09/08/03
Tiny Meteors
I had this dream during my regular sleep several days ago so it's faded.
The whole first part seemed to be almost a completely different dream. There was something about my mother; I was walking around downtown at night and the sidewalks were wet, like from a recent rain. The streetlights made them shine and it all felt a little dingy. I sensed there was a bit of gang warfare going on like in the big city. I remember passing by where one of the restaurants is...there's a walk leading down to the river, I can't remember what it's called...and near this was a movie theater, on my right. I looked at the ticket seller's booth and saw on a little marquee that only two movies were playing, both lesser-known ones, though one was well-known enough that I thought maybe our bigger local theater would carry it. I think a Latino guy, kinda scruffy/gangy looking, was running the booth; probably had a mustache or a goatee, might have been wearing a bandanna and ghetto-type clothes. I remember thinking, "Wow, the theater is so small it only has room for two movies!" (Our real-life theater, the Kingston, can play five or six; can't remember which.)
I think I might have been trying to meet up with Ma somewhere. Though there was an ominous feeling to the whole setting with the gangs and stuff, I wasn't really afraid, not even of being on my own.
Dream fade; I ended up in a vehicle manned by my brother, possibly with his wife in the passenger seat. I think it was a truck or SUV of some sort; I sat in the back, maybe with Ma. It was still nighttime and we were driving all over; Eric (my brother) was taking us somewhere to see something, I think. We just kept driving and driving over all different kinds of terrain...we came to a very, VERY steep hill and started going up it. I closed my eyes as I'm afraid of heights but as you know, when you close your eyes on a fair ride, at least, it sometimes makes it scarier. My stomach still lurched and such when I did so here; I sensed us going up a very steep rocky slope, something over a 45-degree angle! I knew we'd be okay, but it still made me anxious. I think as we were doing this I might have seen a star or planet or something out of the window, though that might not have happened until next. This part of the dream, by the way, reminded me of the other night's "Lucid Flying! Yeeeeeeee! :D" because as we drove up this hill when I shut my eyes I thought of the feeling I'd gotten while flying, and kind of willed this to happen, though I was not really lucid. My mind probably just remembered the lucid dream inside this dream while not actually achieving lucidity.
Anyway, that part of the dream faded as well and now I was at home, still at night, with Ma. I was in my room and I looked out my southwest window (the one over my bed). I peered up and had a view of the sky I would not have in real life due to tree branches; I saw a bright star which I assumed must be Mars, as it's supposed to be very close to the planet right now. In real life, Ma had told me she'd seen some sort of "extension" protruding from Mars, like an arm or something; I told her this was not possible, as it's so far away it just looks like a dot! I saw it for myself the other night and she still claimed to see the extension; to me it was just an orangish speck. She claimed it must be something wrong with her glasses and I have to agree.
Well, this incident popped up in my dream somewhat. Instead of just Mars, I saw two other bright stars near it, forming a triangular pattern. "Oh, it must be a conjunction!" I exclaimed. "Cool!" I can't quite remember the extension part, but I thought maybe I saw one...not sure. Well, I still think that incident affected the dream. NOW I noticed two MORE starlike objects positioned near the other three, only they were dimmer, like actual stars. Then I noticed that they were moving. This surprised me; I'm not sure what I thought of it at first. Were they UFOs? Something falling from the other planets? No, I realized they must be meteorites, as they fell toward Earth. I watched in awe as they descended and landed in the neighbor's field in tiny showers of sparks. Piff! Piff!, like that. Nothing stupendous, but beautiful and very odd.
This part of the dream reminds me of a much older one I had been reading from my journal in real life just the day before! That was "Meteor Strike," in which a GIANT meteorite crashed into the neighbor's field with a BOOM and I was afraid of the roof catching on fire. In THIS dream, the meteorites were mere specks, like sparklers or tiny fireworks. I noticed now that more were falling--a meteor shower. Piff, piff, piff, they started coming down and hitting the highway and the yard. Little tiny showers of sparks which scattered and vanished into nothing. I thought it was very beautiful at first, but as more began to fall (I never really saw any others besides the first two fall, I just saw when they hit) I started to get nervous. I left my room and went out to wake up Ma, who was sleeping on the couch with the light on.
She was already awake, looking puzzled. "Ma!" I exclaimed, and waved her toward the picture window, opening the blinds. "There's this meteor shower going on! Mars is out there too. You have to see this. Something might catch on fire!"
Ma got up and followed me to the window. We crouched down and looked outside. I could still see the little sparks hitting everywhere outside, like a light rain. (Heh--LITERALLY!) Ma just frowned at the darkness.
"I don't see anything. Where are they?" she asked.
"Just keep looking," I said, assuming her eyes needed to adjust to the darkness as another meteorite piffed against the highway right out front. "You'll see them EVERYWHERE in a minute!"
I was awakened several minutes early then by my dad, which may have been for the best, considering my growingly anxious state in the dream. I had thought the meteor shower might cause a fire, despite its beauty. *whew*
One Reason NOT To Lucid Dream
All right. This dream has some rather adult subject matter, so this will be embarrassing for me. o_o;;
In real life, I lay down on my left side to nap on the couch. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit was airing at first, but later on I was sleeping through The Dead Zone. Most of the "dream" took place with me lying on my side so at first I thought it was lucidity, just me thinking, and not really a dream. But now I'm not sure.
The very first memory I had was me thinking of my earlier dream, "Lucid Flying! Yeeeeeeee! :D" In that dream I experienced lucidity by flying over a lake/swamp and feeling the butterfly-like feeling in my stomach. I wondered if I could do this again now that I was halfway between awake and asleep. I tried to envision the water; I don't remember any images, but I did get this rushing, squeezing, almost painful feeling in my chest, an anxiety feeling, like it's constricting. The sort of feeling you'd get on a scary fair ride. My heart sped up, I believe, and after a few seconds of this the feeling began to diminish and I went back to normal. Although I didn't really see the water or anything I took this as a semi-success, since the physical reaction was what I had been going for anyway.
(One sort of off-topic note here is how much this physical reaction reminds me of something odd my heart did once as I dozed half awake, half asleep on the couch a long while ago. There was no dream involved, but every few minutes my heart would start beating VERY HARD--not fast, just HARD, as if it were struggling to do so--I had an actual feeling of fighting against some force, trying to get my heart to keep beating. There was a tight, constricting feeling in my chest, an anxiety feeling, as this happened. It would start up, then it would die down; then a moment later it would start up, then it would die down; it repeated this a few times. It's like something was trying to pull my heart out of my chest and I was fighting against it--a very weird feeling. Eventually I dragged myself out of sleep and wondered what all of that had been about. I do not have sleep apnea or anything like that, and while I do occasionally experience some tightness and pain in my chest/throat area due to anxiety or other unknown causes, this weird hard beating has yet to repeat itself. This feeling I got in the dream, though, was the closest I've gotten to that feeling.)
Then I decided to try to lucid dream something else. It's like I wasn't really as involved in all this as I wanted to be, maybe because I was tired and half asleep and couldn't focus? Well, what I tried to lucid dream next was...um...something pretty adult. o_o;;;;; Not sure how to put this. In real life I've created a fictional character, Damien, and I rather have a crush on him and sometimes wish I could have an adult dream about him for a change. ^_^;; This makes me feel very silly. Well, I wondered if I could lucid dream the two of us in a romantic situation? Even though what I tried to conjure up wasn't really "romantic." *cough* Yipes. I guess I should just out and say it. I tried to lucid dream myself...errrr...giving him oral sex. *COUGH* Gah, this is humiliating. There was a part of me that wanted to be excited by this, but there was another part of me that was more curious than anything. Honestly, to me the thought of doing that to a guy just doesn't strike me as appealing. I'm obsessive-compulsive and have a thing about cleanliness and against touching people and so of course I do not think I would enjoy this activity. In this half-dream state I was curious to find out why others find it so appealing. Maybe if I lucid dreamed it I would figure it out. I've always been kind of orally fixated; maybe this would shed some light on things. *shrug*
So, it seemed I was lying here on the couch trying to lucid dream this scenario, even though, according to how I write Damien as a character, this is NOT the type of activity he would enjoy, either. (He would find it demeaning to his partner. He's a bit old fashioned that way.) I had a bit of anxiety that my mom, who was seated nearby working on beading, would see me making these fish faces with my cheeks sucking in and out!! >_<;;; Then I attempted to dismiss that worry; she would have no way of knowing what I was dreaming about as long as I didn't start yelling or anything! Still, I tried being discreet and really tried to envision this to make it real.
The weirdest part is...it felt like something WAS in my mouth. Like I was sucking on my finger or something, even though I know I wasn't. Even slightly asleep I couldn't figure out what was in my mouth, but I didn't much care, I guess, since it made it easier to envision this scenario. I still never really figured out the appeal of it though, and I never really envisioned Damien either. I was more interested in seeing what would happen if I made HIM happy, but without him really there, and without me really knowing what I was doing, it was more of a failure than anything. Oh well, who cared!! >_<
Somewhere in here, I seemed to have at least two dreams featuring The Dead Zone--I think I woke up from one and went back to sleep, then had another one. I can't recall what happened in them though. This is what I remember happening next. I think I tossed the blanket a bit to cover myself better or to get more comfortable, then pushed myself upright. "If I have another dream about The Dead Zone," I groused groggily at Ma, "then I'm waking up for good." For some reason I was just sick of having Dead Zone dreams. I then lay back down on my side and attempted to go back to sleep, and must have succeeded, for I then had my "Underwater Cadets" dream. I awoke around 1 AM, just after The Dead Zone had ended.
The thing is...I was positive I had REALLY sat up and said this aloud to my mother, but when I asked her if I had sat up and said it, she didn't remember it happening. I find it difficult to believe she would have missed me sitting up and saying something so loudly to her (she was sitting only several feet away and couldn't have missed it) unless she wasn't in the room at the time (possible, as she sneaks out to go smoke when I'm napping), but as I remember seeing her sitting in the chair when I spoke...and she doesn't remember this happening...I can only assume the entire scenario was just part of the dream! This makes me wonder if the "lucid" parts featuring my heart racing and me...um...sucking...were not really lucid dreams while I was half awake, but were also just sleeping dreams themselves, with me merely THINKING they were lucid because I was remembering my lucid dream of the other night. Again I am baffled as to whether there was any real lucidity going on or if I just dreamed I was being lucid! O_o;
Underwater Cadets
This dream from my nap last night was clear after I had it; but it has rapidly faded. :( I thought thinking about it a while might make it clearer as it often does, but it hasn't.
Well, I remember one part where I was at my Grandma B.'s, I believe, with other family members. There was a LOT more in here that is just lost now; sorry. I remember looking at some big display near where the couch would be...it was kind of like a wedding cake, but also just a display. There were some dolls on it, but then I think they were just drawings around this circular display...it was plastic or cardboard or something and maybe a bit three-dimensional, and there were little cartoon women/girls all around this cylindrical (or multisided) part. I knew they were from some British(?) TV comedy series about a girls' school or beauty school or boarding house or something. I think it was like a beauty college. One character was a rude older woman who was like in charge of things and I think all the girls often made fun of her; she was kind of a harridan type. Either she or another older woman held a little poodle-like dog. There were some younger female characters too. Carly Simon had something to do with this; I saw her name near one of the characters so either she was named after her, or was supposed to be her, or something like that. As I looked at this (the many little characters, and their detailed drawings, intrigued me--it was like all in miniature) I knew I had seen it before, but back then I hadn't paid much attention to it as I hadn't known what it was. In real life, no, I have never dreamed this scene, but in my dream I knew I'd been there before.
I may have explored around a bit. Here the dream gets confusing. It was a family gathering, but then it shifted into something...wish I could remember how this went. I seemed to be in some kind of movie. I want to say disaster movie but that's not quite right. I think it was kind of the future and much of the Earth was under water like in Waterworld, but it wasn't so sci-fi'ish. There was also a dash of Starship Troopers in here. This is so hard to explain as I'm not sure how it fit in with the earlier part of the dream, how we made this transition. I think one moment I was at the gathering wanting to eat some cake (I seem to remember a part where I was at a table with some cake and was going to eat it), then events escalated and now we were involved in some kind of rescue mission or emergency mission or something. All I know for sure is water was involved.
I was now on some sort of ship or submarine which was above the water. I was with all these other people (my relatives?--most were younger, like me--we seemed to be teenagers) and an older man (forties or fifties) dressed in military wear (fatigues or some such, with a matching baseball cap--I think he had a silvery crewcut, was well built, and rather handsome, for an older guy) was giving us our orders. We were young and somewhat inexperienced but I feel we were the only chance anyone had.
I think I might have been the youngest, most naive member of the team. At some point I got dressed and put on a baseball cap of my own, like the rest of us. We wore kind of khaki or camouflage fatigue-type clothing, I think, and dark blue caps. We were on a ship or something that looked functional like a boiler room, all in shades of tan and such, with pipes and everything. I sat at a shelf/table/something with my elbows leaning on it; I was careful putting my cap on so it wouldn't ruin my ponytail, then looked at myself in a mirror. (I was surrounded by the others, who were listening to the team leader--I faced a wall or something with open space behind me.) I noticed specifically that this cap was WAY too big for me; it had seemed fine before, but now I realized I just looked silly. It was so huge! I looked like such a geek! I felt ashamed and immediately wanted a smaller cap. Somebody to my right handed a cap over and I looked at it hopefully, but after a moment noticed it seemed just as big as the one I was wearing. My hopes deflated. I glanced at the others around me, and while they noticed me, nobody mentioned my oversized cap. I sensed now that there were more important things going on, so I should not worry about something so trivial. Here I got the feeling of being the youngest and most naive member of the team, so I was expected to look a little geeky and ill at ease, rather like a colt or something with knobby knees and gangly limbs. I knew the other team members would allow me some leeway in my inexperience, just as long as I tried my best. Some screwups were allowed on my part. I did feel self-conscious of being the most inexperienced one here, and wondered if I could truly contribute, but I did feel a little better that they would tolerate me. I felt I was in a learning position--I was the young one everyone would take under their wing, so I had a place here too on the team.
Having learned of our mission (whatever it was), we filed out onto the deck or something. I think it might have been overcast, but I know for sure we were on a vast body of water like the ocean. The water was probably amber or greenish. I wanted to participate and help, but then I realized participation required--GOING UNDERWATER!! There was a sort of "lift"--a metal grate, maybe with bars around the sides--that we were to step on and it would lower us into the water almost like a shark cage without a top. We were expected to ride this down into the water and then swim off on our mission. ACK!! I'm TERRIFIED to death of deep water! :(
Something very odd happened here though. While I was very anxious and suddenly indecisive of whether I should go along...I stepped onto the metal grate anyway. It's like I wasn't really expecting to go down, like I hadn't made up my mind yet, but the platform was lowered and I went along with it! There was MILD lucidity here...I never fully realized it was a dream, but I did try to convince myself, on some half-conscious level, that the water would not hurt me if I just took a deep breath and prepared myself for it. Only as the platform lowered did I think, wait a minute, how LONG do we have to hold our breath??--but by then it was too late to protest. Our feet went under the water, then our legs, then us. I took a breath (not a deep one though) and shut my eyes as we slowly went under the surface.
A significant detail here--me closing my eyes. In real life, I'm terrified of my head/face being underwater, and part of that has to do with the water getting into my nose, ears, and eyes. I literally can't put my nose underwater, nor open my eyes beneath the surface; I get too much of a claustrophobic feeling and start to panic. In the dream, my nose and ears didn't really give me trouble--somehow we could still breathe, though we had to conserve air--but I kept my eyes closed for a time in the fear that opening them would upset me. I seem to remember envisioning bubbles rising past me. I think one of the other team members nudged me or something so I tentatively opened one eye, maybe near the bottom, and nothing happened. So I could now see. We were on the bottom of this watery place (all ambery/browny colored?) and it was very clear, like pool water. You could see into the distance; it was like being on another planet. Sandy, level bottom with some rocks here and there, no seaweed, no fish life that I can recall. Very weird. I think we got off and walked around to try to find our objective.
I believe we were supposed to locate some underwater-dwelling people and evacuate them or protect them or something. I seemed to get split off from the others and found a house with a sliding glass door. I can't remember how this happened--did one of my teammates go in, and I followed?--did the door just open and I went in?--or did I ask to be allowed in? There are so many details missing by now. :( I do feel there was more to or before this part, but I can't remember it.
In any case I went into this house...I think there was a cubicle section behind the sliding glass door where the air was pressurized or something so water would not leak in. Like a foyer. It was brightly lit and offwhite/cream colored in the foyer but dimmer inside, a modern home though I got a Fifties feel...more on that in a bit. There was a woman here, a nice lady with brown styled hair, probably shoulder length; a little old fashioned. I'm not sure if I saw her husband or not. She seemed to be in her forties. We (I think a team member might have been with me) were greeted in the foyer--or at least, my teammate was, while I stood behind--then we went inside, maybe after taking off part of our uniforms or something (wet shoes?). We went into the house proper--I know the doors had been see-through glass, maybe all the walls were too?--and I think we were offered food. I hadn't meant to come or stay in at first, but they were so friendly I had to sit down and join them. I felt very shy and so did not speak as I did so.
I think my teammate might have been even younger than I was now, and female, but not as shy or anything as I was. I believe we were given TV dinners with mashed potatoes, maybe meatloaf or something, etc. The woman and whoever else was with her joined us so we would have been eating together, though people kept wandering around talking about things. The cozy, family dinner atmosphere made me think of things which went out of fashion in the Fifties. All I know is as I looked at my meal I thought to myself, "This is like a real family dinner. I wish we could do this at home more often. I wish my family could do this at all."
Oddly enough, though we were strangers, I just loved the thought of everyone sitting down to TV dinners, together, like this; I felt so welcome and happy. It was such a homey, family feeling. *sigh* In real life we just never do that. :/ I loved being made to feel welcome here, though I don't think I got to eat anything.
Now instead of the woman, there were two women before me at the end of the table, probably middle aged or older. They were very chatty. This is where I felt this might have been in the future, possibly after an apocalypse, as one of them pulled something out. "I really wish I had a new one of these," she said in passing, and set it on the table. As she and the other woman talked, perhaps reminiscing about better times, I leaned forward to see that it was a compact of some sort, a little rectangular plastic case for eyeshadow. This is confusing because it was pinkish colored and so looked more like rouge, but I know it was eyeshadow. There were two spots that had been rubbed/worn down to the bottom of the little container, so they were almost out of this makeup. I got the feeling this sort of commodity had become rare in these days, hence their wanting some more.
"Perfume," I said, aloud; then corrected myself--"Eye makeup." They didn't really notice me. I reached in and started digging in something I had with me...I seem to remember a part in here where the layout changed, maybe I was in a diner or cafe with my partner and my mother, and I was digging different things out and/or putting different things in...food items...yes, I seem to remember candy and chocolate in particular; I was trying to eat some of it in a hurry, I might have dropped some and worried about it getting dirty/fuzzy, then I was wrapping some up in paper or something and packing it away in some odd, brightly lit cafe with big glass windows overlooking a blue (underwater?--rainy?) landscape. Not sure what part of the dream that fit into though. In this part, I started digging around and finally pulled out...my own little makeup compact!
Mine was a slightly different shade of coral/pink. I think it had only one worn-down spot, but it was supposed to be almost full or at least fuller than the one the two older women had. I was going to reach out and set it in front of them and hope they discovered it by surprise; I wanted to see the happiness on their faces when they found some more makeup. Then I felt silly. Mine suddenly wasn't new or full anymore, but almost as empty as theirs. Should I even give it to them? One part of me argued that it DID still have SOME makeup in it, so any little bit could help, but another part of me felt silly to give them something that might not be as useful as they'd wanted when they obviously wanted a fuller container. *sigh* I sat here in indecision holding onto the little rectangular compact and pondered giving it to them straight out, leaving it for them to find later, or not giving it to them at all. :/
I woke up RIGHT at this point, though as I said there was more to the dream--including with the circular display and the odd scene with the chocolate candy and even more--but I can't remember any of it well enough to describe. Very confusing.
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