03/27/01
This Hard Drive Will Self-Destruct...
The dream I had not very long before it was time to get up, I went to the computer to go online the way I do every day. I turned it on or took it out of park--I'm not sure which, but it acted kind of funny coming on, which led me to believe I hadn't shut it down or parked it properly or something. Oh well. It performs illegal functions all the time so I'm always shutting it down improperly. Anyway, as soon as the monitor came on it automatically started dialing to go online. This startled me. WHY was it doing that? It made me a bit nervous. Then the monitor changed and the two little TVs that appear in the lower right suddenly showed up red with flames shooting from them and the dialtone went all weird. All the icons on the desktop suddenly turned red with flames shooting from them. That was when I knew--OUR WHOLE HARD DRIVE HAD BEEN CORRUPTED!
I immediately panicked. "Oh no, oh no!" I picked up the phone and listened--it wasn't busy, so despite the TV screens in the corner, I wasn't online--and dialed my mom's work number. The only thing I could think of to do was call her and tell her. I had no other ideas. I'm very surprised I managed to keep my head THAT much, and also that I got the number right on the first try! I've NEVER been able to dial the phone properly in my dreams--the numbers keep changing. I dialed and pressed the phone to my ear and then--
--I woke up. I glanced at the clock and it was 5:09 (I'm nocturnal and sleep during the day). I was going to wake up at 5:25. I let out my breath, I was so on edge. The dream left a bad feeling with me, you know the feeling, even after you've discovered it's not real you can't help but feel awful and anxious. "What a horrible dream," I murmured, and tried to get back to sleep.
(A note, Dad was in the basement sawing something and making quite a bit of a racket; I wonder if that had anything to do with the screwy-sounding dialtone in my dream.)
Head In The Sand
In this dream I was at a beach--I have the feeling it started out as a commercial and I went into it--and we (I was with some other people who were leading me around or describing the place) went over to this woman who was lying prone on the beach. Her feet were pointed toward the water and she wasn't very far from it; the sand around her was damp but the water wasn't washing over her. Her skin and hair were damp and speckled with sand--she was tan, and blond, I believe--wearing a light-colored (white?) bathing suit. But she was lying absolutely PRONE. Face in the sand. I thought she had a medical problem at first as a couple of people dressed in white were crouching around her talking to the TV (or whatever...); at one point one lifted her face and she seemed to be all right, except there was a small bubble coming out of her nose or mouth. Then she sucked in her breath and put her face down in the sand again and these two people--a man and a woman--lay down on top of her on their backs, right side by side, and their weight pressed the woman down into the sand so she couldn't be seen underneath them at all. They lay there seemingly on the beach for a few moments. I was absolutely baffled. WHAT were they doing? Somebody took me aside and explained it to me. The woman was having an affair with somebody else on this beach and her husband had just shown up. He was looking around for her and she needed to hide. So this other couple, these two older people, were lying on top of her to hide her underneath them until he was gone. I found this strange. Out of all the places to hide on this crowded beach, there had to be bathrooms and such, she was hiding UNDERNEATH some people? It looked VERY uncomfortable...
The False Pirate
Okay...this was an impressive dream, and I wish I could remember where it started...but somehow I ended up on a pirate ship sailing over the water. It was kind of goofy at first because the ship was very small or else nonexistent--it's like I was walking on or floating over the water--and there were other ships around us (I was the "captain" of the ship, or else important--it was one of those role-playing dreams where you can kind of tell it's not all real, and you can control it to an extent, even though you don't know you're dreaming--it's like you're acting)--and these other ships were little toy ships. They had impressive sails but they were small--only about two feet tall! They bobbed around in the water and I swatted my hand at a few. We had just been involved in some sea combat and had won. We were GREAT pirates! :) The water around us, it wasn't like the open sea; it was more like a lake. There were trees all around it, pines, closing the lake in--perhaps it was a bay or a lagoon or something, I have the feeling it was mostly but not entirely cut off from the main body of water and we had sailed into it somewhere along the way. The water was VERY green. And WARM. I splashed around in it a lot. I found this whole thing to be very amusing. All the little tiny toy ships and WE had defeated them all. A few ships were larger but not in very good shape. They bobbed in the water all around us.
Now I developed more of a personality and I don't think I was the captain or leader of my group of pirates, but I was an important one. From what I could tell of my history, I think I had been kidnapped or "stolen" from my parents as a baby and I sort of knew this, but the pirates had adopted me and made me one of them. I felt as if I belonged. I think I was still female--this really tough female pirate who could take care of herself. I REALLY liked the feeling and just played the part of pirate to the hilt. We spied another ship we hadn't plundered yet and moved in to do so.
(I should point out that the "Pirate" was my elementary school mascot and I really liked him. Also, the whole time I was sailing around with my crew, as I said, it's like there was nothing below me, no ship, no crew--I just had the FEELING they were there with me. It was more like I just floated over the water on my own, splashing my feet in it. An invisible ship, an invisible crew. Strange...)
In any case, we drew in closer to shore and I think there was pink sand or coral or something, because the monotony of the dark green/blackish trees was broken. Here was a partly unplundered ship with its crew. Once again, it didn't really look like a ship, I can't really describe it at all, but it was SUPPOSED to be a ship. We'd captured it and taken the crew and passengers prisoner. I don't think it was a pirate ship; they were civilians. They were standing lined up with their heads hanging; I remember a man who looked VERY angry and humiliated, perhaps there was also a frightened young girl. I smiled at them--well, I HAD to, I was the tough female pirate, nothing could get to me anymore!--and then spied a chest of drawers on the ship, a type of vanity perhaps, with some books and other items lined up on it. This immediately caught my interest and I stepped aboard to inspect it, the prisoners watching me as I passed. I have the feeling the man wasn't happy that I was so interested in it, but he had no say in what I decided to do.
I reached the dresser--it was old and looked as if it needed a paint job--and perused the books lined up along the left edge. One caught my eye. It looked familiar, like a book I thought I had. I pulled it out. It was like one of those old Reader's Digest Condensed Books or whatever, with the wallpapery-looking cover. Very old, slightly dusty and mildewed. I turned it over to look at the title on the spine and it was "Osiris" or "The Osiris" or something similar. I immediately felt a mixture of anxiety and nostalgia.
(Note--I've written a novel called Horus and for a time worked on a prequel called
Osiris but have yet to finish it...I haven't worked on it in quite a while...)
The way that things went in my dream...I briefly made an inventory of my life. My REAL life, that is, what I thought was my real life outside of the dream. I thought I had this very same book. When I looked at it a bit longer, I thought, perhaps I have a book that is SIMILAR--a sequel or a prequel, and this is another one by the same author--so I suddenly wanted THIS one, too. A prequel or a sequel isn't good without its companion, you never know the whole story without all of the books! I opened it up and noticed it had been signed by the author, and it had a price in it--$38. (It was just a small yet thick hardcover.) That was rather pricey. I REALLY WANTED this old book, but how could I be sure it WASN'T the one I already had? Truthfully, I couldn't be sure. I considered paying the $38 anyway, but then REconsidered--how could I afford something I might already have? Perhaps I'd just have to go without it...this thought made me sad but resigned.
(A note, WHY would I even have to pay for it?--I was a PIRATE, for God's sake! I was supposed to just TAKE it! So why was I so anxious about the price and decided not to "buy" it when we were just plundering the place anyway?...)
I flipped through it a bit more and found out that the author, who had signed it for its owner, had marked up almost every page. There were lines of cursive between the lines of type on lots of the pages. Very messy, but I didn't mind much--I smiled as I looked down at it. Whoever the author was, she (I felt it was a she) had been very involved with this book and had loved it very much. I had a feeling she had known the owner and had done all this handwriting just for them, describing all the things in the book in detail because she liked the owner. These were the marks of somebody who really loved their work.
The whole time I stood there looking at this book the prisoners stood nearby watching me anxiously, as if afraid I would find something they didn't want me to find. My crew watched over them. I didn't really care what they thought of what I did.
I turned a few more pages and a couple of thick paper cutouts almost fell out. I caught them in my hand and inspected them. One was blue and sort of round, that thick paper or thin cardboard; the other was smaller and perhaps orange. I believe tape was holding them together. There were some childish drawings on them. I frowned and looked at them more closely and they seemed more and more familiar.
It suddenly dawned on me that...
...*I* had made these drawings, had cut these things out, ages ago when I was little...
...and here they were between the pages of a book that seemed familiar, a book I was almost certain *I* had owned, sometime in the past...
...sitting on this old dresser on this civilian ship that we were in the act of plundering.
I whirled around to face the man who'd looked so angry before, standing over with the other passengers. He was staring at me with a kind of neutral look as if trying to gauge my reaction. My face must have become FURIOUS. I stormed over to him and grabbed his collar with one hand, shoving the cutouts in his face with the other.
"What are these?" I demanded to know, my voice getting hysterical. "Where did you get them? HOW did you get them? What are they doing on this ship?"
The whole time I screamed at him I shook him furiously. I was so incredibly angry but also--what?--ashamed?--humiliated?--hurt? I think I felt hurt and betrayed. I could think of only one explanation as for why this book and these cutouts, MY book and MY cutouts, were on this civilian ship. I had been kidnapped by pirates sometime when I was young. Kidnapped from civilians. Raised by the pirates. These civilians...these must have been people who had known me. Not necessarily my family, but friends. I'd been taken from THESE people so long ago. And yet...THEY were the ones I was angriest with! I didn't feel angry with the pirates--rather I felt hurt and ashamed that I wasn't REALLY one of them--I felt angry with the civilians and hurt by them as well. Why is that? Is it because I liked my "pirate" life so much that I didn't want to be reminded of my "normal," civilian life? Was it the sort of anger an adopted child might feel after meeting their birth parents--did I somehow feel these people had LET me be taken away from them, that they didn't try hard enough to get me back? Why was I so angry with them?
All the while I screamed at him and shook the man the other passengers, my crew, watched, and the man kept trying to calm me down and talk to me, answer my enraged questions, but I never gave him the chance. I was too hurt and humiliated. I shoved him roughly away from me and went back to join my crew. I can't remember if I took the book and cutouts with me...but I felt so angry about my lost, forgotten childhood...and about whatever else it was, whatever it was that made me so mad at the civilians.
By all rights I should have been angriest with the PIRATES. THEY were the ones who took me away from my real home. I may have been a little angry with them for doing so, but they weren't the primary target for my anger. THEY had given me a home. THEY had made me feel as if I belonged, as if I were one of them--they'd treated me so well that I had even been CONVINCED I was one of them, despite my vague memories of a previous life. I liked them! I wanted to stay with them! It was fun being with them! And now these CIVILIANS decided to show up and dredge up everything from the past, remind me that I wasn't "really" a pirate, and just screw everything up for me. Is THAT why I was so angry? Or was it a mixture of all of the abovestated?
I can't remember what happened after that, only that I went back to my crew, leaving the civilians behind. I did NOT want to go back to them. The thing was...they had just disrupted my life so badly, I would no longer be able to just be a happy carefree pirate. So what would I do with my life NOW?
2001 Dreams
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