I had a really strange dream last night. I tend to remember my dreams under times of durrest, high-stress, big ups or big downs. Don’t know why it works that way.
SINKING SHIP
Anyway, the first thing I remember is being on a massive ocean liner slowly sinking deck-by-deck into the sea. No clue who was there with me or why I was out there. There was a transition point, and the next thing I knew, I was on a rescuing ocean liner, slightly smaller than the one still sinking into the sea..
I remember looking back at the doomed liner and seeing the last 2 or 3 decks vanishing into the water. I was under the impression that the water would kill me, probably because of it’s temperature. I remember asking a question about how warm the ocean water is in South Carolina in the winter, so for whatever reason (probably my current position on the map in real life,) I figured I was on that latitude.
For the next step of the journey, I was on a tiny little vessel that might as well have been a big crate. I didn’t have oars or any method to propel myself, so when a slightly bigger boat (like a little powerboat or something) came near, I grabbed onto the back of its hull and let it pull my little crate toward shore. No waves now, and I think when I noticed this, I looked at the shore and realized that I was back on Canandaigua Lake.
LAKE HOUSE
I was in front of my Great-grandparents house and the neighboring property. Once I saw this I tried to slingshot my “crate” over to the dock of the house next door. (It’s worth adding here that I had a dream over 20 years ago about floating up to this same shore in a crate-acting-as-boat. I had to have been old enough to remember the dream, but younger than 5 years old for certain.) Once I set foot on the shore, I started playing frisbee with a girl who couldn’t throw a frisbee very well. We started tossing it in the frontyard, then I suggested we move to the backyard, then we were playing on the road–the low-traffic private drive that leads to my great-grandparents lake house. No smooth transition to the next step.
MULTI-PLEX THEATER
I’m in a bi-level movie theater next. The theater seems to contain about half of the members of my class from CA. I see some faces I haven’t seen since graduation seven years ago, but I don’t talk to anyone. I sit in a row alone and wait for the movie to start. I “fall asleep” before it does, and when I wake up, I’m actually laying down in a seat somehow. I remember being really comfortable and wondering how it was that I was laying down in a theater chair in the first place, but I didn’t investigate because when I looked at the screen, the windows XP logo was bouncing about (yes, just like the screensaver.) The movie audio was there, but people were just sitting and watching this black screen with the Windows XP logo. I kind of remember laughing. When I look back at the screen again, people are starting to shuffle into the aisles. Apparently they were FINALLY noticing that they were watching a screensaver. As they start to leave, the real movie comes back and everyone sits down. When they all sit down, I leave.
I wander through the cinema hall and into a much smaller theater, one of those little 90-seaters with no 2nd level. Almost looks like a screening room because the screen itself is no taller than I am. There’s no separation from the projector room and I can see the guy working the reels. He looks like some kind of kindly clichéd professor archetype wearing a white coat. I think he said something to me, but I can’t remember what it was. I just remember him looking like a good-natured dude. I sit in a seat and wait for the movie to
start.
OFF ROAD
I’m watching the screen, and it’s a first person POV on the windshield of an off-road vehicle, some kind of big nasty jeep or old range rover. Awesome and ultra-rare dream transition here: when I turn to my left, I’m no longer in the theater–instead, I’m now living what I was just watching, and I actually see the driver of the jeep. It’s Dylan Walsh, the actor that plays Sean McNamara on Nip/Tuck. (really stupid, I know. Nip/Tuck is probably the only primetime show that I’ve gotten into in the last decade, the best explanation I can offer here is that I identify most closely with his character for reasons I’m not going to explain here. Something about him being the nice guy and usually getting kicked around as a result–which is a little bit pitiful because that only means that I share the same victim mentality issue that his character has on the show.)
Anyway, “Sean” and I are now riding in this jeep up and down really treacherous slopes. A couple times I can feel the Jeep nearly tip over as I warn him to slow down. He laughs and does the opposite, speeding up around corners and really testing the limits of the vehicle. Something in me tells me that I’ve got nothing to worry about, so I let it go and enjoy the ride.
Eventually, a little fissure opens up on the ground we’re driving on, and he says “it’s coming apart–it’s coming apart” and the fissure just happens to be right between the axles of the jeep. He slows down, makes a jumping turn over a ridge and stops the jeep. We both get out, and I look over a green rolling hill landscape that’s so absolutely beautiful that I turn to him and say “Man, you know it’s all CG these days.” (Makes me laugh right now to think about that line.) Again, no smooth transition to the next step.
AIRPORT
In an airport now. Actually, I’m on a landed plane, emptied of its passengers and crew. I walk up to the cockpit and no one’s there, but we’re certainly on the ground. I take it upon myself to raid the flight attendant’s cart, which seems to have nothing inside it. When I reach for the fridge door, I’m thinking “there’s gotta be a Ginger Ale in here, no one drinks that shit but me.”
I love dreams. There is ONE can in that damned fridge, and it’s a fucking Schweppes. Lucky me. As is the way of airline sodas, I actually take a plastic cup and a napkin and pour half my can into it and drink deeply. Good ginger ale. (This may actually be the first time I’ve ever had a drink of ANYTHING in my dreams, by the way.)
I walk back out of the plane and into the terminal. Lots of people. Too many people. I’m overhearing the conversations of a family that seems really perfect, but there’s an underlying sinister vibe about the father. Dunno. I keep walking until I get to something like a food court. Don’t remember ordering anything, but the next thing I know I’m carrying a tray and looking for a table to sit at. I want to be alone, but this family keeps turning up wherever I try to sit. When I make it a point to go to the other end of the area with tables, one of their brats yell “look, there’s no one over here,” and they move over to the table I was aiming for. I toss my tray into the trash and give up. As I’m walking away, I hear the father say something about how it would be nice if the government would just force everyone to be religious, and I walk away, super-disgusted. I’m feeling so indignant now that I yell at the top of my lungs as I’m walking away: “Yeah, it sure would be nice if everyone thought exactly the same as you, prick! Homogeny is what makes this country great!”
I was kind of pissed, I guess. It’s funny–since I’m a loudmouth smart-ass, that’s the kind of shit I THINK in real life when I overhear a conversation like that. It just so happens that we’re bolder in our dreams.
The only detail I left out (because I don’t remember where it fits in the plot-line) was looking at my old Pulsar Spoon watch on my wrist. I tried to hit the button to see what time it was, but all I saw was the low-battery indictator. Damn. I sure do miss that watch. I don’t remember what happened to it, but it was the coolest watch I owned.
Anyway, that’s it. I’m sure the reason I’m remembering all this is that I woke up at 4AM and wrote it all down. Merry Christmas to me, I got a strange but well-detailed dream that I actually remembered.