I dreamed Voldemort was trying to find me, so I was being kept in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. The Great Hall looked a lot like Holy Rosary Church in Hostyn, with very ornate decor. The back of the church was an intersection of two long wings, with the vestibule at their meeting point. There were huge oak doors in the south wall of the vestibule.
Along the inner wall of each wing, between the main corridor of that wing and the church, was a small, narrow, dark corridor, lined with glass cases. In each case was the mummified body of a holy man or woman. There were bishops, abbesses, anchorites, all garbed in velvets and satins with gold lace and embroidery, and all slowly crumbling to dust behind the glass.
A friend and I were being kept there to hide us from Voldemort. We weren’t taking it very seriously. There were two long ceremonial swords, as long as jousting lances, standing in a rack near the altar. We noticed that they each bore our family emblems, so we took them down and went outside. We pretended to menace the great oaken doors.
Then we heard helicopters, and rushed back in and put the swords back. But the secret service agent sent to watch us has seen us, and we got pretty told off. My junior high English teacher came with a class to give lessons in the hall, so we wouldn’t fall too behind. One of the boys started crying because I was getting more answers right than he was.
After class was over, my friend and I went exploring in the hall. We found the door to a hidden passage behind a hanging between the swords and the tabernacle. We debated about telling our government babysitter, because what if Voldemort snuck in from back there? But if we didn’t tell, we'd have a way out to explore and be a little more free, and maybe it would be a good escape if V-man, as we took to calling him, came through the front.
We were still debating when we heard someone coming, so we hurried back out into the church. We grabbed some books to look like we were studying. The agent had brought his little daughter, who thought this must be a library, because of all the books on the benches. But she wondered, after looking at them, why they were all the same.
The book I was “studying” was different from the others. It looked like a big dictionary I had enjoyed looking through when I was little, just learning to read. It had a dark gold sheen to its cover, with a deep green oval on the front where it said “Bible” instead of the title of the dictionary. As I flipped to the back of the book, I realized it was so thick because it had a section in the back that, instead of pages, held a set of compartments. Each compartment was a reliquary, with a small effigy of a saint, made out of mummified saint bits, and clothed in miniature robes as rich as those of the holy men and women in the walls along the corridors.
Only, the Bible was really old, and not in the best repair, and as I opened the section with the compartments, one of the edged split a little, and one of the effigies started to come out. Without thinking, I pushed it back inside, and felt the gritty, slippery dust of it on my fingers like ash. I closed the book and called out to the agent. I insisted he go find the priest.
He came back with a nun who had huge spectacles and flyaway white hair, who said Father was busy, and she’d help until he came. I showed her the crumbling relics in the broken book, and she said she knew exactly what to do. She took the book away from me, and for a while things were boring. The priest came after a bit, and I explained what had happened, and we went to find sister.
She was out in the grounds, which were glistening with snow and ice. There was a miniature holiday train near a grotto, and she was decorating it with holly and some VERY REALISTIC looking ash and soot. Yup. She was sprinkling and daubing saint bit dust all over the train. Thaaaaat was exciting.
The priest and I were pretty horrified. We went back inside, and after inspecting the mummies along the corridors, he decided that some restoration was in order there, as well as with the Bible. He called some specialists. While we were waiting for them to arrive, I told him how I had always thought, when I was little and going tonchurch with Momo, that the mummies were all the popes that had ever been, and they’d lived and died right here at Holy Rosary. We had a good laugh about that.
While restoration was going on, the priest sent my friend and I down the east wing to live in Grandma Berwick’s suite of rooms, since Grandma was away on vacation. My mom showed up about that time, as we all settled in for the night. We had been careful to keep to the downstairs rooms, so when I woke up the next day and saw a television up on the landing was on, I was terrified that Voldemort was hiding up there waiting for me.
I decided I would be brave, darn it, and no one else was getting killed because of me. I tromped upstairs to see a pastel flowered suitcase on my grandma’s bed. This seemed, unominious. Then my aunt Lolly came out of the bathroom. She said she’d been there all night, and had heard us come in late, but didn’t feel like getting up.
The next day my dad came, and drove us around the cow pastures where my mom grew up, which were all around the church. Dad drove really fast up and down the hills, and Mom pointed out where they’d lived when they got married, but the house wasn’t there anymore. Then I woke up.
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Friday, November 30, 2018
Ring Shopping ~ 11/30/2018
I dreamed that I was newly engaged, and shopping for rings. We were in Australia, and had to take a helicopter to the jewelry store. It was remote and hard to get to, br it was the closest one, and it was world famous.
We flew across a desert flat spotted with a few sparse, dark green trees, then over a bare, bone pale karst highland. Finally, we wove through jagged peaks of rust red streaked with ochre gold to land in a tawny landscape, dry and dusty, with a few palm trees clustered around an oasis spring, and a large red clay building that was the jewelry store.
I had brought two small sapphires I had from my grandmother, mounted in a mock-up of a ring design I’d come up with. I wanted to have them flanking a slightly larger center stone, nothing too big, and NOT a diamond. The ring would be in platinum, and would be molded such that the prongs holding the stones wouldn’t just stick out of the band, but would sweep out of it like little blades of grass bending up around flowers.
The salesperson we had our appointment with took one look at my design and completely vetoed it as too plain and dowdy for their store to be associated with. She tried instead to sell us a ring from a collection of mixed yellow and red gold, where fans and frills of thin golden strips swept up from the bands, like butterfly wings, or the swirling fin of an ornamental goldfish, or a sailfish sail. I was not at all interested, as I wanted something small and low profile. So we left.
We were planning to stay for a few days in the town, so I gave it some thought, and we went back the next day with no appointment, just to browse the store. I decided I did like their signature red and yellow gold streaked metal. It was unique, and echoed the mountains around the town. I thought maybe a delicate band with a few very small rubies might be nice. But when we walked in, the first ruby rings we saw were huge stones set in platinum. To me they looked an awful lot like the ring the sales lady had said they wouldn’t make. I was going to keep looking, but then I woke up.
We flew across a desert flat spotted with a few sparse, dark green trees, then over a bare, bone pale karst highland. Finally, we wove through jagged peaks of rust red streaked with ochre gold to land in a tawny landscape, dry and dusty, with a few palm trees clustered around an oasis spring, and a large red clay building that was the jewelry store.
I had brought two small sapphires I had from my grandmother, mounted in a mock-up of a ring design I’d come up with. I wanted to have them flanking a slightly larger center stone, nothing too big, and NOT a diamond. The ring would be in platinum, and would be molded such that the prongs holding the stones wouldn’t just stick out of the band, but would sweep out of it like little blades of grass bending up around flowers.
The salesperson we had our appointment with took one look at my design and completely vetoed it as too plain and dowdy for their store to be associated with. She tried instead to sell us a ring from a collection of mixed yellow and red gold, where fans and frills of thin golden strips swept up from the bands, like butterfly wings, or the swirling fin of an ornamental goldfish, or a sailfish sail. I was not at all interested, as I wanted something small and low profile. So we left.
We were planning to stay for a few days in the town, so I gave it some thought, and we went back the next day with no appointment, just to browse the store. I decided I did like their signature red and yellow gold streaked metal. It was unique, and echoed the mountains around the town. I thought maybe a delicate band with a few very small rubies might be nice. But when we walked in, the first ruby rings we saw were huge stones set in platinum. To me they looked an awful lot like the ring the sales lady had said they wouldn’t make. I was going to keep looking, but then I woke up.
Thursday, November 15, 2018
TBTT#39 The Affairs of Dragons ~ 4/30/2018
I dreamed I learned I was a member of a secret magical order. There was a hidden world of lush, emerald mossy rock and ghostly pale marble ruins, a land of mist and silence and hidden depth. There was a certain pool, at the top of a rocky hill, surrounded by marble columns supporting an arched roof. Broad marble steps descended in concentric rings down into the dark, still water. If members of my order came under the shadow of this temple roof and bent to drink the water, most would become black-robed warriors, but a rare few, maybe one in a thousand, would become dragons.
I found myself in this world for the first time, having slipped in sideways somehow while running from some men who were trying to attack me. One moment I was pelting down a grimy sidewalk, and dodging into a dark alley, when suddenly I was in a valley like a shallow jade bowl filled with cloud. The light was like silver and pearls, and I was drawn into the mist until I found the pool. Seven other people were there, all looking just as bemused as I felt, we felt compelled to drink, and then we changed.
My companions drew weapons and charged off down the hill and up out of the valley to combat invaders that were menacing villages and markets in the American Southwest, and I… I spread vast crimson wings and rose into the air above them. We burst out of a cave into a desert canyon lined with stalls of daub and wattle and thatch. Dark haired villagers were running for cover as armored attackers tore down their stalls, upturned their tables, scattered and trampled their goods.
Then they saw me, and began to shout. I inhaled deeply, then sent a blast of blazing golden flame across their ranks. I dove down, bent my head down, and skimmed my jaws along the narrow streets, smashing them into stony cliffs, scooping them up and throwing them down into rocky ravines, and the ones that escaped me still had to face my shadowy companions.
When the invaders were routed, we melted into the darkness of night, and faded back into our normal human selves. From that day, we answered to the call, soundless but profound, impossible to ignore. We moved among the members of our order in a hidden cavern compound. I found a place in the vast library, became steeped in the ancient lore of our order. And when we were needed, we knew, and when it was our turn to fight evil, we were called back to the pool.
Thursday, October 18, 2018
TBTT#38 Fabulous! ~ 3/30/2017
I dreamed it was take your daughter to work day, and two little girls were designing a new type of valve that I was supposed to write up for them. It was like a gate valve, but instead of a metal plate sliding up and down to shut off flow, they wanted to use a bisexual unicorn centaur. He had gleaming silver flanks, a pearly unicorn head, impressive abs, and a luxurious rainbow mane and tail. It was pretty fabulous. Then I woke up.
Saturday, August 11, 2018
This Is the Way the World Ends ~ 8/11/2018
I dreamed I was a high level executive in an important business meeting that had run late into the night. My colleagues and I were gathered around a glass table in the hotel suite of the competitor CEO who had called the meeting. I had just set down the heavy glass tumbler that held the iced water I was drinking when some sort of strange cataclysm happened.
There was no thunderous noise, no flash of light, but suddenly every glass surface filmed over with a strange white scum. Every tumbler, even the ones on a tray by the minibar that we hadn’t used, suddenly held a pulsing little blob of translucent white gel, like a jellyfish condensed to the size of a large marble.
The CEO ran a finger over the filmed glass of the table, trying to find out what the stuff was. He rubbed his fingers together, then raised them toward his face to smell them. Slowly he slumped back into his chair, and his face went slack and still. His eyes glazed, and he spoke the right words to continue the meeting as though nothing had happened, but his voice had gone as flat and expressionless as his face.
We couldn’t see out the windows because they were filmed over, but we began to here skidding, crashing cars and panicked screams floating up from the streets, and the little jelly lumps pulsed and wiggled in our glasses. From a corner of the windows, a band of what looked like rusted metal began to spread over the walls of the room, leaving a coarse, brown residue over every surface, not just the glass. At that point, I bolted out of the room.
I ran and ran, out of the city, until I was up into high meadows where no glass windows or metal beams caught the soft light of the rising sun. There was just soft, green grass, rippling in the breeze, and I slumped down on a hilltop to rest. My heart rate and breathing slowed, the sun rose higher above the hills, and the only sound was the gentle swoosh of the long grasses in the wind.
Theeeeen it occurred to me that it was odd that there was no birdsong, no butterflies or grasshoppers, that I was literally the only creature stirring as far as I could see. And as I looked back the way I had come, the green horizon began to dull, going dead and dark and brown like the edges of a fallen leaf. The blue sky was filming over with a white scum that wasn’t mist or cloud, and a strange, faint rattle could be heard from the base of my hill. It got louder and louder, but at first I couldn’t make out what it was in the haze.
Then I saw them. Thousands of dried up skeletons were running up the hill toward me. I leapt to my feet and began to run again, but there was no way I was going to escape. Then I woke up.
There was no thunderous noise, no flash of light, but suddenly every glass surface filmed over with a strange white scum. Every tumbler, even the ones on a tray by the minibar that we hadn’t used, suddenly held a pulsing little blob of translucent white gel, like a jellyfish condensed to the size of a large marble.
The CEO ran a finger over the filmed glass of the table, trying to find out what the stuff was. He rubbed his fingers together, then raised them toward his face to smell them. Slowly he slumped back into his chair, and his face went slack and still. His eyes glazed, and he spoke the right words to continue the meeting as though nothing had happened, but his voice had gone as flat and expressionless as his face.
We couldn’t see out the windows because they were filmed over, but we began to here skidding, crashing cars and panicked screams floating up from the streets, and the little jelly lumps pulsed and wiggled in our glasses. From a corner of the windows, a band of what looked like rusted metal began to spread over the walls of the room, leaving a coarse, brown residue over every surface, not just the glass. At that point, I bolted out of the room.
I ran and ran, out of the city, until I was up into high meadows where no glass windows or metal beams caught the soft light of the rising sun. There was just soft, green grass, rippling in the breeze, and I slumped down on a hilltop to rest. My heart rate and breathing slowed, the sun rose higher above the hills, and the only sound was the gentle swoosh of the long grasses in the wind.
Theeeeen it occurred to me that it was odd that there was no birdsong, no butterflies or grasshoppers, that I was literally the only creature stirring as far as I could see. And as I looked back the way I had come, the green horizon began to dull, going dead and dark and brown like the edges of a fallen leaf. The blue sky was filming over with a white scum that wasn’t mist or cloud, and a strange, faint rattle could be heard from the base of my hill. It got louder and louder, but at first I couldn’t make out what it was in the haze.
Then I saw them. Thousands of dried up skeletons were running up the hill toward me. I leapt to my feet and began to run again, but there was no way I was going to escape. Then I woke up.
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Least Relaxing Vacation Ever ~ 8/8/2018
I dreamed I was on a long holiday in the UK with my mother and sister. We'd traveled in the south of England, and up into Scotland, and we were traveling down through northern England on our way to Wales. We were in Nottingham, and we were supposed to go to Sheffield, then the Village of Dean, then Stoke-on-Trent, but somehow we were still in Nottingham, and I couldn't seem to get them to understand that we needed to leave.
The town itself was all red brick and dark slate, with golden tan bricks laid into the walls in decorative patterns. We were staying in a half timber cottage southwest of town. We were supposed to go into town to see the cathedral, then take a train west from the Common Street station, which was not too far from the cathedral. But when I told them, they said we'd just go see the cathedral tomorrow.
I tried to explain that we couldn't stay any longer. We were in an Air BnB, and the next guests had been waiting outside for us to leave all morning. I was all packed to go, but they hadn't packed, and couldn't seem to hear me when I said anything about leaving.
I finally left the cottage to go for a walk to calm down and figure things out. I confirmed over and over again that it was August 8, and that this was the day we caught the train to Wales. We had already been supposed to do Sheffield and Dean Stoke, but somehow we'd stayed in Nottingham too long and had completely missed our days to do that, so we'd have to go straight to Wales.
I was trying to make sure we'd make all of the rest of our stops when a group of cyclists came down the road and I needed to step up onto the verge. Then a battered white car came by close behind them. Then, as I gazed back toward the cottage, a huge black mushroom cloud of dirt and ash billowed up into the sky out of the field beyond it, followed only an instant later by a deafening BOOM. Another and another sprang up, and the entire world seemed to shake and thunder with the blasts. The cottage wasn't hit, but the high whine of aircraft droned overhead and the bombs were getting closer and closer to me, and I began to run south, trying to get out of the way and not get blown up. Then I woke up.
The town itself was all red brick and dark slate, with golden tan bricks laid into the walls in decorative patterns. We were staying in a half timber cottage southwest of town. We were supposed to go into town to see the cathedral, then take a train west from the Common Street station, which was not too far from the cathedral. But when I told them, they said we'd just go see the cathedral tomorrow.
I tried to explain that we couldn't stay any longer. We were in an Air BnB, and the next guests had been waiting outside for us to leave all morning. I was all packed to go, but they hadn't packed, and couldn't seem to hear me when I said anything about leaving.
I finally left the cottage to go for a walk to calm down and figure things out. I confirmed over and over again that it was August 8, and that this was the day we caught the train to Wales. We had already been supposed to do Sheffield and Dean Stoke, but somehow we'd stayed in Nottingham too long and had completely missed our days to do that, so we'd have to go straight to Wales.
I was trying to make sure we'd make all of the rest of our stops when a group of cyclists came down the road and I needed to step up onto the verge. Then a battered white car came by close behind them. Then, as I gazed back toward the cottage, a huge black mushroom cloud of dirt and ash billowed up into the sky out of the field beyond it, followed only an instant later by a deafening BOOM. Another and another sprang up, and the entire world seemed to shake and thunder with the blasts. The cottage wasn't hit, but the high whine of aircraft droned overhead and the bombs were getting closer and closer to me, and I began to run south, trying to get out of the way and not get blown up. Then I woke up.
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Rotten Melons and Diner Donnie ~ 7/21/2018
I dreamed I was just getting back from a marching band road trip where I’d had an adventure. I’d gotten zapped into a dimension where I had to solve a mystery as part of a team of young Star Wars characters. We were looking for clues in this creepy old cemetery at night, and we became part of the legends of hauntings when the groundskeeper saw us.
Somehow I’d managed to bring back a coconut, two watermelons, and some potted plants from this other dimension, so I planted them in my mom’s back yard. The watermelon turned out awful, but the coconut started growing into a tree.
Then I went with a friend to 59 Diner, and while we were eating, Donald Trump came in. Apparently he planned to eat there between rallies. He looked over at my friend and me, and he must have decided we looked like trouble, because he asked the manager to have us removed. I decided I was NOT leaving until I’d finished my pancakes, and maybe I’d have a few cups of coffee after that, and if they called the police on me, I’d videotape it on my phone, and show the world how “Diner Donnie” was too good to eat at a table next to two liberal women minding their own business. But then I woke up.
Somehow I’d managed to bring back a coconut, two watermelons, and some potted plants from this other dimension, so I planted them in my mom’s back yard. The watermelon turned out awful, but the coconut started growing into a tree.
Then I went with a friend to 59 Diner, and while we were eating, Donald Trump came in. Apparently he planned to eat there between rallies. He looked over at my friend and me, and he must have decided we looked like trouble, because he asked the manager to have us removed. I decided I was NOT leaving until I’d finished my pancakes, and maybe I’d have a few cups of coffee after that, and if they called the police on me, I’d videotape it on my phone, and show the world how “Diner Donnie” was too good to eat at a table next to two liberal women minding their own business. But then I woke up.
Thursday, July 19, 2018
TBTT#37 A Series of Batshit Crazy Events ~ 3/16/3017
March 16, 2017
I dreamed that I was staying with my grandmother, and a few cousins and I were hanging out in the garage at night with the lights off. I could see a large but vague shadow come into the garage. I was sure, from what I could make out, that it was a cougar. I reached for a pellet gun, just in case, and turned on the flashlight app for my iPhone. In the diffuse, cold light, flaming orange striped with black flared into visibility, and a tiger sprang up from where it had been lying on the cool concrete and sped out of the garage into the yard.
We all ran to the garage door, and I shone my light out into the yard, and there were more tigers, and lions, and bears. And we all said, “Oh my!” in unison.
The next day, I traveled to Castroville for a high school reunion. It was still early in the morning when I got there, and I was really hungry, so I stopped at a Burger King for some breakfast. But my order just wouldn’t ring up right, no matter what I tried to order, or what the cashier did. I *knew* $25 was too much for pancakes, though, and the line behind me was getting really long. As I left, defeated and unfed, one of the other employees started yelling at me about how rude I was to not make up my mind and let the line get like that. I tried to explain that it wasn’t my fault, but she just kept berating me. And somehow she told the whole town, because after that, I passed a number of my old classmates, and said hello, but they pretended not to know me, or only barely remember me, even when I told them who I was. One of them finally said, okay, we’ll say hello to you on the street, but don’t act like we’re your friends.
So I headed out of town and ended up at a big, gloomy old hotel. There was an Amish family staying there, and the mother wanted her daughters to have nothing to do with me. I had to stay there for a few days while I conducted some sort of business dealing, and I tried going back to the Burger King, too, and finally got my breakfast to ring up correctly, but the family just seemed to get weirder and weirder.
The girls seemed to really like me, and wanted to talk to me, but they’d run and hide if their mother came calling. Finally one night they showed up, and they had both cut their hair to be short like mine! I knew there’d be trouble after that, and sure enough, their mother came raging at me for corrupting her daughters. She was much taller than me, and she grabbed me by the shoulders and leaned down right into my face and starting yelling at me to confess my “unclean acts”.
I tried over and over to tell her that actually all my acts were pretty squeaky clean, and I certainly hadn’t *told* her daughters to cut their hair. Finally she seemed to calm down, and said, very quietly, “Okay. Okay.” She sighed and put her hands on my cheeks, holding my head, and then she began to change.
Her face stayed right in front of mine, but her body sort of unfolded around her, and began curling in thick tentacles across the lawn and up into the big old tree beside the hotel, that we were standing under. Her hands turned into wiry tendrils that were twisted strands of bright blue and green sinew, and ropes of the same sprang from the nape of her neck. These looped themselves in the branch overhead, and began to come back down to wind around my neck. I fought them off, and found I could pinch them apart in my fingers. I kept struggling and pinching and yelling, and then I woke up.
Monday, July 16, 2018
Writing All the Things ~ 7/16/2018
I dreamed I was helping write up an investigation of a fire at a burger place. At first the owner had claimed that the cause must be a bunch of fried chicken that a patron had brought in for his autistic son who wouldn’t eat burgers. His reasoning was that the chicken grease was more flammable, and must have gotten too close to the grill. But the truth was much stranger.
It turned out that, obviously, the fire had nothing to do with the chicken. There was actually a hitman after the owner, and one of the things he would do was set up a flash bomb to disable security cameras. It should have been triggered when the owner unlocked for the day, and he would have been assasinated at that time. But since the bomb didn’t go off, the hitman had to wait, and by the time the thing did go off, it caught the burger grease on fire, and police and firefighters came, so the job got called off.
Investigators had a pretty good idea who the hitman was, and knew of other hits he might be behind, but they didn’t have enough direct evidence yet. So that phase of the investigation was wrapped up and written up and I moved on to a different project.
Now I was assigned to work up the display text for an exhibit on a famous black dancer from the 1940s. Her stage name was Queen Matafa, and she would celebrate her 90th birthday while the exhibit was running. She was actually a Montenegran duchess, who was born in Ethiopia and married into European royalty at age 18. But her duke had died penniless, and she had moved to America after becoming part of a ballet company who was contracted for an extended tour in the States. She’d been a sensation, and had never left.
Her birth name had been M’kheefe, and she was six feet tall, with size 5-1/2 feet. We had her shoes in the exhibit, as well as some of her costumes. I was working on the write up that went with photos of her visit with the Obamas during his presidency. We had some great quotes from Obama about M’kheefe’s importance both to America’s dance history and the African American community. Then I woke up.
It turned out that, obviously, the fire had nothing to do with the chicken. There was actually a hitman after the owner, and one of the things he would do was set up a flash bomb to disable security cameras. It should have been triggered when the owner unlocked for the day, and he would have been assasinated at that time. But since the bomb didn’t go off, the hitman had to wait, and by the time the thing did go off, it caught the burger grease on fire, and police and firefighters came, so the job got called off.
Investigators had a pretty good idea who the hitman was, and knew of other hits he might be behind, but they didn’t have enough direct evidence yet. So that phase of the investigation was wrapped up and written up and I moved on to a different project.
Now I was assigned to work up the display text for an exhibit on a famous black dancer from the 1940s. Her stage name was Queen Matafa, and she would celebrate her 90th birthday while the exhibit was running. She was actually a Montenegran duchess, who was born in Ethiopia and married into European royalty at age 18. But her duke had died penniless, and she had moved to America after becoming part of a ballet company who was contracted for an extended tour in the States. She’d been a sensation, and had never left.
Her birth name had been M’kheefe, and she was six feet tall, with size 5-1/2 feet. We had her shoes in the exhibit, as well as some of her costumes. I was working on the write up that went with photos of her visit with the Obamas during his presidency. We had some great quotes from Obama about M’kheefe’s importance both to America’s dance history and the African American community. Then I woke up.
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
The Roman Chalice ~ 7/10/2018
I dreamed I was Carrie Bradshaw from “Sex in the City,” and I was in a committed relationship with Arastoo Vaziri from Bones. We were moving in together, and since we both collected Roman antiquities, specifically ceramics, we were having a hard time getting our combined collection housed and on display.
There was a particular piece of great ritualistic significance. It was a small, shallow Samian ware bowl on a short pedestal base, but it had a hand-molded lattice that rise up around most of its circumference, and was sculpted and gilded and bejeweled to look like the tiered seating around the Colosseum. There were tiny spectators, a tiny imperial box with emperor, and tiny gladiators and lions and tigers fighting in the pit.
This was the absolute gem of our collection, and we were trying to decide where to display it when I woke up.
There was a particular piece of great ritualistic significance. It was a small, shallow Samian ware bowl on a short pedestal base, but it had a hand-molded lattice that rise up around most of its circumference, and was sculpted and gilded and bejeweled to look like the tiered seating around the Colosseum. There were tiny spectators, a tiny imperial box with emperor, and tiny gladiators and lions and tigers fighting in the pit.
This was the absolute gem of our collection, and we were trying to decide where to display it when I woke up.
Monday, July 2, 2018
Mysterious Experiments ~ 7/2/2018
I dreamed I was going back to school at Rice to get a philosophy degree. I was touring the library with my new advisor and a friend. While we were browsing through an encyclopedic Lives of Great Philosophers series, we got to see some of the EE department experiments in progress.
One experiment was displaying a map of the US, and some narrow, intersecting bars overlaid onto it. After watching for a while, I deduced that the bars were a function of sin(20) and cos(-2), with longitude and latitude worked in. Then, when the bars were positioned correctly, the area of overlap would be subjected to a small dose of proprietary energy. My advisor told us proudly that this work had been going on for almost a century.
My friend became obsessed with finding out if either of her parents had been born around the time their area was so evergized. We worked out that her mother had. We were trying to get into the ramifications of what that meant when we heard a plane roaring closer, closer, then right overhead. At first we didn’t think anything of it, since we were just south of the airport. But it got louder and louder and much too loud. There was an almighty bang, and the walls shook, and sparks flew from some of the computer equipment.
Then I woke up.
One experiment was displaying a map of the US, and some narrow, intersecting bars overlaid onto it. After watching for a while, I deduced that the bars were a function of sin(20) and cos(-2), with longitude and latitude worked in. Then, when the bars were positioned correctly, the area of overlap would be subjected to a small dose of proprietary energy. My advisor told us proudly that this work had been going on for almost a century.
My friend became obsessed with finding out if either of her parents had been born around the time their area was so evergized. We worked out that her mother had. We were trying to get into the ramifications of what that meant when we heard a plane roaring closer, closer, then right overhead. At first we didn’t think anything of it, since we were just south of the airport. But it got louder and louder and much too loud. There was an almighty bang, and the walls shook, and sparks flew from some of the computer equipment.
Then I woke up.
Saturday, June 23, 2018
A Very Deep Game ~ 6/23/2018
I dreamed I was conscripted into a strange game. I was placed in a team with a friend, a cousin, Eric Northman, the vampire, and a handful of strangers. We were supposed to retrieve a secret from the depths of a cavern beneath the town I was staying in. No one said what would happen if we failed, but there were some pretty dire hints.
We were going to have to enter the cavern after tour hours, so we needed to carry our own light sources. I combed through the shelves of an antique store that was also a bar looking for candle holders and old lanterns. We only had four hours to complete the task, so we each carried four candles that burned for exactly an hour, so that if we hadn't found the secret by the time we'd burned half our candles, we'd have to start back.
We waited near the back door of the bar/antique shop, because the entrance to the cavern was down some stairs in a shed out back. We watched the final tour groups come up out of the shed as the lights began glowing golden in the gathering dusk. Finally the last park ranger came up to tell us everyone was out, and it was time for us to start.
We clambered down the stairs to a smooth stone path that sloped into darkness. We lit our candles, and left the golden glow of the electric lights behind. The ranger had whispered to me that we needed to go right at the first tunnel that direction, then, after the railing ran out, go down the path to the left.
Our shadows jolted and jumped across the dusty stone walls around us as we descended deeper and deeper into the cavern. Finally we'd passed the last of the metal railing, then the last of the rope railing. We went left into a dark tunnel and dropped down over a series of boulders. My first candle went out.
We all stopped to light out second candles. Mine wouldn't light, and the team went on ahead as I struck matches against the darkness that gathered around me. Eric stayed with me, but I was pretty wary about his motivations. I didn't think it was for my company, or out of kindness.
We got to talking about what the secret might be. Maybe it would be a message in a bottle, or a fabulous gem. Maybe we'd find an ancient grave or cave art. Or maybe a nuclear bunker, or a tunnel to Fort Knox. But when I got my candle lit and we started to follow the rest of the group, I woke up.
We were going to have to enter the cavern after tour hours, so we needed to carry our own light sources. I combed through the shelves of an antique store that was also a bar looking for candle holders and old lanterns. We only had four hours to complete the task, so we each carried four candles that burned for exactly an hour, so that if we hadn't found the secret by the time we'd burned half our candles, we'd have to start back.
We waited near the back door of the bar/antique shop, because the entrance to the cavern was down some stairs in a shed out back. We watched the final tour groups come up out of the shed as the lights began glowing golden in the gathering dusk. Finally the last park ranger came up to tell us everyone was out, and it was time for us to start.
We clambered down the stairs to a smooth stone path that sloped into darkness. We lit our candles, and left the golden glow of the electric lights behind. The ranger had whispered to me that we needed to go right at the first tunnel that direction, then, after the railing ran out, go down the path to the left.
Our shadows jolted and jumped across the dusty stone walls around us as we descended deeper and deeper into the cavern. Finally we'd passed the last of the metal railing, then the last of the rope railing. We went left into a dark tunnel and dropped down over a series of boulders. My first candle went out.
We all stopped to light out second candles. Mine wouldn't light, and the team went on ahead as I struck matches against the darkness that gathered around me. Eric stayed with me, but I was pretty wary about his motivations. I didn't think it was for my company, or out of kindness.
We got to talking about what the secret might be. Maybe it would be a message in a bottle, or a fabulous gem. Maybe we'd find an ancient grave or cave art. Or maybe a nuclear bunker, or a tunnel to Fort Knox. But when I got my candle lit and we started to follow the rest of the group, I woke up.
Thursday, June 21, 2018
TBTT#36 I JUST WANT TO SLEEP ~ 1/21/2016
I dreamed that I lived in a big house right along North Peters Street in the Marigny. There was a bar and grill right behind it, then a cemetery, then the road, then the river. I took on a friend of mine as a roommate, with the approval of my landlord, and everything was going fine, until…
I was up in the empty attic loft area, trying to find the kittens I kept hearing, but there were some college kids up there that I didn’t know. One of them gave me the name of the guy who let them in, and I knew him, as he was a friend of my roommates, whom I’d met. I asked if my roommate knew that her friend was letting people into our house, and they shrugged and said probably not. They turned away from me and went back to playing with the kittens. Since they weren’t hurting anything, I decided I could take my time to figure out what to do about this, because I really didn’t consider it acceptable, and I knew my roommate would agree.
So I started back downstairs, and I heard a lot of people down there. I hurried down to the living room, and that friend had let in even MORE people, and basically a huge drunken frat party was going on in my rented home. I only knew the one guy, and I tried to ask him what on earth made him think this was okay, but he couldn’t hear me over the music, and just grinned. I started hollering, “OUT! GET OUT!” at the top of my lungs, but no one could hear me. My landlord came in and was absolutely appalled. I explained that I was in no way responsible for this happening, but I would definitely fix it. My roommate came in, and was equally appalled, and angry at her friend, and together we began shoving people out of the door, killed the music, threatened to call the police, and managed to empty the apartment.
The people upstairs asked if they could stay, since they were being quiet and harmless, and I said just no, too much was going on that was wrong, and I wanted no strangers in my house while I sorted things out. I *did* allow two people to stay in the front hall for a while, because the guy said his sister, a tiny pixie of a girl with short dark hair, was still too drunk to leave, but she’d probably be better soon.
When I turned around, there were a handful of people in their fifties setting up chairs and music stands and getting ready to rehearse a brass quartet. I recognized them from my community band, but I had no idea why they were at my house. They said that someone had told them where I lived, and that I wouldn’t mind lending them some practice space, and they’d come in through the open back door. I told them that unfortunately I *did* mind, and they needed to leave.
I was going to follow them out and lock the back door, but then some music started up at the front of the house, and I turned around and found that a dance troupe was practicing out in the street, and rows of dancers were drifting forward and backward in their routine, but they were gradually getting closer and closer to the house. As I watched, the front row of dancers came up onto the porch, and began to file in through the door and French windows. I ran up and held up my hands commanding them to stay out of my house. They could have the porch if they needed to be there, but they were NOT coming in. They looked confused, but they obeyed, and I sighed in relief.
Until I turned around and found MORE people coming in through the back. The neighborhood social club for people of color were holding a meeting about cleaning up the cemetery between my house and the river, and they thought my house was a parish hall attached to the plot, and they wanted to have their meeting there. As I started to clear them out, more band members began to come in the front, and the college kids were trying to sneak back in through the attic.
At that point, I realized the pixie girl was in really, really bad shape, and her brother was nearly passed out, and I needed to call 911. I grabbed my cell phone, ignoring the hordes overrunning my house, and tried to punch in the numbers, but it just wasn’t working. Other numbers kept coming up and other parties kept answering, and when I finally got an emergency service, it was like some sort of contracted out private party that had an answering machine.
I finally got help started on the way to my house, and was looking around at the mass of revellers in despair, wondering when I’d ever get to sleep, because I was so tired and it was now so late at night, and then I woke up.
I was up in the empty attic loft area, trying to find the kittens I kept hearing, but there were some college kids up there that I didn’t know. One of them gave me the name of the guy who let them in, and I knew him, as he was a friend of my roommates, whom I’d met. I asked if my roommate knew that her friend was letting people into our house, and they shrugged and said probably not. They turned away from me and went back to playing with the kittens. Since they weren’t hurting anything, I decided I could take my time to figure out what to do about this, because I really didn’t consider it acceptable, and I knew my roommate would agree.
So I started back downstairs, and I heard a lot of people down there. I hurried down to the living room, and that friend had let in even MORE people, and basically a huge drunken frat party was going on in my rented home. I only knew the one guy, and I tried to ask him what on earth made him think this was okay, but he couldn’t hear me over the music, and just grinned. I started hollering, “OUT! GET OUT!” at the top of my lungs, but no one could hear me. My landlord came in and was absolutely appalled. I explained that I was in no way responsible for this happening, but I would definitely fix it. My roommate came in, and was equally appalled, and angry at her friend, and together we began shoving people out of the door, killed the music, threatened to call the police, and managed to empty the apartment.
The people upstairs asked if they could stay, since they were being quiet and harmless, and I said just no, too much was going on that was wrong, and I wanted no strangers in my house while I sorted things out. I *did* allow two people to stay in the front hall for a while, because the guy said his sister, a tiny pixie of a girl with short dark hair, was still too drunk to leave, but she’d probably be better soon.
When I turned around, there were a handful of people in their fifties setting up chairs and music stands and getting ready to rehearse a brass quartet. I recognized them from my community band, but I had no idea why they were at my house. They said that someone had told them where I lived, and that I wouldn’t mind lending them some practice space, and they’d come in through the open back door. I told them that unfortunately I *did* mind, and they needed to leave.
I was going to follow them out and lock the back door, but then some music started up at the front of the house, and I turned around and found that a dance troupe was practicing out in the street, and rows of dancers were drifting forward and backward in their routine, but they were gradually getting closer and closer to the house. As I watched, the front row of dancers came up onto the porch, and began to file in through the door and French windows. I ran up and held up my hands commanding them to stay out of my house. They could have the porch if they needed to be there, but they were NOT coming in. They looked confused, but they obeyed, and I sighed in relief.
Until I turned around and found MORE people coming in through the back. The neighborhood social club for people of color were holding a meeting about cleaning up the cemetery between my house and the river, and they thought my house was a parish hall attached to the plot, and they wanted to have their meeting there. As I started to clear them out, more band members began to come in the front, and the college kids were trying to sneak back in through the attic.
At that point, I realized the pixie girl was in really, really bad shape, and her brother was nearly passed out, and I needed to call 911. I grabbed my cell phone, ignoring the hordes overrunning my house, and tried to punch in the numbers, but it just wasn’t working. Other numbers kept coming up and other parties kept answering, and when I finally got an emergency service, it was like some sort of contracted out private party that had an answering machine.
I finally got help started on the way to my house, and was looking around at the mass of revellers in despair, wondering when I’d ever get to sleep, because I was so tired and it was now so late at night, and then I woke up.
Thursday, May 17, 2018
TBTT#35 Quitting Band and Taking Names ~ 6/9/2015
I dreamed we were all going into band class, rehearsing our entrance for a concert. I was wearing a heavy necklace, and wasn’t making very good time getting to my seat, so the band director called out to me that I needed to move my booty and get seated, that I was holding everyone up. Apparently I thoroughly objected to his mentioning my booty. I turned around and told him he was being completely inappropriate, and I was leaving. I walked right out of band class.
I then proceeded to tell everyone who asked me, stunned, why I had quit, the story of what had happened. Since I wasn’t the only person moving slow, but had been singled out, it really wasn’t fair. Also, I didn’t have the right stand to use the iPad for my music that the director wanted me to use, so I had been carrying my paper music as well, and that had slowed me up. People asked me if I was quitting band for good, and I said no, but I was going to stick to my more easy going ensembles that didn’t make a performance out of getting to your seat.
In my dream, I was a much better player than I am in real life, so this was a pretty big deal. But my mom agreed that the band director had been out of line to use the word booty with regard to me. When I got to concert band, though, and sat next to my friends Lynne and Joanna (because the saxophones could sit with the trumpets if they wanted), I learned that the objectionable band director was guest conducting my concert band. At least by now I had figured out the iPad music thing, and gotten rid of two of the heavy stone pendants on my necklace.
Since I sat in the back, the director didn’t really notice me. But I left as soon as rehearsal was over, and took a back way through the small, medieval village we were staying in, so I could get home unnoticed and sulk in private. Then I woke up.
I then proceeded to tell everyone who asked me, stunned, why I had quit, the story of what had happened. Since I wasn’t the only person moving slow, but had been singled out, it really wasn’t fair. Also, I didn’t have the right stand to use the iPad for my music that the director wanted me to use, so I had been carrying my paper music as well, and that had slowed me up. People asked me if I was quitting band for good, and I said no, but I was going to stick to my more easy going ensembles that didn’t make a performance out of getting to your seat.
In my dream, I was a much better player than I am in real life, so this was a pretty big deal. But my mom agreed that the band director had been out of line to use the word booty with regard to me. When I got to concert band, though, and sat next to my friends Lynne and Joanna (because the saxophones could sit with the trumpets if they wanted), I learned that the objectionable band director was guest conducting my concert band. At least by now I had figured out the iPad music thing, and gotten rid of two of the heavy stone pendants on my necklace.
Since I sat in the back, the director didn’t really notice me. But I left as soon as rehearsal was over, and took a back way through the small, medieval village we were staying in, so I could get home unnoticed and sulk in private. Then I woke up.
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Even in My Dreams Dating Sucks ~ 5/10/2018
I dreamed I was preparing to fight a war on the far side of the galaxy. I was part of a platoon digging ancient castles and other fortifications out of centuries of blown sand on a desert world. Once we got the sand cleared out, the engineers would come in and arm the towers, and we diggers could go on one last shore leave on our home planets before we got stationed for battle.
I was on a freight ship that had earth somewhere along the middle of its route. I was worried that it would take so long to get there that I wouldn’t get to see my friends and family. But I met some interesting people on the ship, and we all programmed each other into our comm links. The tall blond guy I had at comm channel 047 became a good friend, and we flirted a bit, and maybe would have dated, if there hadn’t been a war, we lived on the same planet, and he hadn’t turned out to be a huge misogynist when he didn’t get everything he wanted right away.
He tried to back track when I got pissed at him, but then I learned a bit more from people who’d known him longer, so I told him to leave me alone, and I ceremoniously cleared the programming from 047. The ship dropped me in British Columbia, where I’d moved to be in the forest. It was lovely after my desert stint, but before I could really enjoy what was left of my leave, I woke up.
I was on a freight ship that had earth somewhere along the middle of its route. I was worried that it would take so long to get there that I wouldn’t get to see my friends and family. But I met some interesting people on the ship, and we all programmed each other into our comm links. The tall blond guy I had at comm channel 047 became a good friend, and we flirted a bit, and maybe would have dated, if there hadn’t been a war, we lived on the same planet, and he hadn’t turned out to be a huge misogynist when he didn’t get everything he wanted right away.
He tried to back track when I got pissed at him, but then I learned a bit more from people who’d known him longer, so I told him to leave me alone, and I ceremoniously cleared the programming from 047. The ship dropped me in British Columbia, where I’d moved to be in the forest. It was lovely after my desert stint, but before I could really enjoy what was left of my leave, I woke up.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
TBTT#34 Navigating by Committee ~11/11/2013
I dreamed I was in a committee meeting, talking about how to get back to New Orleans from Houston, with a few stops along the way. One part of the group traveling was going to drive I-10, but then go south on Hwy 37, then East on Hwy 101 (are these even roads in LA?) to make a particular stop. 101 would take them through a sandy, hilly, wooded region, with lots of metal truss bridges over small creeks. The other group was going to take I-10 all the way to New Orleans, then take Hwy 64 down to 101 to meet the first group, but they’d drop me off just before crossing over to the West Bank.
I ended up in a wide region of abandoned warehouses along the river between the French Quarter and Uptown, with no CBD or actual Warehouse District in between. There were fields of parched grass along the levee, and rusted metal culverts running into concrete banks along the river.
There I was supposed to face some sort of monster or challenge with magical powers, and I could see my own human abilities in my mind like a translucent orange and white gingham mesh, the tiny squares each a human asset or a power or a small advantage. Everything I did to try to improve my chances resulted in an exactly equal increase in the magical capabilities of my opponent, visible in my mind like an olive green gingham matrix exactly overlaying my own orange one. Then I woke up.
I ended up in a wide region of abandoned warehouses along the river between the French Quarter and Uptown, with no CBD or actual Warehouse District in between. There were fields of parched grass along the levee, and rusted metal culverts running into concrete banks along the river.
There I was supposed to face some sort of monster or challenge with magical powers, and I could see my own human abilities in my mind like a translucent orange and white gingham mesh, the tiny squares each a human asset or a power or a small advantage. Everything I did to try to improve my chances resulted in an exactly equal increase in the magical capabilities of my opponent, visible in my mind like an olive green gingham matrix exactly overlaying my own orange one. Then I woke up.
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Epic ~ 4/7/2018
I dreamed I was spending Thanksgiving in a small town in west Texas. They were known for putting on a little Shakespearean festival every year at that time. What they didn't advertise was that Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint always showed up to join in the actors. So I got to watch the Harry Potter stars perform in Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night and Hamlet. It was absolutely grand.
Then, as I was packing up at the end of the weekend to leave, I fell through some sort of crack in time and space, and found myself in a dense, ancient forest. The buildings were still there, but instead of being desert dry and dusty, they were covered by vines and ivy. One courtyard was now a meadow, sparkling with dewy grass. Tiny baby rabbits, only about two inches tall, hopped and scampered around, toppling dandelions ten times their size and cheerfully munching them down to nothing, like rabbits do. I went out into the courtyard meadow very slowly. I lowered myself to the grass. Slowly, slowly, slowly I reached out a hand. Some of the rabbits skittered away, but on stayed, and stretched its tiny, whiskery nose up to sniff my hand. I scratched its little head with the very tip of my finger, and gently lifted it up to my cheek. It snuggled against me, softer than soft, and we became friends.
Suddenly there were sounds of people tromping all around, and all the other rabbits whisked away, and my friend ducked into a pocket in my shirt. A Bronze Age people were on the march through the forest, returning to their homeland after a long foraging trip, and they had stopped at the ruined buildings to shelter for the night. They were as startled to see me, someone completely alone, and they were suspicious at first, but then the Lion tribe said if I wanted to join them, it would take me in as a lowest ranked member, and give me a chance to prove myself.
The daughter of their leader agreed to tutor me on their ways and my new duties. There would be long marches, and unexpected and unexplained tests. I would go through the same trials their young people faced when they came of age. She told me as much as was allowed, but she emphasized that the first rule was to keep up with the march. Anybody was allowed to stop and rest any time they wanted, but while the tribes were on the move, wherever you found yourself in the ranks at the end of the day was your new rank in your tribe. The tribes marched in a ranked order, too, and if you found yourself behind members of a lower ranked tribe three nights in a row, you'd have to join that tribe, if they'd have you, and you'd start at the bottom of their ranks the next day.
Since only Lion tribe was currently willing to have me, falling too far behind would pretty much get me kicked out and abandoned by the whole people. So the next morning, I shouldered my pack, and I marched. The headman's daughter, Jessica, was kind enough to start at the bottom of her tribe, so I could follow behind her. The first day was grueling, and I willed myself to only stop when she stopped. She didn't stop much. But toward the end of the day, I think she took pity on me, and since we were ahead of at least half of her tribe, she took a few breaks just for me. This was very kind of her, really, because no one had made any guarantees that she wouldn't lose her own high rank if she fell behind on the march because of me.
I woke up on the second day aching in every bone and muscle of my body, and I was pretty sure I'd fall really far behind as soon as we started. I told Jessica that she was absolutely not allowed to wait for me if I did. Her father, the leader, overheard me insisting on this, and was pleased at how considerate and concerned for her standing I was, even at the risk of my own. So he insisted in turn that I be part of my first trial that morning. In this trial, all of the young people would be left behind, and couldn't start out for an extra hour. But whatever rank they achieved by the end of that day, they would retain for three days, regardless of where they finished in the marches those days.
They left us in a large clearing, lit with torches since the woods were too dense to let in much sun. As we waited with a few elders, there to mark the time, I noticed the warm golden torchlight glinting off of metal near the edge of the clearing. I went to investigate, and found a small pile of machinery bits. They weren't overgrown, and looked too shiny and well maintained to be abandoned, and I thought they might be part of a surprise testing, so I knelt down to start going through them.
A few of the more curious young people joined me, though a lot of them took the opportunity to just rest a little longer. I found that some of the pieces seemed to fit together. When I tried to assemble them, they snapped right into place. I began hunting out more pieces and fitting them together, along with the others, but when the elders called our hour of waiting was up, everyone else grabbed their bags and plunged into the woods after the tribes as fast as they could.
But the machinery seemed important to me, so I stayed behind and kept fitting pieces together. As I did, I learned that these people were much more technologically advanced than they appeared to be from day to day, because what I was assembling was definitely a vehicle, something between a motorcycle and a four-wheeler. It was light and maneuverable, but hard to topple. I'm not even sure what fuel it ran on, but as soon as I snapped the last part into place, the motor started up, and I began to fly through the woods, following the glimmering torches far ahead.
In five minutes, I'd passed the young people who had been left behind. In ten more minutes, I could see the lights of the last tribe. But I heard a call behind me, and went back. The young people had found a set of rails and some cars, and they asked if I thought I could pull them along. I said I'd try, and found I could. We all agreed that if the tracks started going the wrong way, taking us farther away from the tribes, we'd give up. But they ran through a cutting that seemed to parallel the tribes' march, so I pulled us all along, and at the end of the day, we had outpaced all the tribes, and actually had to back track a bit to set up our camp in front of the leaders of the first tribe.
It turned out that I had won the contest of patience and curiosity, by taking the time, and the risk to find a better way. The young people who had found the tracks and called me back had won the contest of exploration and discovery. And I had won the contest of generosity by going back and bringing them all with me.
For the next three days, we all began the march first, no matter where we'd been when it ended the night before. I did my best to stay with the leaders as long as I could, and to try to get to know these highest ranked members of all the tribes. I didn't expect that any tribe other than Lion would have me, even if I kept up, but I wanted to learn what these people valued, how they lived when they weren't on the march, and if staying with them would even be better than trying to live alone.
I had started out with them the weakest and strangest person in the tribes, but as we marched I grew stronger, and as I proved myself to them, they became more open to my crazy suggestions about adding some deliberate agricultural pursuits to their hunting and gathering lifestyle. I learned that while they lacked that technology, they were otherwise every bit as advanced in other ways as the motorcycle had shown me. But while they valued the acuity and knowledge that went into designing and operating machinery, they mistrusted complete reliance on it, which is why they walked instead, and hunted with bows and arrows instead of guns.
I marched with them until we reached their homeland, high in the mountains. There were stunning towers of white marble, speaking and music halls with lushly cushioned seats in amphitheater tiers around the stage, sparkling waterfalls driving simple mechanisms, and brilliantly clear air. I was fully accepted as a member of Lion tribe. My time marching up with the Sun tribe had acquainted me with the son of their headwoman, and we had fallen in love, but there were a lot of people still opposed to me being considered one of them, much less marrying into their most esteemed family, so we were still working all of that out when I woke up.
Then, as I was packing up at the end of the weekend to leave, I fell through some sort of crack in time and space, and found myself in a dense, ancient forest. The buildings were still there, but instead of being desert dry and dusty, they were covered by vines and ivy. One courtyard was now a meadow, sparkling with dewy grass. Tiny baby rabbits, only about two inches tall, hopped and scampered around, toppling dandelions ten times their size and cheerfully munching them down to nothing, like rabbits do. I went out into the courtyard meadow very slowly. I lowered myself to the grass. Slowly, slowly, slowly I reached out a hand. Some of the rabbits skittered away, but on stayed, and stretched its tiny, whiskery nose up to sniff my hand. I scratched its little head with the very tip of my finger, and gently lifted it up to my cheek. It snuggled against me, softer than soft, and we became friends.
Suddenly there were sounds of people tromping all around, and all the other rabbits whisked away, and my friend ducked into a pocket in my shirt. A Bronze Age people were on the march through the forest, returning to their homeland after a long foraging trip, and they had stopped at the ruined buildings to shelter for the night. They were as startled to see me, someone completely alone, and they were suspicious at first, but then the Lion tribe said if I wanted to join them, it would take me in as a lowest ranked member, and give me a chance to prove myself.
The daughter of their leader agreed to tutor me on their ways and my new duties. There would be long marches, and unexpected and unexplained tests. I would go through the same trials their young people faced when they came of age. She told me as much as was allowed, but she emphasized that the first rule was to keep up with the march. Anybody was allowed to stop and rest any time they wanted, but while the tribes were on the move, wherever you found yourself in the ranks at the end of the day was your new rank in your tribe. The tribes marched in a ranked order, too, and if you found yourself behind members of a lower ranked tribe three nights in a row, you'd have to join that tribe, if they'd have you, and you'd start at the bottom of their ranks the next day.
Since only Lion tribe was currently willing to have me, falling too far behind would pretty much get me kicked out and abandoned by the whole people. So the next morning, I shouldered my pack, and I marched. The headman's daughter, Jessica, was kind enough to start at the bottom of her tribe, so I could follow behind her. The first day was grueling, and I willed myself to only stop when she stopped. She didn't stop much. But toward the end of the day, I think she took pity on me, and since we were ahead of at least half of her tribe, she took a few breaks just for me. This was very kind of her, really, because no one had made any guarantees that she wouldn't lose her own high rank if she fell behind on the march because of me.
I woke up on the second day aching in every bone and muscle of my body, and I was pretty sure I'd fall really far behind as soon as we started. I told Jessica that she was absolutely not allowed to wait for me if I did. Her father, the leader, overheard me insisting on this, and was pleased at how considerate and concerned for her standing I was, even at the risk of my own. So he insisted in turn that I be part of my first trial that morning. In this trial, all of the young people would be left behind, and couldn't start out for an extra hour. But whatever rank they achieved by the end of that day, they would retain for three days, regardless of where they finished in the marches those days.
They left us in a large clearing, lit with torches since the woods were too dense to let in much sun. As we waited with a few elders, there to mark the time, I noticed the warm golden torchlight glinting off of metal near the edge of the clearing. I went to investigate, and found a small pile of machinery bits. They weren't overgrown, and looked too shiny and well maintained to be abandoned, and I thought they might be part of a surprise testing, so I knelt down to start going through them.
A few of the more curious young people joined me, though a lot of them took the opportunity to just rest a little longer. I found that some of the pieces seemed to fit together. When I tried to assemble them, they snapped right into place. I began hunting out more pieces and fitting them together, along with the others, but when the elders called our hour of waiting was up, everyone else grabbed their bags and plunged into the woods after the tribes as fast as they could.
But the machinery seemed important to me, so I stayed behind and kept fitting pieces together. As I did, I learned that these people were much more technologically advanced than they appeared to be from day to day, because what I was assembling was definitely a vehicle, something between a motorcycle and a four-wheeler. It was light and maneuverable, but hard to topple. I'm not even sure what fuel it ran on, but as soon as I snapped the last part into place, the motor started up, and I began to fly through the woods, following the glimmering torches far ahead.
In five minutes, I'd passed the young people who had been left behind. In ten more minutes, I could see the lights of the last tribe. But I heard a call behind me, and went back. The young people had found a set of rails and some cars, and they asked if I thought I could pull them along. I said I'd try, and found I could. We all agreed that if the tracks started going the wrong way, taking us farther away from the tribes, we'd give up. But they ran through a cutting that seemed to parallel the tribes' march, so I pulled us all along, and at the end of the day, we had outpaced all the tribes, and actually had to back track a bit to set up our camp in front of the leaders of the first tribe.
It turned out that I had won the contest of patience and curiosity, by taking the time, and the risk to find a better way. The young people who had found the tracks and called me back had won the contest of exploration and discovery. And I had won the contest of generosity by going back and bringing them all with me.
For the next three days, we all began the march first, no matter where we'd been when it ended the night before. I did my best to stay with the leaders as long as I could, and to try to get to know these highest ranked members of all the tribes. I didn't expect that any tribe other than Lion would have me, even if I kept up, but I wanted to learn what these people valued, how they lived when they weren't on the march, and if staying with them would even be better than trying to live alone.
I had started out with them the weakest and strangest person in the tribes, but as we marched I grew stronger, and as I proved myself to them, they became more open to my crazy suggestions about adding some deliberate agricultural pursuits to their hunting and gathering lifestyle. I learned that while they lacked that technology, they were otherwise every bit as advanced in other ways as the motorcycle had shown me. But while they valued the acuity and knowledge that went into designing and operating machinery, they mistrusted complete reliance on it, which is why they walked instead, and hunted with bows and arrows instead of guns.
I marched with them until we reached their homeland, high in the mountains. There were stunning towers of white marble, speaking and music halls with lushly cushioned seats in amphitheater tiers around the stage, sparkling waterfalls driving simple mechanisms, and brilliantly clear air. I was fully accepted as a member of Lion tribe. My time marching up with the Sun tribe had acquainted me with the son of their headwoman, and we had fallen in love, but there were a lot of people still opposed to me being considered one of them, much less marrying into their most esteemed family, so we were still working all of that out when I woke up.
Thursday, March 15, 2018
Game of Dune ~3/15/2018
I dreamed I was Sansa Stark in a sort of Game of Thrones/Dune mashup. My father Ned/Leto had been killed. My mother and oldest brother were off being Bene Gesserit and Kwisatz Haderach in the desert somewhere, no idea where Arya/Alia was, and I was stuck taking care of my brother Bran in our spectacular imperial palace.
All of a sudden, everyone began to panic, and I could see a news program on the television, so I carried Bran over to watch. Apparently dinosaurs from our enemy house were going to invade our planet at any minute.
The rest of the dream was my scurrying up and down stairs and escalators and elevators into different wings, trying to find a place for us to hide. Bran got heavier and heavier, and needed a change of underclothes after a bit, but somehow I'd ended up in a part of the complex I'd never seen. You see, I'd always had someone with me, telling me where to go, and I'd only been allowed in certain parts of the palace.
I started out in a large amphitheater, that was partially open air. There were pine woods and snow behind me as I watched the news program, and campers were running about screaming. I found a door to get inside the palace, and found myself in a sort of shopping arcade. It was like a mall, but it only ran along one side of a huge convention center lobby.
I could see the stairwells and elevators and such were all numbered, and I knew that to get to the royal chambers, I needed stair 30 in the east wing. I kept finding every stair *but* stair 30, and I wasn't sure which wing I was in, anyhow.
Bran got heavier and heavier, as I ran up escalators to hallways carpeted in plush, dark blue, with dark blue walls and dark oak doors. There was a wing of elementary school classrooms, completely deserted. I thought about hiding here, because who would expect that, right? But none of the doors would lock.
I came out into a courtyard, and we had guests there. They were young men from a noble family who had been visiting to discuss marriage with me and my sister. They offered to help hide me, but I just didn't trust them, and I ran and ran and ran and ran, hoping to lose them, hoping they weren't following me.
There was a deep, forest green hall, and a hall of blinding, antiseptic white and glistening steel and frosted glass. Finally, I found stair 30, and I bolted up it and into the royal wing of cream walls and golden wood and garnet carpets. I locked us in the King's Suite, because I'd heard my brother had died, and Bran would now being king. And then I woke up.
All of a sudden, everyone began to panic, and I could see a news program on the television, so I carried Bran over to watch. Apparently dinosaurs from our enemy house were going to invade our planet at any minute.
The rest of the dream was my scurrying up and down stairs and escalators and elevators into different wings, trying to find a place for us to hide. Bran got heavier and heavier, and needed a change of underclothes after a bit, but somehow I'd ended up in a part of the complex I'd never seen. You see, I'd always had someone with me, telling me where to go, and I'd only been allowed in certain parts of the palace.
I started out in a large amphitheater, that was partially open air. There were pine woods and snow behind me as I watched the news program, and campers were running about screaming. I found a door to get inside the palace, and found myself in a sort of shopping arcade. It was like a mall, but it only ran along one side of a huge convention center lobby.
I could see the stairwells and elevators and such were all numbered, and I knew that to get to the royal chambers, I needed stair 30 in the east wing. I kept finding every stair *but* stair 30, and I wasn't sure which wing I was in, anyhow.
Bran got heavier and heavier, as I ran up escalators to hallways carpeted in plush, dark blue, with dark blue walls and dark oak doors. There was a wing of elementary school classrooms, completely deserted. I thought about hiding here, because who would expect that, right? But none of the doors would lock.
I came out into a courtyard, and we had guests there. They were young men from a noble family who had been visiting to discuss marriage with me and my sister. They offered to help hide me, but I just didn't trust them, and I ran and ran and ran and ran, hoping to lose them, hoping they weren't following me.
There was a deep, forest green hall, and a hall of blinding, antiseptic white and glistening steel and frosted glass. Finally, I found stair 30, and I bolted up it and into the royal wing of cream walls and golden wood and garnet carpets. I locked us in the King's Suite, because I'd heard my brother had died, and Bran would now being king. And then I woke up.
Saturday, March 10, 2018
LEGO, Ship Building, and Proper Cups of Tea ~ 3/10/2018
I dreamed I was wandering through a world built from LEGO. I was staying in a French mountain town, and I had to wait while they rebuilt my room, since a prince had just stayed there, and they needed to remove his exclusive specifications. So I wandered up the street, past a pastry shop and a dress shop, along a small stream, down out of the mountains and onto a desert plain.
There I found an oasis palace, the court of an Arabian nobleman, mosques, markets, small homes, all built of LEGO. To the north I found a jungle temple, then more sand and an ancient Nubian fortress town. Lots of gold LEGO used there. I headed east, through a rocky canyon, and at the other side I found a charming Bavarian village, which lay to the north of a Jewish enclave with a temple more beautiful than any of the ones I saw in Prague, all, of course, built from LEGO.
Eventually I found the end of the LEGO world, and entered the back halls of the home of its creator. Draped in sheets and dust, I found huge sections of the Taj Mahal under construction, and I made a mental note to encourage her to finish it. But I never did find her, and my mom called and wanted me to meet her in Paris, so I left for France.
In Paris I found that my mom was staying in a hostel where her room was a small wooden clipper ship. She needed my help because she was going to sail the ship home, but first she needed to disassemble it and rebuild it at the port. They’d told her all the pieces were interchangeable, so she’d started a quick but haphazard disassembly. But I took a closer look, and, in fact, every piece was unique, and would need to be fitted back in the exact same place, so the first thing we had to do was put it all back together.
An older English gentleman came to help us, which was good because it had started raining. The wood was getting a bit damp, and became harder to take apart. I looked closely at one of the ends and found an intricate series of notches where the pieces fit together. It was really ingenious. As long as the wood was quite dry, the pieces came apart and went together easily. But once the wood got damp, like it would at sea, it would swell and the pieces would lock together and be waterproof.
The problem was, of course, that it was raining, so the wood was getting all wet. Me and Mom and the Englishman worked hard to keep things dry, and I began disassembling at the prow, making sure to keep all the pieces stacked in exactly the order I'd removed them in. I'm not at all clear on how we managed it, but somehow we did. We picked up a crew and some paying passengers in the port, and the Englishman agreed to come along and run the gift shop counter.
I had become very fond of him, and I thought he might also be quite fond of me. I was the only person on board whom he'd trust to make him tea while he was working, because he said I was the only person who knew what a proper cup of tea was. Somehow, though, I never noticed if he took milk or sugar, though I pretty well assumed he did NOT take sugar. But instead of asking, I'd always just bring them, and bring enough tea for me, too, so I could use whatever he didn't.
I was in the galley, and I was having a horrible day. I poured the water into the teapot instead of the kettle by mistake. I thought of just microwaving the whole mess and calling it tea, but I knew it wouldn't turn out to his standards, so I dumped the whole thing, and a friend came in and put the kettle on the boil for me while I tried to reconstitute some powdered milk, because we'd run out of fresh that morning. I wasn't as worried about that, since I was pretty sure that was just for me, but I kept getting the proportions wrong, and filled a tiny pitcher with sludge that wouldn't dissolve. I was so tied up with the milk that I let the tea leaves steep for too long, so it was all bitter, and I just couldn't seem to do anything right, and I knew I was going to let my Englishman down, but then I woke up.
There I found an oasis palace, the court of an Arabian nobleman, mosques, markets, small homes, all built of LEGO. To the north I found a jungle temple, then more sand and an ancient Nubian fortress town. Lots of gold LEGO used there. I headed east, through a rocky canyon, and at the other side I found a charming Bavarian village, which lay to the north of a Jewish enclave with a temple more beautiful than any of the ones I saw in Prague, all, of course, built from LEGO.
Eventually I found the end of the LEGO world, and entered the back halls of the home of its creator. Draped in sheets and dust, I found huge sections of the Taj Mahal under construction, and I made a mental note to encourage her to finish it. But I never did find her, and my mom called and wanted me to meet her in Paris, so I left for France.
In Paris I found that my mom was staying in a hostel where her room was a small wooden clipper ship. She needed my help because she was going to sail the ship home, but first she needed to disassemble it and rebuild it at the port. They’d told her all the pieces were interchangeable, so she’d started a quick but haphazard disassembly. But I took a closer look, and, in fact, every piece was unique, and would need to be fitted back in the exact same place, so the first thing we had to do was put it all back together.
An older English gentleman came to help us, which was good because it had started raining. The wood was getting a bit damp, and became harder to take apart. I looked closely at one of the ends and found an intricate series of notches where the pieces fit together. It was really ingenious. As long as the wood was quite dry, the pieces came apart and went together easily. But once the wood got damp, like it would at sea, it would swell and the pieces would lock together and be waterproof.
The problem was, of course, that it was raining, so the wood was getting all wet. Me and Mom and the Englishman worked hard to keep things dry, and I began disassembling at the prow, making sure to keep all the pieces stacked in exactly the order I'd removed them in. I'm not at all clear on how we managed it, but somehow we did. We picked up a crew and some paying passengers in the port, and the Englishman agreed to come along and run the gift shop counter.
I had become very fond of him, and I thought he might also be quite fond of me. I was the only person on board whom he'd trust to make him tea while he was working, because he said I was the only person who knew what a proper cup of tea was. Somehow, though, I never noticed if he took milk or sugar, though I pretty well assumed he did NOT take sugar. But instead of asking, I'd always just bring them, and bring enough tea for me, too, so I could use whatever he didn't.
I was in the galley, and I was having a horrible day. I poured the water into the teapot instead of the kettle by mistake. I thought of just microwaving the whole mess and calling it tea, but I knew it wouldn't turn out to his standards, so I dumped the whole thing, and a friend came in and put the kettle on the boil for me while I tried to reconstitute some powdered milk, because we'd run out of fresh that morning. I wasn't as worried about that, since I was pretty sure that was just for me, but I kept getting the proportions wrong, and filled a tiny pitcher with sludge that wouldn't dissolve. I was so tied up with the milk that I let the tea leaves steep for too long, so it was all bitter, and I just couldn't seem to do anything right, and I knew I was going to let my Englishman down, but then I woke up.
Sunday, January 21, 2018
Mine World Craft War Game Thing ~ 1/21/2018
I dreamed there was this Minecraft style game that could be played as a community effort. The game system was controlled by these machines that were about twice as big as a microwave, had a piano style keyboard and accordion bellows beneath a shiny, crinkly cover, kind of like a windshield sunscreen, in silver, magenta, light blue, and red. I was shopping for a system for my game group, and of course I wanted to get a red one.
The game itself involves spawning microorganisms, then helping them evolve into humans. Like, you spawned your small critters, and once they reached a certain level of health, you could trigger them to spawn into fish, then dolphins, then mice, then humans. The humans were all identical male people called "Hessians".
The Hessians were dressed as Phrygian warriors, with helmets shaped like Smurf hats, breast plates, swords, spears, and VERY short leather kilts. Once the Hessians reached a certain level of health, they would... er... mature... and then procreate/replicate. Similar to how Minecraft animals do.
The next stage of development for the Hessians was that they could begin travelling to other teams' worlds, as long as they either conquered or colonized systems in a geographically realistic way. At this stage, you could play either looking at a screen, or, through virtual reality, actually enter the game world. In that mode the Hessians finally differentiated, because they looked like the actual people controlling them.
As a system administrator, I could individually pop into any game in progress, though I couldn't affect any world my team didn't have an official presence in. I popped into one realm where a battle over an office building was going on, and I hid among rows of seating in a training amphitheater. I watched as players took each other out. Or snuck off into corners to, erm... help each other mature...
But most of the time I played the game in console mode, so the graphics were mercifully unrealistic. There was also a creative mode I could enter as an admin, to set up challenges for my team. At one point, though, my team was all so scattered and unfocused that I decided to just start spawning thousands of dolphins, just cuz. And then I woke up.
The game itself involves spawning microorganisms, then helping them evolve into humans. Like, you spawned your small critters, and once they reached a certain level of health, you could trigger them to spawn into fish, then dolphins, then mice, then humans. The humans were all identical male people called "Hessians".
The Hessians were dressed as Phrygian warriors, with helmets shaped like Smurf hats, breast plates, swords, spears, and VERY short leather kilts. Once the Hessians reached a certain level of health, they would... er... mature... and then procreate/replicate. Similar to how Minecraft animals do.
The next stage of development for the Hessians was that they could begin travelling to other teams' worlds, as long as they either conquered or colonized systems in a geographically realistic way. At this stage, you could play either looking at a screen, or, through virtual reality, actually enter the game world. In that mode the Hessians finally differentiated, because they looked like the actual people controlling them.
As a system administrator, I could individually pop into any game in progress, though I couldn't affect any world my team didn't have an official presence in. I popped into one realm where a battle over an office building was going on, and I hid among rows of seating in a training amphitheater. I watched as players took each other out. Or snuck off into corners to, erm... help each other mature...
But most of the time I played the game in console mode, so the graphics were mercifully unrealistic. There was also a creative mode I could enter as an admin, to set up challenges for my team. At one point, though, my team was all so scattered and unfocused that I decided to just start spawning thousands of dolphins, just cuz. And then I woke up.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
TBTT#33 Sartorial Splendor ~ 11/9/2013
I dreamed I was a slender, Indian American teenager, with dark skin and eyes, going to a school dance dressed in a gorgeous dark green and black silk brockade dress over a black lace under dress with star-like points of gold, a sort of medieval style outfit. My wrap was black netting with gold as well.
I loaned my cousin a hooded black velvet cloak because her dress was sleeveless, and mine had long bell sleeves and I was warm enough. This elegance contrasts quite a bit with my dream the night before, where my mother packed my clothes for a three day wedding, but only packed me dresses for the first and second day.
She suggested I borrow a beautiful retro red, dark green, cream, and black patterned dress that actually belonged to Emma Watson, until I explained that there was no way it would fit me. My cousins Sam and Stevie were in suits, and I ended up having to wear slacks that were a strange color, somewhere between magenta and purple (puce maybe?) and a hot pink tank, with a sort of spaghetti strap camisole of black netting over it, that was woven through with the thick yarn hair ties I used to have as a kid, in red, green, orange, and pale pink.
It was a super-awkward outfit. Then I woke up.
I loaned my cousin a hooded black velvet cloak because her dress was sleeveless, and mine had long bell sleeves and I was warm enough. This elegance contrasts quite a bit with my dream the night before, where my mother packed my clothes for a three day wedding, but only packed me dresses for the first and second day.
She suggested I borrow a beautiful retro red, dark green, cream, and black patterned dress that actually belonged to Emma Watson, until I explained that there was no way it would fit me. My cousins Sam and Stevie were in suits, and I ended up having to wear slacks that were a strange color, somewhere between magenta and purple (puce maybe?) and a hot pink tank, with a sort of spaghetti strap camisole of black netting over it, that was woven through with the thick yarn hair ties I used to have as a kid, in red, green, orange, and pale pink.
It was a super-awkward outfit. Then I woke up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)