What have you been dreaming about lately?

[aliantha]

Two nights ago, I dreamed about making a sandwich.

Dude. You need a more interesting life or something.

I had a dream about the bacon.

Did it speak to you?

[danlo]

I've had some damm crazy dreams lately trying to get rid of this inner ear infection and horribly sore throat. Last night was the weirdest: I was with an old party friend, James who insisted we go to Jaurez, Mexico (quickly becoming drug cartel murder capital of the world) to this great Casino/party palace. James tastes were never set very high and the place turned out to be two warehouses and very long series of ramshackle connecting hovels. We didn't win any money at our first go at cards at one warehouse, but we were told of a special game at one of the "hovels". The front of the hovel was just that, a front, to enter the real game you had to go all the way around the connecting series to the back, but we must never enter the blue door to the right. So we found the place and played this crazy dice game where we won craploads of dinero.

Then we went to the other warehouse where more cards were being played. The casino games, apparently, were all hidden in the "stretch shack", all people did in the warehouses was play cards and drink. So I started to get a little drunk and noticed a cut on my finger. Suddenly one of the "maitre dees" came over and said " That's your first strike." I said, "What that's only a paper cut.", "Who did you get your last card from?", "That lady over there." and then he said, "That's no lady that's an opponent, Senor...apparently you have no idea what everyone has been playing and what the stakes are, this is one huge game with everyone involved and the stakes are your life. When you see this little red mark, here, on the card it means the edge has been coated with a lethal poison, which can only be cured twice. Please follow me, we will go see the Curadera." So he took me to the front of one of the shacks and I laid on a table taking in the pleasant blue of the surroundings that seemed somewhat familiar. Finally she came in and sterilized a knife with a lighter and cut my cut deeper three times in a row. "She cannot help you if you cry out." Then she sucked a bunch of blood, spit it out, put something that looked like iodine on it and wrapped it with herbs and a bandage.

I went back to the card game where my "opponent" was looking more interesting all the time, but I couldn't find James, some one told he went back to the "special" game so I went off. I rounded the long strip of shacks and started to reach for the red door but I tripped on a rock and fell through the blue door. Through the curtain I could see the table I had laid on, so I thought, "ah no big deal I'm back in the Curandera's shack." Then I heard someone huddled in the corner say, "Hey buddy, remember me?" There in ragged dirty clothes, his same messy brim hat with the red bandana sat my old hippie friend Cabin so sung for local bands (before he was put away for child molestation). Looking like a demented devil he said, "Welcome to the game, you'll never make it out. You better start running before this shit in my mouth touches you!!" So I started running out the door and was hit by a corrosive that burned my lower back in two places. I stumbled out near the ditch where two guys were getting drunk by a fire.

"Oh hey Esse, you been bit by the shit-snake, dam, happens all the time-only one cure, hold him down Pablo." Pablo pinned my arms and the other guy pulled up my shirt and whispered, "Remember, you cry out and you lose the game," and then screamed, "Tequila!!!!!!!!" I almost died as the alcohol went into my wounds. "Don't worry man, we just gotto cautherize it now. It won't hurt a bit." Then he picked up a poker from the fire and sealed the wounds. I may have swallowed my tounge three times and spit it back out but I remained silent.

Anyway I stumbled back to the game and proceeded to get very drunk and make passes at my opponent...

This is how detailed this dream was and is only one third of it. The card scratch was the only way to get a "strike" but that didn't mean other stuff couldn't happen to you (I actually got bit again by the shit-snake later on). Yes, as you've guessed it was a "Hotel California" game-you were shot if you tried to leave. I really need to wirte it down-it's an automatic classic short story and all I have to do is remember it.

[MsMary]

I dreamed about being at a gathering where they had really delicious cookies and not being able to taste even one. They all got eaten before I could get one.

[lurch]

Fascinating read...The liberated mind is fantastic in its expressions.

On that point, of late I've had an idea or a realization,,like,,how great it would be if the liberated mind of the Dream could be experienced during waking conscious. Yea, the surreal. So, the interesting thing is..when awakened..i find my self experiencing a " vortex" upon exiting the Dream World and entering " reality"..I don't remember the actual dreams,,but do remember Tornado type of experiences coming to the awake state..So..like being cognizant of ones dreams to the point of controlling them..can be just the beginning to..experiencing the liberated state of mind, while conscious.

[aliantha]

Fascinating read...The liberated mind is fantastic in its expressions.

On that point, of late I've had an idea or a realization,,like,,how great it would be if the liberated mind of the Dream could be experienced during waking conscious.

They had drugs for that in the '60s, lurch...

[magickmaker17]

I think I've been dreaming about helping customers in PetSmart...its kind of weird.

[CovenantJr]

Holy hell, Danlo. That's quite a dream.

Last night I dreamed something about Ylva. Not sure what.

[Auleliel]

Last night I had a really long, really whacked-out dream. In part of the dream I was swimming between boats during a battle, and I had to decide whether tennis balls or a sword would make a better weapon. I chose tennis balls. Later I was underwater at the bottom of a river, and everything was drier than above water and I could breathe normally. I was being pinned down by a bunch of dwarves (a la Snow White), and trying to convince another dwarf (a la Tolkien) that it was completely unnecessary to kill me yet. My way to convince him of this was to keep silent and let the other dwarves do all the talking. I don't remember whether this tactic worked or not, but there were definitely more weird scenes both before and after this, so I must have survived somehow. I think I've been reading too much Douglas Adams too late at night with too much caffeine.

[lurch]

Fascinating read...The liberated mind is fantastic in its expressions.

On that point, of late I've had an idea or a realization,,like,,how great it would be if the liberated mind of the Dream could be experienced during waking conscious.

They had drugs for that in the '60s, lurch...

..no..i'm talking "Liberated" not contained by the drug of choice..

[Auleliel]

Dreaming without being asleep can be very, um..., is there a word for "the opposite of liberating"? Whatever the adjective, I point out one of Donaldson's short stories, The Kings of Tarshish Shall Bring Gifts. Wishing such dreams can be very dangerous.

[CovenantJr]

During my stint studying psychology, I learned about a condition that involves dreaming while awake. Seems it's quite terrifying. With particularly lifelike dreams, it can be difficult to tell which things are real and which are dream.

[Auleliel]

During my stint studying psychology, I learned about a condition that involves dreaming while awake. Seems it's quite terrifying. With particularly lifelike dreams, it can be difficult to tell which things are real and which are dream.

I know a few people who have had similar "waking dreams", and it is true that the dreams are both terrifying and full of instances wherein it is difficult to tell what is real and what is dream.

[Wyldewode]

I've been having the kind of dreams that make me re-evaluate my life.

[CovenantJr]

Last night's dream was a strange one.

Pitch black. No visibility. I can tell, though, that I'm near a wall in some form of largish room or compartment. From time to time, I can hear people moving nearby, and I have an impression of lots of objects piled haphazardly around the room, like a half-filled cargo hold. I'm enfolded in some form of cloth; I'm not certain, but it has a heavy, thick tarpaulin type of texture. Occasionally I try to shed a little illumination on my surroundings, but the only source of light I possess is my phone, and it shows me nothing. After a while some of the other people notice me moving, and their reactions are a mix of mild shock and some scorn or mirth. Two men in particular heap derision upon me. Whenever I try to speak to the people around me, they all greet me with contempt, but I eventually get the two men to talk to me. They tell me I'm in a whale. At this point I find myself wondering again what I'm wrapped in, and the thought inescapably occurs that I could be enfolded in a flap of whale flesh. I almost panic at the thought, but force myself to believe that it's just cloth. I ask the men why I'm there, and they are uncooperative, seeming to believe that I should know why. When I tell them that I remember nothing, they fill me in on the events of my birth. The whale is coasting through deep space with us inside it; somewhere nearby (in space terms) my parents were circling a yellow/orange gas giant and were confronted with a large chunk of orbital rock, which they decided to blast through instead of trying to go around. This blasting process in some way risked the life and health of the unborn me. Cut back to the present, but now I'm returning to the whale from somewhere outside. It's the most immense thing I've ever seen, like a blue whale in shape, but much bigger and exaggerated, and a selection of dirty yellows in colour. As I pass its head and try not to look at it for fear of panicking, I receive an impression of something not being right. I then reach a small hatch in the side of the whale. There are a couple of other people out here with me, and one of them complains that they can't finish the job without some form of protection. I chime in that I think the cloth I was wrapped in earlier might be a hazmat suit. They're all eager to get their hands on this suit, so I enter the hatch to retrieve it. Beyond the hatch is a dimly lit room, seemingly smaller than the dark one from earlier. A few people are here, one of them sitting at a small computer installed in one fleshy wall. At the opposite end of the room from the computer, towards the head end of the whale, is a metal bulkhead with a door, leading into the dark room. From the modified nature of this smaller room, I deduce that the whale must be long dead. My ex-girlfriend (who is now in the whale as well) asks the man at the computer what kind of vessel we're aboard. He drops some hints that she doesn't piece together, but I do. "A dead whale being used as a vessel. It's a whaling ship." She, being an ardent animal lover, is horrified, but I point out that we have nowhere else to go right now. I now go to open the door in the bulkhead and recover the hazmat suit, feeling some trepidation at the thought of venturing deeper into the whale, and at the possibility of finding out that the suit/cloth is, in fact, a chunk of whale. With some effort I open the door a fraction, but a blast of cold comes through the crack and stops me. Though no-one says anything, I can tell we all realise at the same time that the only way cold air would be coming through there is if the head of the whale is decomposing and allowing cold in from outside. At this point I express my concern about the mystery cloth I was wrapped in before, and everyone is disgusted, particularly since the decomposition increases the likelihood that it was a part of the whale.

I wake. Not, as is usually the case after such strange dreams, with a pounding heart and intense anxiety. I actually felt eerily calm.

[AjK]

I've been having the kind of dreams that make me re-evaluate my life.

Whatever direction that may take you I hope it ends up being a positive one!

[Auleliel]

Wow, CovJr, that is one cool dream! If it were expanded into a short story or novella, I'd probably buy it.

[dANdeLION]

I sit here with a sore right shoulder that has to be the result of a dream last night. I don't remember it as a dream, exactly. All I know is I woke up on the floor at the foot of my bed, with a cramp in my leg and the memory of seeing something like a large spider on my headboard next to me. I have to assume I drempt it and jumped off my bed in an attempt to get away from it. I also found a piece broken off my light switch, which must have been hit by the edge of my dresser, which must have been hit by me when I jumped out of bed. Anyway, I wasn't about to go back to bed, so I slept for a while on the couch, and returned to bed after a while. When I woke up my neck and shoulder hurt, and I still can't lift my right arm above my head without it hurting.


What a freaking annoying dream.

[Auleliel]

I sit here with a sore right shoulder that has to be the result of a dream last night. I don't remember it as a dream, exactly. All I know is I woke up on the floor at the foot of my bed, with a cramp in my leg and the memory of seeing something like a large spider on my headboard next to me. I have to assume I drempt it and jumped off my bed in an attempt to get away from it. I also found a piece broken off my light switch, which must have been hit by the edge of my dresser, which must have been hit by me when I jumped out of bed. Anyway, I wasn't about to go back to bed, so I slept for a while on the couch, and returned to bed after a while. When I woke up my neck and shoulder hurt, and I still can't lift my right arm above my head without it hurting.


What a freaking annoying dream.

Must have been quite a freaky dream. I hope your arm feels better, dAN.

[Damelon]

I had a strange dream during my final minutes of sleep this morning.

I was sitting down near a corner of a stone ledge that stretched out to my left and in front of me, forming a kind of "L". I had my back against a cliff and could look out at a scene that looked like it was from the Grand Canyon. My friend, Jeff, and another person I didn't recognize, were standing in front of me. Jeff, with his back to the abyss, placed his heels against the edge and started to dance, saying "I always wanted to do this!". I told him to be careful, but as I did so I looked up the cliff and saw what looked like a puff of red smoke appear high above me to my right. I realized that it was falling rocks and rolled to my left. Just after I had done so, the rocks came crashing down next to me.

And with that, I woke up.

[CovenantJr]

Wow, CovJr, that is one cool dream! If it were expanded into a short story or novella, I'd probably buy it.

My immediate reaction after I woke up was to try and adapt it to short story format, but I don't know how I'd go about it. This dream didn't really have a plot, just a sequence of related events. I had a dream once before that was a whole, coherent story, but my girlfriend at the time (the same one who appeared in the whale dream, actually) woke me up before the end, so I never found out what happened next.