09/15/03
Body Farm Land

This is an odd dream from my regular sleep yesterday. Some details are sketchy.

I can't remember how it began...my memory picks up as I was riding somewhere with my mom and maybe with another woman or relative. We were driving down the highway I live on, heading south; it was overcast outside and seemed early in the day. I'm not sure where we were even going, but we did seem to be headed somewhere.

At some point not too far from home I looked out the window; the build of the car was strange, like it wasn't all there. There was snow on the ground and the grass which was still visible was all brown, and there was meltage around things, like in spring. I think I was looking to my left when I spotted something lying on the ground in a melted patch of snow. For some reason it drew my attention. (This whole time we were driving yet I could look at things as if we were moving slowly or standing still, and could even get closeups, similar to my old "The Death Buses" dream.) I saw that the shape on the ground was in fact a dead body, a rotting corpse; it was just lying there as if it had been laid upon the ground straight, legs stretched out and everything. I think it was on its stomach but I can't be sure. It also might have been naked, or wearing only shorts or something. Most of the skin was blackened, almost as if it had been burnt over a fire like a cooked hotdog; I knew these were not burns but were signs of decomposition. It might have been very slightly bloated, but not grotesquely so; just enough to make the limbs plump rather than skinny. There were no signs of wild animals or bacteria eating away at the flesh. It looked stiff though that must have been the pose rather than rigor mortis, as it was obviously far past that stage. I could not see the face, though I assumed it was a man.

It was just lying there beside the road in the melted snow.

I didn't freak out over this sight, but I did sit back in my seat, mumbling nervously to myself. I felt very anxious on seeing this body just lying out in the open like that. For some reason I had thoughts that it had been somebody with a hit put out on them. Perhaps someone had intended to bury the body, but instead it had been left there for a long time. There was some cognitive dissonance here because I knew something very bad was going on, yet I wasn't concerned enough to do much about it. I felt more confused than anything. Ma and whoever else, I don't think they saw the body, though I probably mentioned it and it was not as if they disbelieved me, but they showed no real concern. Hard to explain our reactions. I tried to settle down, though I was still bothered by the strange sight; why hadn't anyone taken care of that?

A field came by on our right, which I think was meant to be a real-life field not far from our home. I turned my head to look into this field and saw...ANOTHER body! Just lying there in the snow! It too was stretched out straight. I kept looking, and then saw another...I turned to my left again, probably near where the housing subdivision is in real life, and saw more and more of them lying scattered across the ground. All or most of them were stretched out and blackening from decay, yet not being eaten or falling apart. I think some were men, some women; all of them seemed to be adult. I don't specifically remember clothing so they all might have been naked or scantily dressed, or perhaps it was the decay that made the clothing hard to see. All I know is I never saw one single face.

I finally spotted one that seemed disturbed. I think it was just the legs, or just the upper body; only one half of a person. In/near the housing subdivision, I spotted another one that broke the pattern, as it was sitting upright upon something like a toilet or seat. Still dead and decaying, though. There might have been one or two more that were not stretched out and intact like the rest but I don't recall more specifics than that. It was odd that I never saw any faces, though, for some of them faced upright, especially the one which was sitting. Though some of their faces were probably just so blackened by decay that I wouldn't have been able to make out features had I tried, I get the feeling that primarily I did not WANT to see their faces, and so did not look too closely. With the upright one, in particular, I seem to remember just looking at the body, then kind of casting my stare aside before I could see too much. I felt very rattled and disturbed by now, and just grew more anxious by the minute.

(The dream here reminds me of two older ones, "The Rice Storm & The Body On The Porch" and "Lost In The Charnel House.")

Ma and whoever else it was seemed to sense my unease now, and their cheerful chatter--or whatever they had been doing--faded as we grew more intent upon reaching our destination. We were now driving up an unrecognizable dirt road, going up a slight hill. It was hilly and bumpy back here, like near the railroad tracks. Everything was brown and bare and wet. I don't think there were any bodies lying out here, though I still felt very nervous. We came over a rise and now a big old rundown farmhouse arose on our left. Right in the middle of the road ahead of us a girl appeared, possibly a teenager--tall and with plain clothing (a dress?), pale skin, and brown hair (in a bun or tail?--it was tied back somehow). She was walking from right to left, toward the house, and she turned her head to look at us. Her face--it was UGLY. She was obviously deformed. Her eyes were small and misshapen and uneven, as were the rest of her features--I think she had jutting (buck?) teeth and heavy lips. The look she gave us was a terribly unfriendly one. :( I had the feeling we were not welcome here, yet apparently this was the place we'd been looking for. Or else we just had to stop for some reason.

We made sure to let the girl pass and to appear nonthreatening, though I felt a great sense of unease just venturing onto her property. I did not like the look she had given us. I don't want to say I felt she was INBRED, but she WAS deformed, and I knew this was a kind of backwards place, as evidenced by her plain clothing and the state of the property she was on. The house looked almost like something you'd see in a Halloween movie. I think there was a tree in the yard slightly to the left of it, and lots of bare brown field behind the house; I sense that the land was not totally flat here, like there were hilly embankments on both sides of the road, or at least on the right side (the non-house side), as I couldn't see what lay behind us; maybe more field/farmland or woods. In any case, it was very dreary and depressed looking here.

We got out of the car and went into the yard. I don't know where the girl went (I call her a girl though she may have been a grown woman; unsure, I just felt she was somebody's daughter here), but I still did not like stopping here. I think I tried to talk Ma out of it but it was no use; we had to stop for some reason. We went walking up to the door and this is where the dream shifts and gets kind of nonsensical.

For starters, it's like the plot entirely changed. Secondly, I seemed to start roleplaying two points of view here, even while still keeping my anxiety about the unknown. Which makes no sense. *shrug* We went up some steps to the door--I was still nervous about bothering the strange deformed girl--but the woman who appeared to welcome us was completely different from her. I believe she had kind of longish dark blond hair which curled in at the bottom, parted in the middle, and struck me as possibly the girl's mother though they looked nothing alike. She was friendly and welcoming, nothing like the morose girl we'd seen in the road. I was rather surprised. I don't remember us specifically asking to come in, but she stepped aside to let us, and turned to show us the way into the house.

This is where I roleplayed from her point of view, but it's like I was still myself too. There was a LOT of stuff cluttering the entrance hallway (foyer?--mudroom?), making it impossible to just walk right through; it was like the stairway of our upstairs with boxes and stuff piled in it so you have to grab hold of the doorframe (there's a sort of doorframe there, inside, though there's no door) and pull yourself up and over it all to reach the stairs. I pretended to be the woman, putting one foot on the pile and grabbing hold of the doorframe to pull myself up and over it. I remember just pausing there, holding on tight as I talked, and I was almost stuck that way, it was so hard. I kind of peered under or over my arm back at the others to explain the process...then I think the woman herself appeared in front of me, and again I was myself, just hanging on in the doorway. With a slightly embarrassed smile I pulled myself through and let myself down on the other side.

We were now inside her house. It was dim in here, not nearly as dingy as one would have expected given the state of the rest of the property, but not highly immaculate, either. Everything seemed to be gray or orangish/earthy tones, rather drab, but just more dim than anything. Very poor lighting. I walked around a bit, hoping I would not come across the sullen girl again. I believe I spotted some toys lying on the floor in one room I entered and was worried that some grubby toddlers would come out; would they be ugly, too? I just don't like children much, so I felt more anxious of THEM than of mutants or corpses.

The woman walked past, talking with Ma and whoever else. Maybe we had stopped just to rest, rather than for a specific reason, but she was quite friendly. I walked further into this bigger room and looked at the toys on the floor, my attention drawn to what appeared to be a plastic mushroom, I believe (by now I can't be sure WHAT it was, just that it had some kind of cap and was made of plastic), maybe cream and dark orange colored. Not the most attractive toy in the world...but it stood out, caught my attention, and I think it had a cute little face on it for I immediately walked toward it, smiling widely.

"Hi there!" I said, as if it were alive! I think perhaps it was, or maybe I was just mistaken; at first I thought it was alive, like a pet kitten, and I spoke to it as such. "Hi, you cute little thing...how are you?" I reached down and pressed on its cap, patting it so its head bobbed down or something; this was meant to make it react, since it was a toy. Maybe it was supposed to squeak or something. To me at that point, it was the cutest thing in the world and I was happy to see it. After a moment though I began to feel a little silly, as if realizing it was just a toy and not a sentient creature, though I never was sure which exactly it was. Whatever the case was, I still liked it, and wondered if the children who lived here (if there were any) would come out too.

From somewhere behind me in another room, I heard Ma cheerfully exclaim to me, "It should only take about a week!" or some such. Even in the dream I had no clue what she was talking about, though I know she was addressing me and whatever it was about, it seemed to be good news, at least in her opinion. *shrug*

I woke up to the alarm right about there, and immediately commenced feeling anxious about the bodies. I remembered almost all of the dream immediately upon awakening, though some parts--like the beginning, before the car ride (if there was anything before that), and some details like what exactly the toy was which I was petting, faded away into vagueness.



2003 Dreams
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