Saturday 20 October 2007

The Dream of October 20th, approx. 3am - 4am CET

I just awoke from this dream about half an hour ago and I think I need to get it out of my system before I try to sleep again, because just now - as soon as I started to drift off - I wound up right back inside it, even before I was even fully asleep. And it's not a funny dream, well, perhaps parts of it might seem to someone who just reads it, but every moment of it was drenched in anxiety, fear and nausea. I'll make little comments about how things relate to reality as I go along, since it seems necessary this time.
It started off all right, I think I was having a dream inside my dream - or it was its own dream and I just was aware of the fact that it was not real as the second dream started. I dreamt that Rush were playing (as they will on October 27th) but that they played completely different songs from their real ones. I vividly remember that they were playing "What's the colour of love?" (a song performed by two Swedish women sometime in the late 80's, I think. It's also a song my choir sings occasionally and I went to a party with my choir last night) and they were really upset with me - or possibly the whole crowd - for not knowing and singing along to the songs (odd, since after singing this one with my choir, I know it a lot better than most Rush songs). I think they stormed off the stage and that most of my friends who were at the gig blamed me for it. Kit, Magnus, Cristoffer, Claes, Harald - and loads of others.


Then the second dream began, or I awoke from this one in my dream. And I was so frightened of this happening that I began to search frantically for Rush songs on my comp to learn them. But at the same time I had a lot of other things going on too - stories I was reading online, and videos I was watching. I think that one of the stories had some kind of sexual content. There was something weird about how I was feeling, and I remember that details of the dream were sort of swimming together and I know that Rush somehow got affected by this in my dream. I definitely didn't dream that I was having sex with them or imagining that I was in the dream, but I am very certain that there was something about that, even if it's something untangible (It's important to straighten out that there was something sexual about one of those stories since something later in the dream will be affected by it). I remember that one of the videos I had going on youtube was a man talking on a grassy hill with a tree that was overlooking the ocean and it was quite windy there.

At some point, the focus shifts from what is happening on the computer to what is happening in the room, and I somehow become aware that not everything is right. I'm living in a room that seems to be on a floor that's more of an attic of this old house, the walls are wooden and the ceiling is at an angle (I don't know how to describe this in English, really, except point out that the ceiling was higher in one end of the room and lower in another - not just flat and at the same distance from the floor in every part of the room). I'm not sure if I exit the room first or not, and I'm not sure if we say anything before this, but I start talking loudly to my mum who is in the room next to mine and at some point she says:
'I know it's really warm, but just try to sleep!'
and I, who had not even noticed anything odd in temperature, go to check my thermometer, which is attached to a toilet in my room. It might be in a small bathroom that's sort of part of the room, I don't remember exactly, but it's still a very odd place to keep a thermometer and I think I realise this in the dream too. It's at 36,7 degrees celsius, I think. That's body temperature - so yes, it's warm as hell. And only now do I notice. Now that I have other things start to become apparent, like that the humidity and heat of the room have started to make items softer, and almost melt.The desk and computer screen have the texture of a very thick kind of paper that's been soaked in water. Next, I look up and see that the lamp on my ceiling has this little net attached around it, and inside them are bugs. Big ones. They've got a dirty kind of yellowish bodies that are about the size and shapes of large cigars, and wings so they're flying around in there. It's not a big net as such, and there are quite a few bugs so it's cramped. I alert my mother about this, fear making my heart beat faster and increasing my dread, unease and nausea about the whole situation in the dream.
'Which bugs? The large yellow ones flying around the lamps?' she then yelled from inside her room.
'Yes!'
'Oh, they're harmless! I'm more concerned about the big black ones crawling around under my bed.'
My breathing is really fast now and I know that I'm almost in tears, I'm so afraid. And I get on my knees and look under the bed - but I can't for the life of me remember if I found any bugs under there. I probably did, because I remember what those black ones looked like. They were like crayfish, only not quite so large (though, close enough to make them absolutely horrifying). And I storm into my mother's room without knocking. I remember thinking that this was wrong but at the same time she didn't say anything about it. Though, I have the same kind of hazy recollection of her doing something that I didn't want to interrupt, or not want to see or... I have no idea what - nothing perverted or anything, just something private. Just that sense of having bothered someone.
'What the hell are we going to do?' I asked, in a pleading voice.
'It'll be all right,' she says, but I am convinced that it won't be.
When I exit the room someone comes out of the room opposite hers. There's this little area by the stairs with no decorations except an ugly old rug of some kind, and another lamp on the ceiling with a net and trapped yellow bugs in it. There are four or five doors up there and the person who comes out is my mother's tenant. I know this, and this is probably the only part that I can, now, think about and see the humour in without being reminded about the way I felt throughout the dream. The tenant is Dennis Rodman. Yup. And in the dream it's the most natural thing in the world to have the NBA hero renting a room in my mum's old house. He wonders what all the loud talking is all about and does not seem bothered by any of the things wrong with the house.

I go back to my room and now my brother has joined me and he's noticed that I have a lot of stuff going on with my comp.
'Whoa, you need to upgrade your [enter name of some weird software that makes everything run smoother and definitely does not exist]! There's a new version out, it's great!'
'Not now, I'll do it later!' I reply, in a forbidding voice since I am aware of the story (or whatever it was) of a sexual nature that I still have open in word, or firefox.
'But see here, look!' he says, and he's opened a picture of the tray icon of the new, updated version of the software, 'Look at this oven - it's so much better than the old oven!'
Yes, I know. Oven? But for some reason, this makes perfect sense. The tray icon picture is definitely the picture of an oven - even though it's not, I can even sort of describe it. It was black with some red bits in it, the bottom half of the icon is mostly red - and all that redness illustrates how good the software is, compared to my old "oven" which is black and green - and the green in the black is much more sparse than the red ones on his version. Yeah, OK, this was funny too - but remember that in this dream not only did this software make sense to me, but I was also in a excruciatingly hot and humid room with bugs the size of my hands in it, a toilet with a thermometer. All this in an old, wooden house that also had Dennis Rodman living in it. Yeah, OK, the whole scenario is hilarious - but I was so frightened, and felt so sick and afraid in the dream - I felt worse than I have in any dream for a long time.

While my brother was updating that software I walked over to the only window in the room and found that my view was that same grassy hill with a tree that I had seen in the video on Youtube, and I had not been aware of this before. Then I sat down on the floor and a kitten walks up to me, it's eight weeks old (approx.) and I know that I have stolen it from a girl who was my best friend when I was ten but who later moved and we lost contact, running into each other just once a few years ago. The kitten (which by the way is white and grey, definitely REAL and in reality belongs to my brother's girlfriend - though it's a bit older now) walks up to me like it wants to be stroked or cuddled, but at first I ignore it. But as it turns to walk away I realise that I want to cuddle it and reach out to grab it. As I do, it apparently decides that it doesn't want to be cuddled and tries to walk away from my hand, and I tighten my grip to seize it and lift it up. But, and this was SO horrible in the dream, my grip isn't on the body right behind the front legs, where I would normally hold a kitten that I want to lift. I squeeze tha back of its body instead and I squeezed too hard. I remember that I could feel the internal organs through it's skin and fur and bile rose in my throat. The kitten seemed unharmed though and I immediately put it in my lap to make sure it was all right. By now, my brother had also sat down on the floor right opposite me. The kitten leaves my lap to go to my brother instead. I remember telling him that I've borrowed the cat and will be watching it for a few days.
'Oh,' he says, and that's the last thing I remember before waking up.




And now I'm supposed to be getting up in an hour to take a shower, pack a few things, and catch a train to Gävle with my friend Beppo. I had trouble falling asleep in the first place and as I mentioned couldn't shake the dream environment as I was trying to fall back to sleep before. But I'll try again now, maybe I can get half an hour of shut-eye.
Anyways, here's hoping the next dream is more pleasant but equally weird.

I am SO not reading all this through to check for mistakes and typos, even when I do I've noticed I miss loads of them. Perhaps something about just having awoken and hurrying to type out one's dreams before they are forgotten makes those mistakes a bit more frequent than they normally are. (:-P

Sunday 14 October 2007

The Dream of an unknown October night

I don't remember exactly when this was, and the dream is very short. But after retelling it to Kit, who played a major role in it and getting positive feedback I have to post it. (:-)

I'm in a church, a small one, probably early 19th century - the decor is made only of wood. The seats are old-fashioned pews, you know, wide benches on each side that have little wooden doors you have to open to take a seat. I'm in a wedding dress and I'm marrying a musician. I don't think it's a "real" musician, I'm fairly certain that he was fictional. Anyway, we're walking down the aisle, slowly, to the music. The song playing is "Get Down" by the Backstreet Boys (now there's the 'go figure' of the century), and everyone is turning to look at us as we walk past them, but they're all still seated. Big, friendly smiles covering all of their face. Except for Kit, who is grinning like an idiot from her seat right by the aisle. And when I walk past her she jumps up and yells "HIGH FIVE!!!". So I high five her and we burst out laughing. We're laughing the way we usually do after spending a few days 'on the road' together and not getting enough sleep as we're on buses from town to town, checking out gigs. And then I wake up.

When I told Kit about this dream she informed me that she will most definitely do this if I ever do get married. I won't mind, weddings are usually too uptight anyway. (:-)