Past (8/10/12)

I was Nevneni, and the family (Derthos the father, Alleis the mother and Temia the younger sister, the other younger sister, Liosi was not present) had gone on a roadtrip and we’d wound up in a less-than-desirable restaurant where the food was dished up from trays like in a cafeteria. It had a view of an expansive parking lot, beyond which towered gray concrete skyscrapers. Me being Nevneni was not an essential facet to this part of the dream, i just knew I was Nevneni and, what was more interesting was that I caught glances of the rest of her family like they were real. Nevneni’s personality seemed to meld with mine, so I was very quiet but I essentially thought as I do normally.
So, we were standing in front of these counters from where the food was dished out and I noticed there was a sign written with marker on a crumpled piece of paper that said, “If somebody is out in the parking lot with a gun, do NOT be an idiot and try to stop them.”
One of the other girls, who had orange-dyed hair tied up in a bun, started seeming all faint. She trembled and asked, “What Invasion?”
I then had some sort flashback in the style of a newsreel that showed how a Muslim extremist group in basedi n the Middle-east had disagreed with the peaceful actions of a non-extremist Muslim group in the US. Three terrorists had attacked in this area, mostly focusing on people within this group that they were opposed to but also causing a few casualties. Flashes from the newsreel showed the skyscrapers I had seen earlier smoking into the gray sky. During this imagined newsreel, I remarked to no one in particular that Americans were calling an attack by three Muslims an invasion- were we really that self-conscious, were we really that xenophobic?
Then my mind was back in the restaurant where we decided to do something very important, though I’d forgotten what it was, which was very frustrating because that was when I felt most like Nevneni- timid, silent and uncomfortable.
———
I interacted with a lot of people in my dreams, but I can’t place most of it. Caitlyn and I ate the root of a herb called Hypnotia which brought on a state of unfocused, relaxed dreaminess. The world passed by in a blur, hours seemed to be minutes and nothing mattered any more. “Wow,” said Caitlyn, smiling as the high slowly began to wear off, “We gotta do this again.” I agreed and laughed.
I interacted with my mother in one instance, with my sister in another, but I don’t remember the situations, just that after waking, it seemed like they had been near.
———
I was working temporarily in an office building. I had friends there- non-descript people in a business attire, though one person was remarkable. He had closely-cropped blond hair, he had a thin face and a sarcastic sense of humour.
Whenever we went into the building, we were checked in by this pudgy guard who was obsessed with efficiency. We had to walk through a metal detector while he talked to us about how he was trying to make the system more efficient. Then we’d go inside and I pretty much forgot what happened after that, until we checked into the building again after lunch and the security guard rushed up too me and said he’s found a way to make the whole process more efficient. At this point, the sarcastic guy made jokes about how efficient our lunch had been. It had been 66.6% efficient he said but he though he could find ways to make it better. It went over the security guard’s head, he nodded in agreement with the sarcastic guy’s jocular suggestions. Meanwhile, I was made to walk through the metal detector, arms held out from my sides, then I’d have to place the object in my right hand on the table, sit on a stool and get my photo taken. I struggled to complete the first two steps because the metal detector wasn’t large enough for someone to walk through with arms outstretched. The sarcastic guys made jokes the entire time, some of them at my expense. I eventually got it down and sat down on the stool and the guard held up a camera.
I asked him if he would be doing this every day, he excitedly said yes and added that he’d email the photos to my sister. I asked to see her email, he gave me a slip of paper with the email written on it in pencil and I told him that it was the wrong one, and I put down one of my own. The nhe went to take my photo and I changed my appearance just before the camera flashed to that of an older man with black hair, sort of like a handsome combination between Gadaffi and Che Guevara. My features flowed fluidly into this new shape and then went right back as soon as the picture was done. The guard didn’t notice. We went upstairs.
Instead of being in a work situation, I was in a small bedroom with Chandler. We cuddled on the bed for a long while.
Then, the next time I went into the building, I saw a cockroach on the sidewalk. I thought that for my photo this time, I  should transform myself into a giant cockroach. But, when I got in, I took on the appearance of a “ghost,” a creature with a pale, mask-like face withe a mane of fire, big dark eyes and a gray cylindrical body which looked as if it was made from construction paper.  I scared the guard by making my mane flare up.
Later, I stood in front of a mirror and tried to change my appearance but I couldn’t and I was very disappointed to be just myself.
———
A friend I used to have but no longer talk to (for very good reasons), Anya, was trying to ingratiate herself with me once more. i was in a place that was apparently her house, drifting aimlessly while she went about her business in another room. I left and she said I should come to sleep over in the evening. I went and did other things while Caitlyn gave me text updates on what Anya was doing.
Th next thing I remember is being in a virtual world with Ian. The landscape was rendered in a gorgeous artistic way, with an almost impressionist style of colouring, though with black lines surrounding individual objects. Ian and I walked down a wide street, which was lined by old houses painted white. The had porches and wide green yards shaded by old trees. The sun was shining in a clear blue sky and beyond the houses I could see wide fields edged by trees in the distance. I watched a horse gallop across the fields, ridden by a man in white.
I received a text from Caitlyn- “Probs not a good idea to come here tonight- fights because of violent fecal incontinence, it’s like a rampage.” I laughed a little and decided that I would not be visiting Anya.
Ian and I took a path between two houses on the right. I said to him, “This is art, to create such a vast and realistic world. I can even feel the sun and the warmth of the air.” As I said this, I lifted my arms, and yes, I could feel the comfortable temperature of that day, with a slight humidity that was so amazingly realistic.
The path led Ian and me to an expansive lake edged by a dense forest. The water was perfectly clear and reflected the warm sunlight. Dozens of kayakers and swimmers speed about the water with the speed and manner of dragonflies. Ian and I sat on the edge of the water, on some sort of pier and dipped our feet into the lake. It was truly beautiful- I cannot explain how, and when I woke up later, I wished for it to be real.
I pointed out some of the dark shapes visible through the glass-like water. I knew that the lake had been the result of the flood and many things had been lost under there.”You see that dark patch there?” I said, pointing straight ahead to the shapes of trees under the water. Ian said he did. “Those are the trees on the island in the stream we used to sit on.” (There was such an island, but Ian never sat on it with me and in fact, I’m not sure if it exists any more.)
“Really?” he said, awed.
“Yes. And see that gray tip protruding out of the water next to it? That’s the roof of my old house.”
The house was somewhat visible through the water. Swimmers congregated around it, dipping under the water to peer through the windows.At some point, this had stopped seeming like a virtual world and more like a very scenic post-apocalyptic reality. It had something to do with global warming, but in the end the apocalypse hadn’t been an end of things, just a changing of circumstances.
We looked across the glass-like lake. A kayaker darted near us and he and his boat were about the half the size they ought to have been, due to the warped perception that tends to occur in my dreams when I look across expansive scenes.
“Do you want to go see the house?” asked Ian as we watched the swimmers sinking under and pressing up to the windows to look at the submerged remains of my old life. It seemed that everything within the house had been perfectly preserved, without any water leaking in whatsoever.
“No,” I said, “It would be too weird. Things have changed. Let these people enjoy it, I don’t need it any more.”
So we got up and traveled down a dusty road onto further beautiful lands.

Venus (6/13/12)

It was nighttime and I was on a roof with some people to watch the “eclipse of Venus.” Branden was there, perhaps Caitlyn, and after that I’m not really sure who else. The rooftop was in a city- tall buildings crowded in around us, some of them skyscrapers that reached up above. But, despite this, the night sky was very clear. I could see all the stars, the round face of the moon, and of course, the planets. Three planets lined up together under the moon together- I believe they were Mercury, Venus and Mars.

I thought that it was amazing to be able to see this from where I stood on earth. It felt as if I had the universe laid out before me, and it was beautiful. The planets moved very quickly- I sat there and I could see them shifting, the one on the leftmost side moving out from the others, growing larger. I exclaimed about this to the others and they thought I was just seeing things.

From the other side of the building, I could see this odd mark in the sky. It looked like a ragged tear, glowing in some parts and black in others. Someone told me it was from a spaceship crash that had occurred some days ago, and that “they hadn’t been able to get the stain out from the sky yet.” I had no particular reaction to this piece of information; I was more interested in seeing Venus as it grew larger and larger. It slipped downwards in the sky, towards the horizon, and I was suddenly afraid of being unable to see the eclipse.

I turned to look at the “stain” again and it fizzled with light and colour, then shot away across the sky. I still had very little reaction to this. Instead, I looked at the sky from another side of the building, staring between two skyscrapers, and I saw Venus growing there, from the size of a basketball to a mighty sphere of swirling bronze clouds that filled half the sky.

After this, I don’t know how I got there but I was inside, in a very narrow hall lined with rooms. I was Nevneni and Branden had become embodied by his character Hemlock, who wished to sleep. Nevneni/me told him that he could have her/my room, even though she/I knew that there’d be nowhere to sleep until the eclipse began.

Some people stood in the hall, talking. There was a tall, thick man with brown hair and a woman of average height, with glossy, straight hair. There was something romantic and dramatic happening but Nevneni/I didn’t really understand it. Nevneni/I was trying to stand in the hall, leaning against the wall, and write. She/I looked off into the distance in thought and the man got all offended cuz he thought that Nevneni/I had been staring at him. She/I apologised profusely and went away.

Outside, it was raining and cloudy. She/I was afraid that the rain would obscure the eclipse. We faded into darkness together. A piece of writing appeared in my mind, wherein Branden described the eclipse, saying that the planet had been reduced to “a rim of pale pink in the sky.”

I ran outside to greet the planet, dark and hovering close, with open arms.

Humanity (5/21/12)

Once again, a dream about Grey’s Anatomy. I was watching some of the characters (Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd specifically) operate on a patient. They cut open his abdomen and with the help of a nurse, smeared some translucent grey paste on the wound. Then the patient exploded. Derek  was vaporised by the force of the blast, though somehow Meredith and I viewed this from quite a distance, standing on a hill and watching Derek dematerialise in a whirlwind of colour. Meredith screamed and cried, I was rather shocked because apparently it mattered. I had a brief discussion with the nurse about why the patient exploded, he assured me it had nothing to do with the grey paste. (I should note that when I woke up from this dream, I was mildly amused because this is a good approximation of what happens in Grey’s Anatomy.)

Then it was nine months later. I came to on a rocking chair in front of a television in a bare, uncleaned room. There was dried dog crap on the floor and my seat had apparently become crusty from me sitting on it so much. (???) I had apparently been greatly affected by Derek’s death and was now suffering psychogenic amnesia wherein I’d forgotten the last nine months of my life.

I went outside, where it was like a grey city, and sat with a group of people, one of whom was Meredith. She was pregnant and rambled on about how she was going to name her child “Forever” because that’s how long she would love Derek. I thought this was cheesy and went against feminist values. She said that her daughter, Zola, had died. I told her that I had lost my memory and I cried a lot. In fact, over the next few minutes, I cried over everything. I realised that I had gone through my first year at St. John’s College but now I had forgotten it all. This made me cry. I looked on Facebook and found that I was now friends with a girl I haven’t spoken to in years. I couldn’t believe I had missed all this. I cried.

Some strangers came along and harassed Meredith. She suddenly became a 60 year old black woman with glasses, sagging breasts and a toddler stuffed up her yellow shirt. I yelled at the strangers and cried.

———

I woke up and went back to sleep and had a completely different dream, this one about going between countries once again, though in what direction I can hardly tell because sometimes I seemed to be heading to Australia, sometimes to America. It started off in what was apparently a plane, and I sat next to some girl whose appearance now escapes me. We were strangers, I think,  but we talked a lot. We could see the scenery in some giant window ahead of us and it seemed as if there was no one nearby. The plane zoomed away from the earth and the lights of the cities appeared as squares of different colours- mostly red and blue. The girl hypothesised that god would be angrier if we could see the blue lights from space than if we were to see the red ones. I thought about this and agreed, because most of the planet earth is blue and that if we were to perceive the blue lights at such a distance, then it meant that humans had over-ridden the importance and majesty of gods’ creation.

The plane flew further and further away from earth and we were able to see continents taking shape, formed as they were by red and blue lights. The red lights were the only ones visible after a while, so god must have had yet to be angry at us.

Then we floated downwards through darkness, through near-empty space, strapped into harnesses that were presumably attached to parachutes. My friend and I shared a harness with a third girl, who looked like someone I’d seen in the supermarket earlier that day. Others fell around us, bunched in groups of three, but it was almost entirely silent. The tall trunk of a maple tree stood in the darkness before us- we drifted down along its length and I never saw any leaves, just the texture of its bark. It was lit with an odd light that came from nowhere but fell only on objects, draining them of colour and turning them grey, doing nothing to bring illumination to the darkness of outer space. But, far off in the distance, to the left, was the planet earth. From where we were, it seemed to be the size of a basketball We saw it on its nightwards side, criss-crossed by human lights. Perhaps we floated in between time because we could see it revolving- Asia and Australia passed by our sights and headed towards dawn, the Americas came into sight.

We discussed this distant and eerie scene, the beauty and madness of what humanity had made, for we had created a planet that shone out in the universe. I thought of how my family in Australia would be entering dawn now, while my home in America would be falling under the night. As we talked and drifted, we slowly turned to the left, in opposition to the movement of the earth. As time passed, we were losing sight of the earth, craning our heads to see it.

“Perhaps it a kind of narcissism to admire all this,” she said.

“Yes, but it is not narcissism for oneself but for humanity as a whole.”

We craned out necks to see the last sight of the earth and saw it just as the Americas passed by and gave way to the great dark expanse of the Pacific. And so it seemed that the earth turned away from us as we turned away from it.

I felt that we wavered precariously in the nothingness, and so I closed my eyes to the sight of the maple tree, afraid of slipping from the safety of the harness and falling endlessly into the abyss. 

Then a voice announced to us that we had made our landing, just as my feet touched ground. I stumbled a bit and opened my eyes to find myself in large room that looked like a train station. There were those old fashioned black and white clocks and a shiny tan marble floor. I was no longer in the harness and I was now with a group of students, the context being a school trip to somewhere. There was a tall boy who I was apparently going out with. He had short dark hair and a nice hat of some sort. He showed me this stand that sold food but also sold small packets of marijuana. The packets were in bowls on the counter, next to the cash register, and people would say “Can I have some of the garnish?” or something and they’d be given one of the packets for $5. My boyfriend bought one and put it in his luggage.

Then we were on a train, though the interior vaguely resembled a plane. The universe passed by the windows; galaxies of all colours just floated on by, glowing bright an beautiful. I remembered what my dad had told me- that when traveling in space, the stars don’t appear to move because they’re so far away. (He has told me this in real life- he is an astrophysicist). I told this to the people sitting near me, including my boyfriend, but they just gave me weird looks.

Then the train began to slow, for we were now on a rather steep hill. It was lush and green with grass and gnarled trees, but for the spaces beside the train tracks, which showed the reddish dirt. The colours were vivid under a bright white sun. A ravine ran alongside the tracks, full of rushing, spraying water. One of the other passengers (a boy who I had known in passing in middle school) started screaming nonsense about how we’d all die because of the ravine.

I seemed to see it all as if there was no train and it was just me speeding along through the air (these seems to happen quite frequently in dreams, I think- perhaps my mind has difficulty combining the two sensations?) I smiled, feeling that I was coming home because I had been here before. The train came to a stop and we were all told to come out of the train for a bag inspection. This, too, had happened before, and for the next few minutes, I watched things happen with an ironic smile, knowing that what would happen next could not be changed and that everything would be fine. For, once outside, my boyfriend remembered the marijuana in his bag and started to panic, trying to get back int other train to remove it. He was restrained by our chaperones but I knew that everything would turn out fine in the end.

———

I arrived at what was apparently BWI airport, though it looked like the front of my old high school in America. It was night time. I caught up to my mother, who walked through clouds, and I suggested that we visit our old home. I felt that she had to find out that our neighbours’ old dog, Lacey, had died, and that they had gotten a new one, named Maggie. (This has been on my mind in real life you see.) However, she refused to go because she insisted on doing other things first.

We wound up in front of an old computer, watching a documentary. The documentary started out as an 80 year old woman scuba diving to the wreck of the Titanic (while wearing a cute little swimsuit mind you). Then a sea serpent came out of nowhere and she fought it with a glaive. I thought this was silly and tried to use the computer’s keyboard to exit out of the video. I typed but the noise of the keys tapping was painfully loud. “Christ, that’s bloody loud,” said mother, and I stopped typing but the noises continued. (This was probably the sound of the rain on the window in real life.)

Then the old woman was fighting the sea monster in the train station. She cut its head off and cursed profusely. I suggested to my mother that we go to our old home but she refused. We wound up in the parking lot of my old school.