glass to cut into my heel.  I then rubbed the glass up and down my wound, pretending to immediately feel the effects as Eli had.

Eli gave me another pat on the back and left the cell and walked back to the open bed.  I stayed in the cell a moment and discovered that the conductor/warden had left his keys.  I proceeded to remove my shackles and waist clasp.  Luckily the train began to slow down.  I exited the cell car and walked onto the open bed.  I shook hands with the scary, tall, goateed man, giving him the crystal Eli had given me. He looked quite thankful as I turned and hopped off the train.

As I ran into the wheat field to take cover, I heard the train begin to stop.  However, this wasn't unusual, because the train often stopped to pick up more prisoners and food rations.

I felt free, and I knew that if anyone realized that I was gone, I could outrun any of the prison guards on the train and that the wheat was tall enough to cover me, so being shot was less of a threat.  I sprinted further and further away from the train, but as I ran, I began to think about the life that I was entering into.  I knew that I wouldn't be able to return to being myself in any way.  Also, for some reason, the man with the black goatee came to mind.  I felt an odd desire to get to know him more and become his friend.  These thoughts were so strong that I turned around and headed back for the prison train.

I walked back onto the open bed and found that nobody had noticed my absence.  I took advantage of the time out of my shackles and wandered onto the rail car that contained my personal belongings that were confiscated from me and reclaimed them.  Then I walked back to the cell where I found the conductor/ward staring at the shackles that were without a prisoner.  I tapped him on the shoulder and offered him my wrists.  He gladly took them and slapped the shackles back on, but this time they weren't quite as tight as he had made them before.

I sat down next to the goatee guy and he gave me a strange look.  I showed him my wallet and my phone that I had reclaimed, and he smiled at me knowingly.

Then it was time for visitors.

Several wives, children, and parents of prisoners walked onto the train to spend a few minutes with their incarcerated loved ones.  I didn't assume that I would have any visitors, because I knew that most of my friends and family didn't believe my story of innocence.  I was surprised to see Morgan Ferch and Katie Schwenk walk onto the train.  They were crying and, as they attempted to talk to me, they could barely form any words.  I'm not entirely sure why they were sad.  Maybe they were upset at the hard conditions of my life.  Maybe they were sad because they thought I was no longer the man I was when they knew me.  I don't know.

At last all the visitors left and the train began to move again.

Then I awoke.

Dream #502 (May 10, 2013) - How I Ended Up in a Tree with Jim James

Yim.

I dreamt that I was directing a strange music video for a strange band made up of all kinds of musicians (there were violins, saxophones, bells, guitars, horns, and more).  The video consisted of the large band playing in the middle of a field at twilight whilst a house of paint was created around them.  This was all done in camera, and there were dozens of 3D painters who had this extra-sticky purple and turquoise  paint that, when they threw it from the 5 gallon buckets they were carrying, became a solid in mid-air.  It was spectacular.

After I finished the 1-take, multi-cam shoot, I walked over to a strange and glowing circle about 50 yards from where the paint house was built.  As my intern painters cleaned up the mess, I talked with a few friends of mine: Jon Andrew Caslteberry, Kevin Chupp and Jim James (Jim isn't actually my friend in real life...yet).  Jim was asking me what my plans were for the next couple weeks and was wondering if I would play the piano for his next album (yes, that sounds narcissistic, but it is, after all, my dream).

When Jon Andrew began talking about his upcoming wedding, the luminescent circle in the middle of the four of us began to glow brighter.  Suddenly a great beam of light shot from it and King Louie from "The Jungle Book" came through the portal and started glancing at all of us.  Then, for absolutely no reason, he began to attack us.  He punched Jim in the gut, then threw Jon Andrew about ten yards, the bit into Kevin's arm.  We all began to flee in terror.

Jim and I took refuge in a tree (which, in retrospect, doesn't make much sense when trying to evade a monkey).  Somehow King Louie didn't see us when he ran beneath us, and, as he ran further and further away from us, we became less and less tense.

At last the silence was broken, and Jim and I began to talk about life and about nature and about the role of humankind as the sun began to rise and as dawn began to break.

I eventually awoke, refreshed.

Dream #501 (May 6, 2013)

Filming in my sleep.


I dreamt that I was the cinematographer for a feature film directed by Andrew DeSelm.  On this particular shoot date, we were shooting all through the night.  The scenes we were working on involved a lot of complex lighting, and I was working like a madvillain trying to get everything lit well while Andrew was constantly reminding me that I needed to hurry.

We just finished a wooded exterior and were lugging up great loads of equipment to the third floor of a small hospital in the middle of a farm.  We had some large LED lights, along with a bunch of other fresnel tungsten lights.  I was using the LED's to create a lightening effect, with one on a riser shooting into the window from outside and the other in the hospital room that we were shooting.

I really wanted 1 more large LED, but we didn't have any more, so I tried calling the rental company to see if any more were available for delivery, but I kept getting a busy signal, so I began rigging up a dimming system with the tungsten lights.  All the while Andrew kept hounding me, encouraging me to hurry.

I finally created a nice scene, and then Andrew began to direct the terrible actor (a man in his late twenties).  As he did this, I left to begin setting up the next scene, which was an exterior of the hospital.  The lights I chose burned mercury and had a harsh orange tint.  It wasn't long before Andrew and a whole bunch of child actors came outside and started acting out the scene.

Then, all of a sudden, things became real and were no longer a movie.  Some strange mole-like creatures popped out of the ground and began snatching the children and turning them into straws (yes - large, human-sized drinking straws).  The mole-things then piled up the children straws in a ditch they dug.  I wanted to stop them, but I couldn't figure out how to do so; instead I looked on in horror.  Then, the mole-things turned toward me and began to pursue me relentlessly through the woods.


Then I awoke.