Adventures at Sea ~ 11/28/2015

I dreamed I was staying at a hotel in San Antonio, during a convention to decide who to support in the approaching battle for the kingship. I had gone back in time to the 1920's to help bring about the outcome that would be best for the future of the country. Robert Baratheon had died, and his son Joffrey had been pretty awful, so I went back to the time period to support either his brother Renly or his brother-in-law Tyrion, once I figured out which one was better.

The battle came before I was sure, but I joined in with one of the platoons massed against Joffrey. There I came face to face with my sister, who had come back in time and become Brienne of Tarth. We recognized each other just as the battle begun, and we were swept down a rock beach into the waves to drive off a force that was trying to come ashore by stealth and cut us off from the main body of troops. All I remembered of the battle was how beautiful the pearl-white foam was, that frothed and splashed around my ankles, before the water turned scarlet with blood.

After the battle, when Joffrey had been defeated, we set Renly up as king, but I had a sneaking suspicion that he might have had a hand in Robert's death, and that Tyrion would be the better choice. But of course, I couldn't be sure that it hadn't been Tyrion who had killed the king, either, so I needed to stick around to find out. It turned out that both Brienne and I had been secret daughters of Robert Baratheon, though we had known all along he was our father. When I told a story in a tavern of the nightmares I had about how my father had died, my sister became furious, because her nightmares were so much worse. It seemed like a strange thing to fight over, but I wondered if we might use the fight to our advantage. Maybe we could watch Renly and Tyrion as the rumors spread, and see which acted guiltiest.

But before any of that could come about, I found out that Tyrion had been captured by a sea hag, and was enslaved on her shrimp trawler, doomed to fish up lost souls and dead crustaceans. I sneaked aboard and helped Tyrion overthrow the sea hag, and we brought her ship back into port. It was full of the most amazing aquariums, that seemed empty at first, but then burst into life with dozens of small fish, all different shapes and sizes, but all shining silver, with dark or bright spots or streaks based on their kind. We carefully moved one old goldfish into a new tank. I had to reach in to free him from some gravel that had slid over his fins, and suddenly his tank blossomed with bright green water grasses, tiny iridescent  snails, and fast growing hermit crabs.

There was another tank that had frogs in it, and one bright green tree frog kept getting out. We didn't want the free-roaming lobsters that skittered across the floors to eat him, so we kept putting him back and trying to figure out how to secure his tank. There was a tiny gap at the top, to let the water hoses in, that he kept climbing through. If we shut the lit tight enough that he couldn't get out, it slowed the water flow, and the level in the tank dropped, and that wasn't good either. I think we finally fixed things with duct tape.

I don't remember exactly how we fixed it, though, because night had fallen, and the full moon was rising, and the lobsters were coming into shore. We were docked at a long pier by then, and we went out onto the deck and looked out to sea. The water was still and calm with barely any waves, but there were small, triangular ripples on the surface, all pointing into shore. As each neared, I called my sister over and pointed to the enormous lobster swimming just beneath the surface. The smallest of them was a foot and a half long, and their tails were at least six inches thick at the base. As we watched them, my sister pointed to some pale shapes closer to shore, and we walked out onto the pier and up toward the beach to see what they were.

They were dead bodies, being swept in on the small current created by the lobster migration. At least one was a woman, her pale, bloated face and hands poking out of a pink sweater, and her blond hair fanning out on the ripples. The other two were just barely-recognizable limbs, and as we watched, another began to surface. Then I woke up.

Back to School ~ 11/25/2015

I dreamed that my friend, who was absolutely gorgeous, had a crush on a guy in our dorm, who was Hodgins from Bones, but with long, crazy hair. I had a crush on him, too, but they were just so perfect for each other that it only seemed right to introduce them, since Hodgins was a good friend of mine. My friend asked him out, and he was about to say no, and I asked him why. He said it was because she was so beautiful, he couldn't believe she'd really be interested in him. I insisted that she was also intelligent and inquisitive and would be into all his quirks, if he'd just pluck up the self-esteem to give it a chance. So he did, they immediately hit it off, and became a couple.

Of course, this made me sad for myself, and I spent a lot of time after that jumping into piles of huge maple and sycamore leaves that were changing colors, and even joined a pirate ship for a brief time. Suddenly, I realized it was almost time for English class with my middle school English teacher, so I hurried into the classroom, only to find that it was a 1pm class, not a 1:30pm class, so I was already super late. But when the teacher asked me, and I explained and apologized, everything seemed to be all right.

Partway through the class, though, I started channeling. I saw visions of little remote controlled race cars being driven through desert brush, on a rugged track, with their young owners pelting after them. At the same time, I knew the mother of one of the little girls in the race had been poisoned. When I came to myself, I found I'd walked out of the classroom, down a flight of stairs covered with sand. On each step I'd written a letter, and the result was "pentalchlorine penthate". My English teacher asked what that was, and I explained that it was a fast acting poison that could be made from common household materials, and that I'd learned this watching CSI. Then I woke up.

Just a Normal Day in the Life? ~ 11/23/2015

I dreamed that I was a professional photographer, and with other women photographers, I was being targeted by a stalker. Somehow the stalker was manipulating my camera so that every so often a picture would print out with a bite mark across the corner, and, "You will be next!" written in the stalker's blood. The blood was even real, and could be analyzed for DNA, but the stalker wasn't in the system.

When we all found out the same weird thing was happening to us, the other women and I decided to start a support group. We went to meet in Fondren Library, on Rice campus. I was running late, though, and as I got off the elevator on the floor we were meeting on, there was an explosion, and everyone came running, and we evacuated.

I decided to just go on to my next appointment, which was a film class I was taking. I got to the darkened lecture room a bit late, and slipped into the front row, where my seat was. No one said anything, though. The film they were showing was an animated short by a friend of mine, and I thought I recognized myself in one of the characters.

When the lights came back on, the professor asked if anyone knew what corn would look like if it hadn't been genetically modified (i.e. bred for certain qualities over the centuries). I was the only one that knew that corn would be, like, five tiny kernels on little spike of a cob, and pretty much useless for sustaining many people.

After class, my sister wanted to go down to the beach, so we got on a little soapbox car and began rolling down the streets. We knew we were getting close when the concrete barriers and fences and walls were hidden under sand-mud nests built by amphibious crustaceans. They looked like shrimp about five inches long, but narrower throughout their bodies, and they were gray with vivid streaks of magenta and turquoise, that pulsed brilliantly when they were frightened or agitated.

We got to the beach just as a big wave came in and got all the little children wet up to their hips. One of them was my friends' younger son, and he came crying to me that his best pants were now soaked, and could we please go somewhere to dry them off. Then I woke up.

TBTT#14 The Mongol Hordes ~ 7/17/2012

I was traveling with my family and the MOB across rocky terrain. It was remote and beautiful. It might have been near Yellowstone. We were traveling by train. At some point we stopped and we were all sort of milling around in this town, then everyone got back on the train, disappointed. Apparently I was supposed to get dressed up nice and act like a lady so some important guy would be interested in me and offer to marry me. But I failed. Imagine that. So my family was mad at me for a while. Then, suddenly, BARBARIC HORDES!!! Led by a very Genghis Khan sort of person, they attacked. By which I mean they swarmed into a field and challenged me, then ran at me one by one. I had two swords. I don't know how to use a sword, and didn't in the dream, either. But apparently, "Stick them with the pointy end," was all I knew in life and all I needed to know, because basically, they would each run at me as I held up my swords, and one by one they helpfully impaled themselves upon my blade(s). But I didn't WANT to kill people, and it was a terrible AWFUL feeling, to sense the scrape of metal on bone vibrating up my arm as each was run through. One of them, in a tiger pelt with a bone dagger, couldn't have been any older than twelve. Then, to be efficient, I simply used my swords to shred a Russian telephone book, and that somehow took care of the entire horde. And then I woke up.

I'm Not Cut Out for Academia ~ 11/13/2015

I dreamed that I was writing a thesis about how Agnes and Leah Adamcek, my mom's great-great-grandmother and her twin sister, had married two brothers, Adam and Levi, who were my dad's great-great-grandfather and his twin brother. This connection had been lost to our family knowledge, until I made a chance discovery in some old photo albums. There was a portrait of the sisters tucked into my dad's family's stuff that I recognized from going through my mom's family's stuff, and then I pieced together the story.

I was writing up my thesis when weird stuff started happening. Little things that I barely noticed at first. Like I was walking home along the beach at night, and I hear people walking near me, but couldn't see them, then there was some sort of scuffle, I thought, but it was too far away for me to hear enough to be sure.

Then this guy named Leo introduced himself and said he'd been assigned to guard me. When the library I was doing research in suddenly closed early, and everything went dark. I could feel someone near me, and they started to tug on my notes, but I managed to get away with all my materials, because Leo came in with a flashlight and got me out of there. But he scolded me for working so late, and said the only reason he'd come looking for me was because I'd missed my check in with him.

Then he said he was going to show me something. He ran a cotton swab over my shoes, and dripped some clear liquid over it, and it turned bright pink, like in CSI. He said there was blood on my shoes, and that someone was trying to frame me for a murder that was all over the news. So Leo and I went into detective mode to try to figure out who was trying to frame me.

We discovered that it was this woman who worked as a professional Willie Nelson impersonator. She was wanted for some other crimes, including impersonating Willie *too* well, and trying to steal his identity. We tracked her down at Reliant Stadium, where Willie was performing the next night for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. The police were trying to catch her for trespassing, but as soon as we showed up, the lights went out, and plunged us into pitch darkness.

I suspected that she'd target me, since she'd been trying to steal my thesis notes for who knows what reason, and sure enough, I could hear her footsteps crunching in the dirt to my right. I was holding a decoy copy of my notes, just a sheaf of paper with some printing on the top page. She grabbed them and began to run. I yelled and set off after her, following the sound of her breathing and footsteps, and the occasional faint glint of her white sneakers in the darkness.

I got so close that I bumped into her. She gasped and tried to speed up, but I took a flying leap and tackled her and started yelling. Then I woke up.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest ~ 11/12/2015

I dreamed I was having a really bad day. I called my friend to help me out, but I couldn't get hold of him, so I went to the ice cream parlor, but they were all out of ice cream and brownies, and all they had left was Italian soda, so I ordered a cherry and blood orange one, and kept trying to get hold of my friend.

He finally texted me back, but he thought it was the girl he'd just started dating texting him, so when he said he'd be there in ten minutes, he didn't mean he'd be there with me, but that he was going to go hang with her. What I didn't know was that she was a shape shifter, and changed into a hornet, and that he was learning to do the same. I also didn't know she was my neighbor in my new apartment complex. (I'd moved into the new units built where Bissonnet Village used to be.)

All I knew was that I finally decided to just go home, and when I got home, to top off my bad day, I found a hornet's nest  just inside the window I'd left open on accident. It was a cylindrical sort of cage made out of mud and twigs, and it already had over a dozen little bulges that were incubating eggs. Then the hornet mom flew in and settled herself in the nest, in MY apartment, and I didn't know she was part human, but I do NOT like wasps and bees and such. So I flipped out, and began to bug bomb the nest. I kicked it out onto the balcony patio, and lit it on fire.

Then my friend texted me, still thinking I was his girlfriend, and something about his text explained the whole thing, and I couldn't figure out how on earth I was going to tell him that I'd just poisoned, then torched, his new love and family.  Then I woke up.

Zydedoche ~ 11/6/2015

I dreamed a new word. "Zydedoche." I encountered it while walking down Bourbon Street with some folks, and none of us knew what it meant. I asked someone to look it up online, and I don't think it was coincidence that it was an acquaintance of mine whose last name is Zadoyko, or that a zydeco band was parading past as we tried to discus it, so that I couldn't hear what anyone was telling me.

I finally got to a place where I could look at the online definition myself, and the "definition" was a charming paragraph that began "Four to one nuns polled from the nun pool say..." and went on to tell me that zydedoche was a form of religious architectural embellishment.  But there were no details or pictures, so it didn't really make sense. Also, I kept forgetting to click the sound file to learn how it was pronounced.

Finally, after a little more research, I learned that, while now applied to pretty much any intricate and arcane, obviously religious iconography, including the squiggly golden glyphs painted on the back of giant, purple scarabs in ancient Sumeria, the term zydedoche most accurately referred to a type of tile or block found in many old gothic churches. The term came from the Greek for "double x" or "split x", and rows of different ornamental tiles or stone blocks were always framed with a particular block that featured what looked like two X's, one on top of the other but slightly offset, then split vertically down the middle, with the halves pulled across each other and moved to opposite ends of a rectangle with rounded edges.

Other blocks that the zydedoche framed would be carved with cloud-like curlicues or dramatic chevrons, but always in the upper left, and often in all corners of the panel, you'd find the split x blocks. They were mostly found in Catholic churches now, but it was obvious to scholars that they were a symbol borrowed from older, pagan shrines. Sometimes, the stones were actually taken from older temples and used in church walls, and the motif just became popular and was copied by cathedral masons for centuries.

I was staying with some friends and none of us could sleep. One because she was pregnant, and the baby was keeping her up, another because she was worried about her job, and me, because I just could NOT figure out how to pronounce "zydedoche". I kept trying to go to an online dictionary and find a sound file, but I kept getting distracted by new details of the definition, and I never did click on any pronunciation guides, before I woke up.

I like to think that it was not "ZY-duh-dohsh" or "ZY-dohsh", as I thought in my dream, but "zy-DED-oh-kee," like "synecdoche," which is a real word. Look it up!