Well, boys and girls, it's Porcupine Tree tour season. You know what that means? Yup. Loads, and loads of odd, scary and totally weird Porcupine Tree gig-dreams for me. Bus drivers go on strike, blizzards ground all flights to the UK, RyanAir goes bankrupt and we're nuked, band members get sick and postpone all December UK gigs... I tell you, the upcoming trip is going to give me ulcers. Especially since there has been no word on the tickets yet. Fucking seetickets idiots. How hard is it to reply to an e-mail and give an update on the tickets? Do they not have opposable thumbs?
Aaaaanyway. So, I had this dream that was... Well, I have to clear some things up first. This gig was always in a small venue in what looked like this old barn-like place. But the mood kept changing for me. At first it was as if it was just a regular PT gig, and Kit and I were so excited, but there were technical problems. Then the mood shifted and suddenly this was a PT gig like... ten years ago and the band was unknown, getting screwed over by the venue and promoter, and Kit and I did not know each other (although we were the same ages we are now).
Before the gig started, there were hardly any people in the venue, and we talked to Steven for a while up front by the stage. And it was really cool because we weren't nervous in the slightest and just had a really nice conversation with him. We've talked to Steven and the rest of the band several times, and while it's a lot easier now we still do feel reeeaaally nervous, which is why I vividly remember how wonderful this conversation was.
After we'd talked the band played and there were problems or something and they had to take a break. Everyone got frustrated and we weren't sure what was going on. When they came back the mood had changed and it was ten years earlier, the band was different - even though they were still their present day selves and Gavin and Wes were there - and Kit was a total stranger to me. There was this crazy old woman behind me that I talked to, she had no clue who this band was, she just happened to live in the rural area that the gig took place in. It was up north, in a province called Dalarna (sometimes referred to as Dalecarlia in English) - that I've never been to - and in my dream all the people there were cracked. I was the only one who was there for the band, well, Kit probably was too, but at this point I didn't know her.
They took another break, during which more scary people talked to me, and then they came back on. After a few more songs, and a few more problems I suddenly saw SW with this advent calendar thing. And he opened the 24th "door" and read the name of what sounded like a snapsvisa, in quite impressive Swedish pronounciation. Apparently, the fact that this was written in the advent calendar meant that they had to play it. I do not know if they did, I suppose I would have remembered, and then they finished the gig and I got to talk a bit to SW. I said it was such a shame that they'd pulled out that snapsvisa for no good reason. He said that promoters in some countries did that a lot to them and that they had to put up with it. Apparently it was also quite common in Poland. I suggested that next time they should just tell the promoter to fuck off. At this point I think I suggested a couple of fitting phrases in Swedish that could be used for this purpose, and SW had no problem with them, he must've picked up on a lot of Swedish while working with Opeth and Paatos. Then he excused himself and said the band had to leave now, and just before he left I called out to him and told him that the only phrase I knew in Polish might help when Polish promoters tried the same thing. He asked what it was, I told him, and he asked me to repeat it. Clearly his Polish wasn't as good as his Swedish. So I did and he wondered what it meant. I told him that it means "you're a fucking dick". And, this actually IS the only phrase I know how to say in Polish (can't type it though, sorry).
Again, the mood shifted, and now Kit and I were leaving the messed up gig. The mood was so subdued that I think in this alternate-universe-mood the band had said they'd never play in Sweden again. Stupid Sweden.
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Monday, 12 November 2007
The Dream of November 8-9
OK, so it's been a few days since I had this dream and I've been at Kit's and seen Riverside & Anekdoten since, but I did try to "go through" this dream inside my head several times to keep the details as clear as possible.
I was in high school, and for some reason it was this really small, all-girl school. In Sweden we have regular schools run by the municipalities and an increasing number of schools that are run privately. They don't cost money (in most cases at least) and they're usually focused on specific types of subjects. My school was one of these, though why it was all-girls I have no idea. In fact, the thought of going to an all-girl school horrifies me beyond belief.
Anyways, we were on a school trip of some sort. I think we might have been putting together some kind of Lucia celebration, but it could've been anything, really. We were in something that looked a lot like a warehouse. I think there was a boy there that I noticed for some reason, there might have been a conversation or something with him, but this part has become too blurry for me to retell. However, I did see two men in their mid-thirties there and at the time I didn't think anything of them. Just two men, one of them was Asian and one was African.
Something happens, I don't know what, or how, but suddenly I find myself in a house. There's a view from my window and I am very unfamiliar with the surroundings, but I know that I've been kidnapped. For some reason they haven't taken my mobile so I dial 112 (the emergency number in Sweden) and it doesn't work properly. I have no idea what's going on at first, but then for some reason I find out that I'm in Sudan and I dial 00 46 112, hoping that the international access code of Sudan is 00 like in most other countries. Apparently it is, at least in my dreamworld. And when someone answers I tell them my name, personal ID number (everyone in Sweden has one) and that I've been kidnapped and I'm in Sudan, but that I was at school in Norrköping (a town I've never lived in) when it happened. The woman on the other line laughs at me. "This is the emergency number for Uppsala!" Then one of us hangs up.
A few days pass by, someone puts a plate of food under my door every now and then and when I wake up one morning I look out of the window and the view is different. I'm in Hong Kong. I call again, and tell them whatever information I might have left out last time and that I've been moved to Hong Kong - anything that might help them find me there. Nothing. No one believes me.
A few more days go by and I look out the window. I'm in the country-side, in what looks like Sweden. And I realise that the room has never changed, even though the view has. From what I understand, they've been drugging me and I've been hallucinating different environments - probably based on the ethnicities of the two men who kidnapped me. And, again, I call for help and I know that in the end they were caught. But I think I managed to escape on my own first (not sure though, I can't remember actually escaping from the house), because I remember seeing this... place somewhere that has been in my dreams before. It looks like a mixture of three different places I've been to in real life. There's a gravel road with houses on the left side of it, and a field on the right. It goes up a slope and turns a bit to the right, past another house, and I think it leads to the house I was held in. But that same place has appeared before in dreams of mine, I'm certain of it. And the weird part is, as I look up towards the end of that road I can hear myself breathe. Drawing fast and heavy breaths, and my heart is always beating very fast.
I think I may have run from something there before. I'm desperately trying to remember in what dream, or dreams, I've been to that place, but it's difficult. Somehow I'm certain that a detailed dream has taken place there, but I think it's been six months, at least, since I had it. Damn. Should've started this blog earlier. (:-P
I was in high school, and for some reason it was this really small, all-girl school. In Sweden we have regular schools run by the municipalities and an increasing number of schools that are run privately. They don't cost money (in most cases at least) and they're usually focused on specific types of subjects. My school was one of these, though why it was all-girls I have no idea. In fact, the thought of going to an all-girl school horrifies me beyond belief.
Anyways, we were on a school trip of some sort. I think we might have been putting together some kind of Lucia celebration, but it could've been anything, really. We were in something that looked a lot like a warehouse. I think there was a boy there that I noticed for some reason, there might have been a conversation or something with him, but this part has become too blurry for me to retell. However, I did see two men in their mid-thirties there and at the time I didn't think anything of them. Just two men, one of them was Asian and one was African.
Something happens, I don't know what, or how, but suddenly I find myself in a house. There's a view from my window and I am very unfamiliar with the surroundings, but I know that I've been kidnapped. For some reason they haven't taken my mobile so I dial 112 (the emergency number in Sweden) and it doesn't work properly. I have no idea what's going on at first, but then for some reason I find out that I'm in Sudan and I dial 00 46 112, hoping that the international access code of Sudan is 00 like in most other countries. Apparently it is, at least in my dreamworld. And when someone answers I tell them my name, personal ID number (everyone in Sweden has one) and that I've been kidnapped and I'm in Sudan, but that I was at school in Norrköping (a town I've never lived in) when it happened. The woman on the other line laughs at me. "This is the emergency number for Uppsala!" Then one of us hangs up.
A few days pass by, someone puts a plate of food under my door every now and then and when I wake up one morning I look out of the window and the view is different. I'm in Hong Kong. I call again, and tell them whatever information I might have left out last time and that I've been moved to Hong Kong - anything that might help them find me there. Nothing. No one believes me.
A few more days go by and I look out the window. I'm in the country-side, in what looks like Sweden. And I realise that the room has never changed, even though the view has. From what I understand, they've been drugging me and I've been hallucinating different environments - probably based on the ethnicities of the two men who kidnapped me. And, again, I call for help and I know that in the end they were caught. But I think I managed to escape on my own first (not sure though, I can't remember actually escaping from the house), because I remember seeing this... place somewhere that has been in my dreams before. It looks like a mixture of three different places I've been to in real life. There's a gravel road with houses on the left side of it, and a field on the right. It goes up a slope and turns a bit to the right, past another house, and I think it leads to the house I was held in. But that same place has appeared before in dreams of mine, I'm certain of it. And the weird part is, as I look up towards the end of that road I can hear myself breathe. Drawing fast and heavy breaths, and my heart is always beating very fast.
I think I may have run from something there before. I'm desperately trying to remember in what dream, or dreams, I've been to that place, but it's difficult. Somehow I'm certain that a detailed dream has taken place there, but I think it's been six months, at least, since I had it. Damn. Should've started this blog earlier. (:-P
Thursday, 1 November 2007
The Dream of October 31 - November 1
So, this dream began with me and Kit piloting a commercial airplane. Huge thing, much larger than the RyanAir ones I'm used to. And it was maroon, not sure that matters, but still. Apparently my art class was going somewhere, because both my professors and all the people in my class were on the plane. Why Kit was there, I have no idea. Nor why we were the ones flying the damn thing. The really odd thing (well, ONE of the really odd things) was that we were indoors when we were preparing for takeoff. Like in a long, huge corridor. And we were not on the ground floor of the building, but on the second floor, making this even weirder. The building had a roof that covered it all the way to the end of the landing strip where there was no wall or anything. It was as if someone had just torn off the wall and the building ended there. And still we were supposed to get the plane to take off at the exact end of the runway, otherwise the plane would fall down to the ground when we reached the end. If you know me and Kit at all you will probably have realised by now that that's exactly what happened. And my teachers, my class... They were all yelling att me, telling me I fucked up and that I'd ruined the school trip. The plane was still fine, the ten feet drop had done nothing to damage it, and we were on this road right by a huge lake. There was a bridge across it and I suggested we try to take off from the bridge instead. Again, people yelled at me. This time for my stupid ideas. So I said: "Well, let's just... drive out on the bridge and go to Visingsö!" Visingsö is an island in the middle of Lake Vättern, the second largest lake in Sweden. I grew up in Jönköping, at the southern tip of that lake and I can tell you that there is no bridge to that island. But still, we went on the bridge in our plane.
Now, we've arrived on the island and we're looking around. It would make sense that we'd be going to view art or architecture, but suddenly we were in this huge place that held a whole bunch of smaller buildings inside it. They were fairly large, but not large enough to fit what the doors to them actually claimed they contained. The sets of pretty much every American daytime soap there is + a few more that don't exist, that I just made up. So we start sprinting down the "street" to look at every little house and see which ones are there. After six or seven of them we reached a much smaller one that didn't have the name of a soap on it, but actually the name of an actor. I don't really know his name and I didn't in the dream either, I just knew who he was anyway. The guy who plays "Renegade". That weirdo... outlaw, or whatever he was, from the TV series with the same name. You know, that 80's one where everyone has weird hair. For some reason, I decide that it would be so much fun to kick down his door, and no doubt he would be impressed. Behind me someone, not Kit, is shouting that I shouldn't. But still I do, and the second the door has been kicked down I know it was a mistake and I run. Not far, just to the sofa that's just nearby. There's a table too, and on the other side is a chair with a woman sitting on it. Then there are shouts from the room of the actor and I hear running steps from somewhere else, and more shouting.
"What the hell?!" said the voice from the room.
"It's all right, it was just a mistake!" shouts one of the two men who are running towards the room.
"Who are those girls? Give me one good reason not to shoot them!" says the man who has emerged from the actor's dressing room - only it's not the dude from Renegade, it's someone I've never seen before.
However, the two men who came running are the dude from Renegade and his sidekick, you know, the native American guy with the even goofier hair. And now I realise it's not the actors, but the actual characters.
"That one...", says Renegade, indicating the woman in the chair, "is my wife."
"And the other one...", says the sidekick dude, "is my girlfriend."
Now, I know that what he said saved my life and I ought to be grateful, but still, all I can do is to, very loudly, blurt out: "EEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!!" at the thought of us being a couple.
And then I woke up.
Now, we've arrived on the island and we're looking around. It would make sense that we'd be going to view art or architecture, but suddenly we were in this huge place that held a whole bunch of smaller buildings inside it. They were fairly large, but not large enough to fit what the doors to them actually claimed they contained. The sets of pretty much every American daytime soap there is + a few more that don't exist, that I just made up. So we start sprinting down the "street" to look at every little house and see which ones are there. After six or seven of them we reached a much smaller one that didn't have the name of a soap on it, but actually the name of an actor. I don't really know his name and I didn't in the dream either, I just knew who he was anyway. The guy who plays "Renegade". That weirdo... outlaw, or whatever he was, from the TV series with the same name. You know, that 80's one where everyone has weird hair. For some reason, I decide that it would be so much fun to kick down his door, and no doubt he would be impressed. Behind me someone, not Kit, is shouting that I shouldn't. But still I do, and the second the door has been kicked down I know it was a mistake and I run. Not far, just to the sofa that's just nearby. There's a table too, and on the other side is a chair with a woman sitting on it. Then there are shouts from the room of the actor and I hear running steps from somewhere else, and more shouting.
"What the hell?!" said the voice from the room.
"It's all right, it was just a mistake!" shouts one of the two men who are running towards the room.
"Who are those girls? Give me one good reason not to shoot them!" says the man who has emerged from the actor's dressing room - only it's not the dude from Renegade, it's someone I've never seen before.
However, the two men who came running are the dude from Renegade and his sidekick, you know, the native American guy with the even goofier hair. And now I realise it's not the actors, but the actual characters.
"That one...", says Renegade, indicating the woman in the chair, "is my wife."
"And the other one...", says the sidekick dude, "is my girlfriend."
Now, I know that what he said saved my life and I ought to be grateful, but still, all I can do is to, very loudly, blurt out: "EEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!!" at the thought of us being a couple.
And then I woke up.
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
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. (:-)
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. (:-)
Tuesday, 25 September 2007
The Dream of September 24-25
In this dream I was talking to some exchange students, French guys. And they were talking about new exchange students coming in from France the next day. I offered to drive to the airport and pick them up. What a brilliant idea! It's not like I have a driver's license or a car... But for some reason I had my mum's old car in the dream, a 1990 Ford Fiesta (or Death Trap, whichever name you prefer).
Before I drove to the airport I ended up at this kid's birthday party. The only people there were me, the kid's mum and some bloke she was dating or something, and an whole bunch of kids. For some reason the potential step-father bought the kid a keyboard and the kid was pressing all the weid buttons he could find ending up with all sorts of horrible rhythms and then of course he couldn't play at all. The man who gave it to him was half-heartedly trying to play an actual melody at the same time, but failed to do so. Then he looked up at me, our eyes met and he gave me this odd look.
The dream shifts.
Now it's time to go to the airport, I get in the car and head for Skavsta, whick is about 80 minutes, or so, by car. For some reason, probably fear of having to park next to other cars and not managing that, I find a deserted parking lot a little further away from the airport. When I get out of the car I know exactly which way to go to get to Skavsta Airport. But then I get to this area enclosed by mountains, where there seems to be a camp of some sort. Teenagers, no doubt on the run from their families, seem to be living here and I just know they kill outsiders (I think I'm sort of familiar with them and their story). So I do my best to try to look a few years younger than I actually am and... well, more sulky than I actually am too. Somehow I make it through the camp.
Then I hear on the radio, which is odd since I didn't have one with me, that police have heard reports of a non-licensed driver in the area and are on the lookout, putting up some roadblocks and stuff. Now, the police in this province DO have far too much time on their hands, but this seems a bit extreme. And how did they know? I hadn't run into any trouble at all so far, so how on earth they knew I didn't have a license I have no idea. But I'm too scared to go to the airport, so I just head into the neighbouring town - Nyköping - instead. It looked just like the neighbourhood I lived in when I was a kid. And I've been to Nyköping a couple of times and I know what it looks like in real life.
I walk around there a little bit before deciding to head back home. The road blocks have been removed and I set off. The odd thing is, while I'm on the right road home, I get to this off-ramp with a roundabout that's nowhere near where I was, it's actually right where my mum lives - and that's southwest of my uni town, whereas I was norteast of my uni town in this dream. For some reason I pull off the motorway, knowing full well that it's the wrong way to go. But when I try to get back on it I end up on this tiny, tiny road right next to it. It ends by this museum, or something, which is right by a tube station. We most definitely do not have an underground system in either of the three towns I've been in during the course of this dream. I check out the old museum, which is full of lamps, and see two middle-aged men who look... well, progressive. As I always do when I see people like that I thought "cool, I wonder if they like prog?" and then kept looking at the old lamps. When I left out the front door there was this old lady sweeping up, and I know we talked, but I can not remember about what.
After this I'm on the phone with my mum. To make sure she doesn't suspect me of having the car I tell her I'm slightly tipsy. Just that, no story, nothing that makes sense - I'm just a bit tipsy. Suddenly I realise that I'm not by the car, but at the tube station. I sigh and sit down on the stairs by the platform and the two potenitally progressive men are there. So I ask them if they know how I get to the place I parked my car from there, but apparently they've heard me tell my mum that I was tipsy so the one with the long hair (one had long hair, one was bald) starts telling me how bad it is to drink and drive... ...using Van der Graaf Generator metaphors. At least now I knew they were prog fans. I think I left at this point, but I don't know where I went or what happened next.
At some point I woke up and that was that.
(then I checked MSN and found the following message from my friend Beppo: "Karin calls on the mobile, but the other end is silent when I answer... I check the time and discover that it's a full hour until she normally wakes up and realise that she's probably sleeping ON her mobile and hit the phone book by mistake")
That was true, btw. I must have switched off the alarm clock and fallen asleep on the phone. I haven't dared to check to see if I called anyone else yet, but probably not as Beppo's number was the last one I called before this incident. And to redial the last number called you only need to press the "dial" key twice on my phone.
I'm tired, and the weather sucks today. Last night, at 4 30 (in the morning) I chased this rather large wasp around my room, trying to kill it. I ended up shutting the groggy-looking beast in a cupboard, I hope he's died in there during the night. Otherwise he'll be angry and annoyed when I open.
DUN-DUN-DUUUUUN!
Before I drove to the airport I ended up at this kid's birthday party. The only people there were me, the kid's mum and some bloke she was dating or something, and an whole bunch of kids. For some reason the potential step-father bought the kid a keyboard and the kid was pressing all the weid buttons he could find ending up with all sorts of horrible rhythms and then of course he couldn't play at all. The man who gave it to him was half-heartedly trying to play an actual melody at the same time, but failed to do so. Then he looked up at me, our eyes met and he gave me this odd look.
The dream shifts.
Now it's time to go to the airport, I get in the car and head for Skavsta, whick is about 80 minutes, or so, by car. For some reason, probably fear of having to park next to other cars and not managing that, I find a deserted parking lot a little further away from the airport. When I get out of the car I know exactly which way to go to get to Skavsta Airport. But then I get to this area enclosed by mountains, where there seems to be a camp of some sort. Teenagers, no doubt on the run from their families, seem to be living here and I just know they kill outsiders (I think I'm sort of familiar with them and their story). So I do my best to try to look a few years younger than I actually am and... well, more sulky than I actually am too. Somehow I make it through the camp.
Then I hear on the radio, which is odd since I didn't have one with me, that police have heard reports of a non-licensed driver in the area and are on the lookout, putting up some roadblocks and stuff. Now, the police in this province DO have far too much time on their hands, but this seems a bit extreme. And how did they know? I hadn't run into any trouble at all so far, so how on earth they knew I didn't have a license I have no idea. But I'm too scared to go to the airport, so I just head into the neighbouring town - Nyköping - instead. It looked just like the neighbourhood I lived in when I was a kid. And I've been to Nyköping a couple of times and I know what it looks like in real life.
I walk around there a little bit before deciding to head back home. The road blocks have been removed and I set off. The odd thing is, while I'm on the right road home, I get to this off-ramp with a roundabout that's nowhere near where I was, it's actually right where my mum lives - and that's southwest of my uni town, whereas I was norteast of my uni town in this dream. For some reason I pull off the motorway, knowing full well that it's the wrong way to go. But when I try to get back on it I end up on this tiny, tiny road right next to it. It ends by this museum, or something, which is right by a tube station. We most definitely do not have an underground system in either of the three towns I've been in during the course of this dream. I check out the old museum, which is full of lamps, and see two middle-aged men who look... well, progressive. As I always do when I see people like that I thought "cool, I wonder if they like prog?" and then kept looking at the old lamps. When I left out the front door there was this old lady sweeping up, and I know we talked, but I can not remember about what.
After this I'm on the phone with my mum. To make sure she doesn't suspect me of having the car I tell her I'm slightly tipsy. Just that, no story, nothing that makes sense - I'm just a bit tipsy. Suddenly I realise that I'm not by the car, but at the tube station. I sigh and sit down on the stairs by the platform and the two potenitally progressive men are there. So I ask them if they know how I get to the place I parked my car from there, but apparently they've heard me tell my mum that I was tipsy so the one with the long hair (one had long hair, one was bald) starts telling me how bad it is to drink and drive... ...using Van der Graaf Generator metaphors. At least now I knew they were prog fans. I think I left at this point, but I don't know where I went or what happened next.
At some point I woke up and that was that.
(then I checked MSN and found the following message from my friend Beppo: "Karin calls on the mobile, but the other end is silent when I answer... I check the time and discover that it's a full hour until she normally wakes up and realise that she's probably sleeping ON her mobile and hit the phone book by mistake")
That was true, btw. I must have switched off the alarm clock and fallen asleep on the phone. I haven't dared to check to see if I called anyone else yet, but probably not as Beppo's number was the last one I called before this incident. And to redial the last number called you only need to press the "dial" key twice on my phone.
I'm tired, and the weather sucks today. Last night, at 4 30 (in the morning) I chased this rather large wasp around my room, trying to kill it. I ended up shutting the groggy-looking beast in a cupboard, I hope he's died in there during the night. Otherwise he'll be angry and annoyed when I open.
DUN-DUN-DUUUUUN!
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
The Dream of September 4-5
All right, another weird one.
The first part I can remember is me sitting on a bench or something with a girl from my choir, and she's pregnant (this is the girl who had a son ago, and who asked me to sing at his christening - which I did). For some reason you can't really tell that she is although she's quite far along. I ask if she knows the sex of her baby and then she smiles and shakes her head, saying she can't find out. And I somehow know for a fact that there's nothing, you know, medical stopping her from finding out, but I don't push the point about it since I immediately think she has religious reasons (or something similar) for not finding out. Instead I just say that, "oh, you know if it were me I'd just find out as soon as I can so that there'd be no surprises or anything in the delivery room".
In the next scene we're joined by her husband, but her dream-husband doesn't look like her real life husband. We're on a street somewhere, and it's dark out. The street stretches on uphill and we start walking in that direction, but now I can't choir-friend anymore and her husband crosses the street to talk to a couple in their late 50s, presumably his parents, and I keep walking. When I reach the end of the street there's one of those really high fences with barbed wire at the top that you normally find around power stations and such places. There's a gate in it, or rather, a door and I want to get in, but can't. It's not that it's locked, it's that it won't open more than a couple of inches as there are huge, plastic barrels filled with some liquid (and therefore very heavy) blocking it. But somehow a man with a moustache, presumably someone who works in what I can now see looks to be a mine or something. Somehow, though I have no idea how, he manages to get inside. And after he has me and the people I'm with ('cause I know there are people behind me, but I don't remember who they are) manage to move the barrels and get inside.
I assume I went down into the mine because the next thing I remember is walking into this large open space with some small ponds in it and I know that behind me is a tight, underground path that I've just left. The walls are stone, and the ground is this reddish, powdery dirt (looks a bit like curry, but is actually real dirt). The whole space feels very warm because of the reddish colour of both floor (if one can call it that) and walls. There are loads of little spaces leading off from the "main room", that are just like dark, little dead ends and between then, against the walls, are these shelves with CDs and records. People are walking around, looking at them and talking, I suddenly I see that Stefan Dimle is one of them and I realise that this is Mellotronen Record Store. Stefan is walking across the room, there are quite a lot of people in there (even though it's so large it doesn't look crowded) but he does spot me and I smile and wave at him. But he doesn't smile or wave back, nor does he say anything, he just glances in my direction and walks on. I'm a little saddened by this as he normally says hello every time we meet. Now I walk across the room to the shelves by the other side.
When I get there there's another shift, and it's no longer Mellotronen (or it might still be but... well, read on). The first thing I see as I turn around by the opposite wall is a boy in the center of the room, fighting some little creatures that he's trying to kill. He does it and comes up to talk to me. At this point I'm not really sure if the other people and the records are still there, but I do not notice them anyways. The boy starts talking to me about my mount (in World of Warcraft you can buy mounts to ride on at higher levels, there's regular ones at lvl 40, fast ones at lvl 60 and flying ones at lvl 70), and I somehow know that I'm the highest level one can be bere, although I'm not sure what that is. And he's getting closer to it himself and wants some advice. And as we talk, more monsters to kill appear and when I look at the "action bar" of different kinds of attacks to make on the monsters I find that what I have are all the weapons from the game-series called "Worms" and I start throwing stuff at them. At one point I accidentally drop a mine by my feet and have to move quickly (I even think I hopped off the way the worms do), and after that I settle for the cluster bombs and start throwing those at the beasts until they die.
The place shifts back again and now there are two guys by the shelves I'm at (the prog section, of course) and one of 'em turns to me and goes: "I know you." "What?" I say.
"Yeah, I know you from the Internet. I've known you since you were a little kid, like five (*note* this is quite odd since I was five in 1990 and clearly not online at that point). Your online handle is Kendra."
"Errr, no?"
"Yes, it is." He started smiling, a little bit creepy-looking.
Then out of nowhere comes Kit and drags me off to look at the records, away from this guy. For some reason we browse through the different albums on one of those scroll menu things you get when you're filling out an online form, for instance, choosing your country of residency from a list. But we keep getting interrupted by different things. The last interruption I remember is my grandmother appearing out of nowhere to ask me if I've moved all my books out of her flat yet (which is odd in many ways since we rarely talk about books and I've never had any at her home), and I'm a bit... confused. But then, behind here, there is suddenly a rug with a pile of books on it and I assume they've got something to do with me and I now know the answer.
"Most of them, but there are a few left."
And then she starts talking about this one book that the owner has to rewrite by themselves and I think there's something odd about taking an ABBA-song and rewriting the lyrics for it to fit you (I know that "mine" was My Love, My Life but I don't know if that's the one everyone got or just me). And then I woke up. At some point, it seems, I had grabbed my mobile (which was ringing to wake me up as I had set the alarm on it) and turned it off because when I woke up it was underneath me, jammed quite painfully into my back.
A long one.
The first part I can remember is me sitting on a bench or something with a girl from my choir, and she's pregnant (this is the girl who had a son ago, and who asked me to sing at his christening - which I did). For some reason you can't really tell that she is although she's quite far along. I ask if she knows the sex of her baby and then she smiles and shakes her head, saying she can't find out. And I somehow know for a fact that there's nothing, you know, medical stopping her from finding out, but I don't push the point about it since I immediately think she has religious reasons (or something similar) for not finding out. Instead I just say that, "oh, you know if it were me I'd just find out as soon as I can so that there'd be no surprises or anything in the delivery room".
In the next scene we're joined by her husband, but her dream-husband doesn't look like her real life husband. We're on a street somewhere, and it's dark out. The street stretches on uphill and we start walking in that direction, but now I can't choir-friend anymore and her husband crosses the street to talk to a couple in their late 50s, presumably his parents, and I keep walking. When I reach the end of the street there's one of those really high fences with barbed wire at the top that you normally find around power stations and such places. There's a gate in it, or rather, a door and I want to get in, but can't. It's not that it's locked, it's that it won't open more than a couple of inches as there are huge, plastic barrels filled with some liquid (and therefore very heavy) blocking it. But somehow a man with a moustache, presumably someone who works in what I can now see looks to be a mine or something. Somehow, though I have no idea how, he manages to get inside. And after he has me and the people I'm with ('cause I know there are people behind me, but I don't remember who they are) manage to move the barrels and get inside.
I assume I went down into the mine because the next thing I remember is walking into this large open space with some small ponds in it and I know that behind me is a tight, underground path that I've just left. The walls are stone, and the ground is this reddish, powdery dirt (looks a bit like curry, but is actually real dirt). The whole space feels very warm because of the reddish colour of both floor (if one can call it that) and walls. There are loads of little spaces leading off from the "main room", that are just like dark, little dead ends and between then, against the walls, are these shelves with CDs and records. People are walking around, looking at them and talking, I suddenly I see that Stefan Dimle is one of them and I realise that this is Mellotronen Record Store. Stefan is walking across the room, there are quite a lot of people in there (even though it's so large it doesn't look crowded) but he does spot me and I smile and wave at him. But he doesn't smile or wave back, nor does he say anything, he just glances in my direction and walks on. I'm a little saddened by this as he normally says hello every time we meet. Now I walk across the room to the shelves by the other side.
When I get there there's another shift, and it's no longer Mellotronen (or it might still be but... well, read on). The first thing I see as I turn around by the opposite wall is a boy in the center of the room, fighting some little creatures that he's trying to kill. He does it and comes up to talk to me. At this point I'm not really sure if the other people and the records are still there, but I do not notice them anyways. The boy starts talking to me about my mount (in World of Warcraft you can buy mounts to ride on at higher levels, there's regular ones at lvl 40, fast ones at lvl 60 and flying ones at lvl 70), and I somehow know that I'm the highest level one can be bere, although I'm not sure what that is. And he's getting closer to it himself and wants some advice. And as we talk, more monsters to kill appear and when I look at the "action bar" of different kinds of attacks to make on the monsters I find that what I have are all the weapons from the game-series called "Worms" and I start throwing stuff at them. At one point I accidentally drop a mine by my feet and have to move quickly (I even think I hopped off the way the worms do), and after that I settle for the cluster bombs and start throwing those at the beasts until they die.
The place shifts back again and now there are two guys by the shelves I'm at (the prog section, of course) and one of 'em turns to me and goes: "I know you." "What?" I say.
"Yeah, I know you from the Internet. I've known you since you were a little kid, like five (*note* this is quite odd since I was five in 1990 and clearly not online at that point). Your online handle is Kendra."
"Errr, no?"
"Yes, it is." He started smiling, a little bit creepy-looking.
Then out of nowhere comes Kit and drags me off to look at the records, away from this guy. For some reason we browse through the different albums on one of those scroll menu things you get when you're filling out an online form, for instance, choosing your country of residency from a list. But we keep getting interrupted by different things. The last interruption I remember is my grandmother appearing out of nowhere to ask me if I've moved all my books out of her flat yet (which is odd in many ways since we rarely talk about books and I've never had any at her home), and I'm a bit... confused. But then, behind here, there is suddenly a rug with a pile of books on it and I assume they've got something to do with me and I now know the answer.
"Most of them, but there are a few left."
And then she starts talking about this one book that the owner has to rewrite by themselves and I think there's something odd about taking an ABBA-song and rewriting the lyrics for it to fit you (I know that "mine" was My Love, My Life but I don't know if that's the one everyone got or just me). And then I woke up. At some point, it seems, I had grabbed my mobile (which was ringing to wake me up as I had set the alarm on it) and turned it off because when I woke up it was underneath me, jammed quite painfully into my back.
A long one.
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