06/25/02
Catnapped!
This dream was vague even when I woke up. I had it a couple of days ago.
In it, there was a group of nasty people who wanted to kidnap my cat. I'm not sure if it was Cosmas or not; it seemed to be a female longhair, and near the end of the dream I believe I had two cats rather than one. The ringleader of this group of kidnappers was an older woman, probably harsh looking; I think of this cartoon character, the leader of a guerrilla animal-rights movement, that was on Cowboy Bebop once; at least I think that's what the cartoon was. Somehow, they ended up getting my cat, and possibly another cat--for some reason they were set on kidnapping others' cats--and I had to go after them.
Now it's like I was that guy in the beret from Nash Bridges (Jeff Perry, played the part of Harvey Leek). I ran after the getaway car as it started off north down the highway and I grabbed onto the door, front passenger side I believe. It was summer and so the car window was down; I gripped onto the door with my elbows over the edge, poking inside, and held on for dear life. The car never drove very fast--I think they were scared of hurting me--but I still felt afraid that I would fall off.
We drove along the highway and I figured, I couldn't really do anything just holding onto the car like this, but if I managed to stay on, eventually a passing police car would notice us and pull us over, and then I could easily explain what I had been doing, and they would be arrested and my cat returned. But then an anxious thought occurred to me. What if, instead of speeding, they decided to try to sideswipe things? Then I would be mushed! I tried not to think of it too much--they hadn't tried anything yet, as they didn't seem very violent--and just kept holding on.
Then somehow we ended up on the same highway, yet heading SOUTH. We came into open country not far from my home and I believe the car now started to swerve as the driver tried to find something to bash me against, just as I'd feared. Darn it! They were still driving pretty slowly though, and I think the cops may have finally arrived, or something, but in any case I believe I dropped from the door and went rolling. I can't recall the specifics of what happened, but they ended up being apprehended. I'd never had too much difficulty hanging onto the door, which I thought was odd.
I think a group of people came along, among them perhaps a younger girl (teenager) with glasses, kind of nerdy--they weren't random strangers, they had been involved with the good guys somehow--and they started talking/exclaiming about what had happened. I just remember us being outside near a curve in the road, talking.
Then somehow I ended up back at home in the utility room, and this had been a dream I was telling Ma about. I got partway through, looking down at our own cat--a longhair?--sitting on the floor. (This might have been where we had two cats instead of one.) Ma interrupted with something like, "I had a dream once that there were two cats. One was wild, and the other one was..." She never got to finish, at least at first; I had thought she was going to say "tame," but then she said something like, "one that was also wild." (She may have said the first one was tame, but then the second one would have been too--they were both approximately the same). If she had in fact stated that the cats were opposites, I was ready to tell her, "That was a dream about opposites--good versus evil, wild versus tame, what we welcome versus what we fear," etc. I was going to make a big point of it to make myself sound very educated on this, perhaps I would mention the Shadow, but when she stated they were both about the same I decided not to. There wasn't any point anymore. I may have just looked down to see our cat, and possibly another, in the room with us, so I guess everything was okay.
DBZ: The Lost Episodes
This dream I had last night and it's confusing, since I had it while napping. Dragon Ball Z was playing on TV while I slept, and Cartoon Network insisted on endlessly playing their ads for the Powerpuff Girls movie, so those both worked their way into the dream.
In it, I awoke on the couch to find I had missed recording part of my show--which was supposed to be Dragon Ball, but I think then was DBZ. I was very upset but there was nothing I could do. I think I got a tape ready to record the next episode of DBZ that I wanted. I knew the title and everything--I think it was one word, beginning with an A. But then Cartoon Network started airing something completely different!
It was still DBZ, granted. But they were suddenly showing all these scenes I had never noticed before. I can't remember what they were, specifically, but they involved all sorts of the characters--Krillin, Chi-Chi, Gohan, Frieza, King Kai, etc. I sat up and groused, "First I miss my first show, now Cartoon Network has to go and air the WRONG EPISODE!" I'm not sure if I was recording or had refrained from doing so, but this seriously threw me off. Even the title of the show was different from the one that had been given in the online schedule, and that I'd written down for reference.
Then I noticed that SOME parts of the program were the same as some I'd seen before, yet some were different. I suddenly realized what was happening. Somehow Cartoon Network had gotten hold of the only mildly edited early episodes and was now airing THOSE instead of the heavily edited ones! Holy cow! I don't recall seeing a lot of blood, but there was a LOT of material that had been cut that they were now airing. It was still edited for violence, but not as much. They now had two different versions of the same episodes--and this was one that had been skipped entirely, but for a few snippets that had been merged with the next episode to fill it out!
(Cartoon Network actually did this in real life. (Well, more like FUNimation, the people who produced the American-version episodes.) If one episode was cut so that it ran below the allotted running time, they would combine parts from the next episode, so that two or more episodes would form one. A clever act of butchery, but butchery nonetheless. I've long wished to see the original, uncut episodes; from what I've learned, they skipped an awful lot.)
This discovery had me feeling both really excited and INCREDIBLY upset at the same time. Excited in that, here I could see a lot of the stuff they'd cut out before--and from the looks of it, I'd been missing plenty! There were whole plotlines I'd never known had existed. The episode ended completely differently from the heavily edited version (I think it involved Chi-Chi and maybe Yajirobe, perhaps when they were planning on going to Namek), and I think they were showing a second one after that; I saw one scene, I think it was following Goku's battle with Vegeta (that was the episode that was really airing, in fact, the last episode where Goku and Vegeta fought; Vegeta left Earth at the very end--my dream's episode took place shortly after this), when Bulma and Master Roshi and the rest showed up to pick up the survivors and the bodies of the dead. In the real-life version, no bodies are shown because supposedly there aren't any; but in the uncut episode, there are bodies that they put into these containers like coffins. In the dream, I think they showed this part, and since I'd read about it before I knew it was coming. I was still surprised to see it.
But I was UPSET too because this meant that all my perfectly recorded tapes with the heavily edited episodes were USELESS now! They were showing the "lost" episodes and now my tapes would be all out of order! I hadn't been paying exact attention to what episodes were on each night as most of the recorded ones I have are okay; I checked only when there was one I needed to record. Who knew what I had missed? This was so frustrating!!
As the dream went on, my frustration faded as I seemed to merge into what I was watching. Very odd. It gets fragmented here; I remember a lot of it focused on a chase involving Vegeta primarily, but also maybe Gohan and Bulma and others.
I remember one tiny bit of Gohan at a large community swimming pool full of kids and something happened so one of them was drowning, or being held under. Gohan stopped by this--he was a real kid now, not a cartoon--and was reluctant to help because someone had told him he shouldn't. But then something convinced him he should help, and I believe he did. He used some kind of power or magic; he didn't dive in and rescue them in the normal way. For some reason that song from the Spider-Man movie, the one about a hero, is going through my head, though that might not have been playing. I also equated this scene with the Powerpuff Girls and the theme song that keeps playing during their movie commercials. CN airs them incessantly, and they must have made their way into my dream. Gohan's reluctance to help was similar to their own, as they were afraid to use their powers, until prompted to do so. Also the villain involved might have been a PPG villain, perhaps Him. In any event, I believe the boy was brought to safety.
Another snippet involved Vegeta chasing somebody, or somehow involved in a chase. At this point I became Vegeta running down these halls. This is very confusing. One part consisted of Vegeta (me?) pushing somebody to the left side as he/I ran, and I think this person was supposed to be a nun. Then there was a brief cut away to the life of this nun; she was an assassin or something, not your regular nun, rather unsavory and violent but still with a supposed code of honor; I get the feeling she may have been a bounty hunter searching for somebody. Then it went back to Vegeta.
I was him, yet I also seemed to be an observer; I was running down this narrow hallway inside a building, cream-colored walls, carpeting, very nice looking and possibly slightly Victorian. There were people all over (college students?) and I had to keep jumping and dodging to avoid them. I wasn't scared, but I was determined. I think I was chasing somebody, yet somebody was also chasing me...like I said, confusing. Maybe we were racing to get to the same place? The Dragon Balls perhaps? These hallways were so narrow and crowded. A couple of times I tried to do something really dramatic and launch myself off the wall with my foot, but it never seemed to work. The walls were too straight, for one thing, though they may have bent/curved in some parts. The first time I tried, I missed completely; the second time, my right foot just clunked against the wainscoting (sic?), and I didn't end up launching myself off. Disappointing! I wanted to be dramatic, while I was being Vegeta! And why did these people keep getting in my way??
Cut to another scene. It was still Vegeta, running down this hallway or tunnel, only toward me now, not away--I have the feeling he was defying Frieza, similar to the scene in the series when he runs along the corridors on Frieza's ship, away from Kuwi. These hallways were perhaps rounded on top, unlike the first ones, and darker, more modern like a spaceship's. And Vegeta was wearing VERY unusual clothing, nothing at all like that he has on the TV show. He wore a helmet similar to a samurai's helmet, only I don't think it had those funny protrusions on the front; and he wore some kind of quilted jacket with padded shoulders--it was a slate blue, I believe--but it didn't have the big shoulderpads like the Saiyan armor does. I REALLY liked that helmet he wore--it was pretty impressive looking, on him. (Vegeta, in this entire scene, seemed to be human/live also, not a cartoon; so I don't think he had the spiky hair; it may have been in a ponytail, the way I envision a live-actor version of Vegeta might pull it off.) I just didn't like how he didn't have those big shoulderpads! I think I even touched the quilted jacket on the left shoulder--it's like he was standing near me, completely still as if on pause--and remarked so. "I like everything except for how he has no shoulderpads! We should fix that." In this part, I don't think I was Vegeta; I was just watching, though I might have become him again later on--if this is in fact the order these scenes were in.
That nun seemed to figure into this, so it's not as if these were two separate incidents. Maybe she was one of the people after Vegeta. I think Krillin and Bulma might have been involved in the chase somewhere too, but everyone was chasing everybody else; it was confusing.
I feel there was a bit more to this but I'm not sure. When I woke up to my alarm, the real-life episode was just ending, with Goku telling Krillin to spare Vegeta's life.
The Rock Is Cruel To Animals
I just remembered another dream snippet I had, unrelated to either of the others from this date, the same night as the DBZ dream ("DBZ: The Lost Episodes."). In it I was at somebody's house (my own but different?--it seemed to be a ranch house, similar to my brother's) with a group of guys. I didn't feel threatened; I was kind of flattered to be among them. There was a couch (or more than one), and I remember a kitchen; I think I was hungry and may have gone to make something to eat. I had Katchoo, my rat, with me, and I then spotted, either leaning behind or sitting on the couch, The Rock--you know--the pro wrestler.
I thought to myself, "I bet he would be a really nice guy to Katchoo--I bet he loves animals!" So I went over to him and handed him my rat, asking him to hold her while I did something--perhaps made food. He gave me this strange look, like bordering on a scowl, but I thought maybe that was just his act. He took Katchoo and held her, and I went to do my thing, yet still watched him. He took my rat and then, as if only half jokingly, took a fork and ran it down her belly. He didn't gouge her open or anything like that, but the fork did irritate her, possibly snagging on her skin, and she squeaked in dismay. I get the feeling this fork ritual wasn't uncommon among rat owners, but The Rock had been kind of rough with her anyway. I was stunned by his callous disregard for her feelings, and hurried back to get her, feeling guilty that I'd entrusted her to him, had even WATCHED as he'd hurt her without trying to stop him!
When I took Katchoo back, I spoke in tones that indicated my surprise and upset, yet tried not to blame The Rock directly; I didn't want to get him mad, even though I was growing furious. He gave me another look--still a scowl, but now as if asking, "What? What did I do wrong?" I was angry that he DIDN'T know! She'd plainly squeaked, yet he'd hurt her anyway. So much for being a nice guy! My opinion of him completely changed, and I didn't like The Rock anymore.
During this, I think the other guys (college guys?--for some reason I think of the chubby nerdy guy from Barenaked Ladies) were watching with a bit of amusement, but I was in a foul mood now. I wanted to make sure to keep Katchoo as far away from that jerk as possible!
I believe that was it.
2002 Dreams
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