The Wretched Corpse Dreams Can Stop Any Time Now ~ 4/29/2014

I dreamed that Cathy and Chris from Flowers in the Attic (think Cersei and Jamie, but in 1980s America, not fantasy land) were important and influential members of my town.  There had been a string of murders, then Cathy died of self-poisoning because she knew we were about to realize she was the killer.  She took some sort of white, powdery poison that falls out of old book, and her body quickly began to fall apart and decay rapidly, until we were forced to scramble around, gathering all of her bones to lay on a bier. Chris carried her skull over, with the long blond hair and tatters of rotted flesh still hanging on in patches, and, before he laid it down with the rest of her, kissed the skull on the mouth, hoping to poison himself and die, too.

I was trying to figure out how the murders had all occurred, and what horrible poison she had used, when I accidentally dropped the book, and some of the powdery poison flew out from the pages and into my mouth. I began rinsing my mouth out in a panic, but I could still taste the poison. Here I woke up for a bit.

I went back to sleep and dreamed that Cathy's bones and rotting flesh were gnawed by rats, and infected them, and they had started a plague. The sickness turns people into super-strong zombies who finally die when they rot completely apart. But by then, they've normally managed to infect someone else.

One little girl got infected, and her voice got low and evil as she started to torture her mother. Her mother's boyfriend was one of the doctors looking for a cure. He got a video message from the little girl, showing her pushing her mother's head under water over and over, then cutting her skin with a knife and rubbing her own infected saliva or putrefying flesh into the wounds to infect her mother.

Meanwhile, some friends and I were out singing karaoke with some people we'd just met. They were from England, and those of us who had traveled there were sharing stories. I recounted the time I changed euros for dollars in the Gatwick airport, and somehow ended up with a crisp $5 bill that had never been folded, and seven pence, and the clerk and I just laughed and laughed. Then our group all went out for a walk, and one of the guys kept trying to hold my hand and steer me away from the group. I looked up and found we were alone, and the only way to get where he wanted to keep walking was to crawl through a narrow cage of wood and wire. I was going through, and getting almost to the end, but the cage was getting very narrow. I knew I could make it, but I scratched myself on a wooden splinter pretty bad and started bleeding. The guy wasn't behind me in the cage after all.  He came up to the side and spat on the scratch and began rubbing his saliva into my wound, and I realized he was a newly infected zombie who had now infected me. Then I woke up.

Night of Nightmares ~ 4/27/2014

I dreamed a mountain of documents had to be uploaded and they were named and numbered with at least five different numbering schemes. I worked on one of those live/work campuses where there are dorm buildings, and you live on site.  And I think on site was in space, and we were going to have to evacuate the space station soon, but we couldn't leave until all the docs were in, though something bad was coming.

Then I dreamed that my two little buddies were playing with some green and blue frog toys, and eating birthday cake, but then somehow they got lost and when we found them they had their frogs and more cake, but they didn't know us anymore.

Then I dreamed I was being forced to try to cheat a casino owned by this huge Japanese mobster, a former sumo wrestler, who stalked around the floor wearing black and being terrifying, and I got caught. I managed to get away and ran out of the casino and had to make it home before a big storm hit. I could see an enormous funnel cloud forming in the sky above the French Quarter, and it would strike at sunrise, and I just HAD to get into my house first.

I ran down Canal Street, which turned into a twisted labyrinth through shops and small parks with winding walks that wouldn't take me straight. I started trying to jump barriers and go through closer doors instead of the front entrances, but the best doors were always locked. In one sort of cluttered, crowded rag and bottle shop, the proprietor, a historian who had helped me on a writing project, kept stopping me as I was trying to leave to tell me about his recent work.

 When I left shops and was back on the streets skeezy guys kept grabbing at me and a few of them kissed me and their mouths tasted like vomit. I ran and ran and I slid and fell a few times in the muddy streets.  There was a big piano sort of thing on Chartres, that you played by jumping on keys. I thought I could jump over it, but my heels hit the E and F keys, and slid out from under me, and I went down hard on my back with an awful dissonance. I just kept running and jumping and the cloud got lower and the sun was going to rise...

When I woke up, I lay frozen and unable to move for several minutes. My heart rate finally slowed down, and the cold sweat evaporated, and I got up more than an hour earlier than I needed to, because for once I had zero interest in going back to sleep.

Death Immenent ~ 4/25/2014

I dreamed I was alternately working with Stephen Fry, or that I was Stephen Fry himself, and that we/I could tell when people were about to die.

Young, old, sick, healthy, didn't matter. Imminent death would manifest as a thick, opaque, black cloud of smoke, billowing around the person's neck, enveloping their head, rattling in their lungs, until, with a gasp, they took it all in... and died.

Sometimes, though, it would change it's mind, leap from one person to another. It claimed an old woman in her opulent rooms in a holiday resort abroad, then settled on her grandson. But before it took him, it leapt away to a little boy that passed him on a skateboard.

We watched it hover over a small, golden haired girl playing an angel in a Winter Olympics opening ceremony, until she fell down back stage and passed. I felt it coalesce around my own head and throat, felt the gritty soot in my lungs, but then it left to take an old man.

We/I tried to solve the mystery of what it was, determine if it was death itself or a malignant and capricious spirit, studied it, chased it, tried to predict it, but we could never stop it.

Solving Crime and Watching VeggieTales ~ 4/22/2014

I was sitting at a picnic table visiting with my father. He was taking a break from a site manager/foreman convention. A truck pulled up. It had a toilet on the back and a liquid reservoir. It stunk a bit, but the seals were good, so not too bad. The driver got out and walked into the convention hall, and I left to go back to work.

I was working at a pool that had current generation, and I was teaching techniques for swimming against current, but that was a side job. My real job was as part of an investigative team made up of geniuses. I was the least brilliant person on the team.

I got a call from the team that a kidnapping had been reported, and the victim or victims might not have long to live. A woman's ex-husband had apparently kidnapped at least one of her two daughters, and had her locked up somewhere. We had to find her fast, and it wasn't clear whether or not her sister was with her, and the mother couldn't be contacted either, so she might also be in danger. So my team had to get to work.

We identified the stepfather and determined that he owned a work truck with a large liquid reservoir. We used stoplight cameras to track him to the convention, and bumper height to calculate that his reservoir wasn't full, but was carrying about the weight of the two missing girls. We got to the convention, and couldn't find him, but we took over his truck, and yelled for the girls to see if they were in there and could hear us. One muffled voice answered, and we set about trying to get them out, but the usual hatches had been sealed shut, and blow torches were too dangerous with the gasses that had built up. Finally I suggested that the weakest point would be the ceramic toilet mounted on back, and we smashed it off.

One of the girls came crawling out, pulling her unconscious sister with her. We rushed them to the hospital, where they were treated and cleaned up. The one had to stay in critical care, but the other came with us to help track down her mother.

She told us her mother was traveling in South America with her fiancé, but we weren't sure. This crazy young woman with long, straight, strawberry blond hair that she kept pulling back in a ponytail, then letting drop into her face, accosted us on the street, and insisted vehemently that the mother was traveling, and wouldn't want to be called. The rescued girl half recognized her as a distant cousin of the ex-husband and believed her and got spooked away from trying to contact her mother, but the woman made us doubt even more that the mother was all right.

The team put me in charge of calming and persuading the girl. First we watched my VeggieTales Top Ten Silly Songs video. The Hairbrush Song finally got her to laugh and relax. Then we went to Popeyes to eat because she wanted fried chicken.

There was a television showing the news, and her story was on. I pointed out how if her mother saw any of this, she would be so worried, and we really did need to try to contact her. The girl finally agreed, and thank goodness her mother really was traveling, was perfectly all right, and would be coming home on the next flight. Then I woke up.

Phone Trouble Car Trouble Brain Trouble ~ 4/17/2014

I went to San Antonio to go to some sort of clothes show. I had a free day, so I headed out to Castroville, to visit my high school band director, who was also my college band director, because the band was both my college and high school band. I was in the band hall talking to the director, who was My high school director, while a MOB grad student rehearsed a solo and ensemble group that included the MOB director's son on trumpet.

Things wrapped up and we left for the afternoon. I drove into town and sent a text to some friends who were in town for a basketball game to try to meet for dinner at Mi Tierra at 7:30. I figured I'd go straight there and hang out at the bar since it was Friday. I thought about inviting the band director and my dad, if he wasn't offshore working. I didn't think he was. I knew Mom and Brooke were out of town.

I was near the exit for a street called Dufoma when I realized I had a flat tire. It occurred to me that every time I came to SA I got a flat. I pulled over to the Dufoma bend, where the exit curved around a wide shoulder. I pulled over, up to a big pile of tires on the shoulder, and went to get my jack and tire iron. I figured I should call my dad for help, too.

I started looking for his phone number, and a group of guys came up and started talking about helping me, but I knew they'd want money, and I didn't have any. I'd managed to call the leading office of the place where my dad lived when my mom was away, instead of my dad's number. Then I managed to call the offshore rig, but they connected me with Red Adair, and not my dad.

I couldn't find the right number and I couldn't get to my jack because the guys kept distracting me. They started talking about calling a tow, but I told them just to leave it all alone because I wasn't doing anything until I'd talked to my dad. At some point a woman showed up to try to help me work my phone.

I decided this had gotten beyond ridiculous, and I turned to tell everyone politely thanks buy please just go on about their business and I would take care if it, but no one was there, and my car had been stripped down to the frame. Then I woke up.

Back in High School... Sort of... ~ 4/11/2014

We lived in the house I grew up in, which was outside a town that was rice university, Castroville, and lakeside mall all sort of cobbled together. I found a small alligator hiding in a glass-topped curio table in my bedroom, and we found sharks in the muddy water of the tank in the back yard.

I was in high school again, and friends with the kids from the comic Luann, and Luann herself was dating Jeremy from the comic Zits. Jeremy had a helicopter that he could fly, but also had a hired pilot for it, and he used it to take us all to the mall, though they always had to fly us to the book store to keep Jeremy's mother happy.

The bookstore was having a sale on all things renaissance, and had called in a costuming specialist, so we were all going to talk to her about fabrics and patterns. I discovered I had a book of portrait artworks from the time of the Tudors and an enormous wardrobe box of ribbons and trims and lace made in the style of that period. We brought these along, and I told the others that once they knew what they needed, they could take their pick.

In the box I found for myself a silk gauze a-line over dress in medium green, embroidered with willow leaves, meant to go over a darker green dress that the consultant would help me design. There were matching green laces in different widths. It was going to be perfect. There were pink and ivory and blue ribbons in the box, too. We were all set.

As we looked through the paintings in the book, I began to formulate a theory that our current penchant for historical, factual, proportional accuracy in art and literature may have begun with the enlightenment and the rise of rational scientific process, but it really came to the fore with the development of photography, and the idea that a photograph is a truer representation than a painting. Everyone was very interested.

I returned home to find a party of Japanese dignitaries visiting to negotiate my marriage to a nobleman's son. My least favorite aunt had apparently been arranging this in secret, actually writing letters to the boy, supposedly from me. My mother say me next to the head ambassador at dinner, and I told him politely that while it was certainly an honor to have them here, I had known nothing about this until now, and was not interested in marrying into Japanese high society and leaving my home.  The table cloths and dress shirts were blazingly, pristinely white, their hair and dinner jackets were coal black, and candlelight gleamed from the chandelier and tapers on the table, shining on silver and crystal and cuff links. I looked into the strange amber eyes of the ambassador and said all of this calmly and firmly, with courtesy, and without wavering or looking away. He was very impressed, but before he could decide what to do, I woke up.

How the Other Half Lives ~ 4/4/2014

I dreamed that I was walking down the one lane, cul de sac road I grew up on. As I watched, large mansions were built, shopping centers went up, and people appeared.  There was a fried chicken stand over the first hill, so it wasn't all bad. A big storm was coming, and I was waiting anxiously for my mother to come home.

I woke up for a bit, and when I went back to sleep, the street, the malls, the houses, had all turned into a sort of live action Mario game, where we directed our little avatars around a maze towards food and prizes, and that's how we ourselves traveled through the huge indoor mall that had grown up around it.  I kept trying to get to the fried chicken stand, but my character kept running out of energy, and I'd have to start over from a random point.

I woke up for a bit, and when I went back to sleep, I found myself in a part of the mall that was a huge five star hotel with an ENORMOUS brunch buffet, and I was going around with my tray loading up on eggs and ham and fried pork chops and hot chocolate. I took it all back to my family's suite.  We were very rich, and this is where we lived while we were in town.

I woke up for a bit, and when I went back to sleep, I was back out in the country, trying to get to our large country estate.  It was in a little town on the Medina River that somehow had a medieval church. The church was partly falling into ruins, but we still used it.

I woke up for a bit, and when I went back to sleep, I was back exploring our town lodgings.  I was the second daughter of the family, and I lived with my father and his mother and his grandmother.  I was taking care of my great grandmother, who gave me a beautiful pink satin dress.  I went to put it on, then explored our suite of rooms. In my father's library there was a large set of books each telling a ghost story or paranormal legend set in the Castroville and Medina Valley area.  He also had a big empty room that he used as a design and fabrication area for his machine work.  I found my rooms, and my grandmother's.  I went back to the main hall or drawing room that was all yellow with green trim, and had a double staircase that wound up and went behind a wall.  I was curious about what was upstairs, so I went up the right hand side, but the staircase was just for show. The right hand stair went behind the wall to a landing about a foot and a half wide, where it met the left hand stair and went back down.  So I went back down and waited for the party, at which I would apparently meet several suitors.

I woke up for a bit, and when I went back to sleep, an old, grandfatherly man was giving me and some other young girls advice on where to keep a handkerchief given to us by a suitor, depending on where he stood with us.  If we only had friendly feelings, we should keep it in our purse.  If we wanted to encourage him, we should keep it tucked in our sash or sleeve.  Only if he we accepted a proposal of marriage were we to keep it in our bosom.

Then I finally woke up for real.

This Miscellany Brought to You by Benadryl ~4/2/2014

So, my allergy meds are completely changing my sleep cycle.  I know my dreams have been just as zany as ever, only... I can't really remember much.  So here's a brief glance into my past few nights, one snapshot from each dream.  It's the best I can do.

Three nights ago I dreamed that I was visiting Mrs. Schultze, a neighbor lady near where I grew up. She had decided to become a confectioner and open a candy shop, and her kitchen counters were covered with trays and trays of candies in all colors of the rainbow.  They were kind of like soft taffies with crunchy sugar coatings, cherry, orange, lemon, apple, blueberry, grape, vanilla, chocolate, butterscotch. They were beautiful and delicious.

Two nights ago I dreamed that I was driving my white pickup truck down I-10 and my check engine light kept flickering on and off, and there was a strange metallic scraping noise.  But I was pretty sure I knew what it was.  I pulled off to the side, popped the hood, and sure enough, this extruded sheet of metal that covered the engine had slid out of place.  All I had to do was slide the front tabs back into the slots behind the grill, screw in a few screws, and it would be fixed.  That's when I realized I was stopped on the Atchafalaya Basin bridge, and there was no shoulder, so I was blocking a lane, and I'd turned my lights off.  I scrambled to turn the emergency lights on, because I could see a car coming, and just as I pushed the button, I woke up.

Last night I dreamed I was on a boat.  It was a big paddle wheel steamboat cruise ship on the Mississippi, and I was sort of a fly on the wall as two middle-aged housewives were putting on fancy lingerie and party dresses and talking about their latest cougar conquests, because it was THAT kind of singles cruise. I decided this was not the place for me, so I got off the boat in New Orleans, and went to walk over the bridge to the West Bank. Only the passenger section of the bridge was just a set of bare iron girders arching over the river.  Foot traffic was heavy, though I can't for the life of me figure out how we all stayed balanced.  Something distracted me, though, and I turned too fast and started to fall... and woke up.