Mega-Intense Dream Week #1

This week has been especially strange. Usually there’ll be one memorable dream per week. This week, however, every dream has remained so clear in my mind – so tangible – that I thought I should amass them into one collection. There must be a reason why I’ve had crazy and superclear dreams over the last five nights. I should definitely make a note of when it stops. I haven’t been doing much writing. My theory: maybe being home from college, now getting 300% more video game intake than I have the last eight months plays a big part in this. I asked my parents (being psychologists) if they think a sudden increase in video games could stimulate the imagination. They said, “What? Did you take out the bins like we asked?”

***

1st Night – Grocery Store Solo

My friends and I take a plane over to Great Britain where I’ll be performing my world’s best breakdancing and beatboxing skills on one of their talent shows. I have never breakdanced nor beatboxed ever in my real life (some might say I’ve neither danced nor maintained any kind of beat, either). But in this dream, I can feel it in my bones. These talents are a part of me, just as much as my blood.

Before the performance, we stop by a London grocery store to buy the snacks and alcohol for the after-party. There I spot a group of attractive women. I figure this is good an excuse as any to get some serious rehearsal going.

And as if I’ve been practicing this world-class performance for many many years, I break into an eight minute dance/beatbox solo. It was jaw dropping. The beat was hard and fast, and I had no trouble keeping it up whilst spinning and twisting across the floor as though it was made of ice and I was made of Magnetix.

My friends disappeared. My focus was squarely on using the entire store as a stage where I could show off my talent to these lovely ladies. Some were whipping out phones to video the spontaneous performance. I could do it all. Windmills, air flares, headspins, headslides, flips, flops, leaping and landing, sliding and gliding everywhere-and-way. The music track playing was like something you’d hear on Cowboy Bebop - slick jazz with a sick rhythm. And don’t forget, I was punching in all the beats.

I brought the eight-minute set to a close by flying down the sweets aisle like a dreidel on the eighth day of Hanukkah. Not long after, I woke up.

***

2nd Night – Fart Nectar

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Not much psychodigging to be done. I was traipsing through the Mexican desert with some wise cowboys. We were hunting a particularly large brand of frilled-neck lizards. See, these reptiles had a special kind of gas bubbling within them. It was sweeter than maple and lighter than froth on a babyccino.

We spotted a nest of these bright-striped and bleary-eyed lizards, snuck up behind them and each grabbed one by the backlegs. And as if it was a common daily practice, we put our mouth to their buttholes and sucked down the drinkable gas. Sweet nectar. Delicious.

***

3rd Night – Being Peter

I was an assistant director for a new live-action Peter Pan film. It was an important shooting day, and I was away from the rest of the cast and crew, helping one particular child with a key scene. The boy – about nine years old – was dressed as Peter and raring to go. You’ve never seen a happier kid. He was bouncing around in the greenleaf gear calling, “I’m Peter! I’m Peter!”

The show was about to start, so I had to rein him in. “Yep, you’re Peter alright,” I praised. “Now listen. I’m going to tie these strings to you, and they’re going to carry you through the air, above the crowd, as if you’re flying. Get it?”

“I’m going to fly??” he asked with gleaming eyes.

“You’ll fly, and it’s going to be fantastic. Remember to have fun!” But as if I had to say that at all.

I lead him to where all the other kids were waiting. As he interacted with the other boys, that’s when I noticed he was a little bit awkward. He couldn’t quite connect with the other kids. Was it his hypomanic energy, or something else? I’m not a doctor, but he was definitely not fitting. Like a wonky jigsaw puzzle.

They were preparing the lighting when the director stormed up to me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?! Why’s he dressed as Peter Pan?!” he yelled.

Because I kinda just turned up for this job, I didn’t actually know who that boy was meant to play. Apparently, he’s just a Lost Boy. But they were losing the good weather, so it was too late to change anything. Oh god, now I had to tell him that he’s not going to be Peter. He’s not going to fly.

I couldn’t do it. It would’ve broken his heart. Instead, I find the director and ask him to shoot around the boy – keep him out of frame and I’ll pull the strings and let him fly whilst the others perform the real scene. This was a fine compromise.

“Frame… and, ACTION!”

The Lost Boys chased after the real Peter Pan through the jungle as I tugged on some strings, letting the boy soar above us. He had a biggest smile you ever sore. Arms spread wide. Blissfully unaware that the no one else on set but me knew he wasn’t playing his true role.

***

4th Night – Killer Clowns and Cookie Banquets (If you thought that last one wasn’t happy enough…)

It begins in a suitably horrifying manner. I’m at an amusement park. I go to check out this indoor ride called “THE ROCKET”. How to describe this… Imagine a bowling lane, but ten times as long. Half-way down the lane is a wooden wall (the width of the lane) without a semi-circle cut out where it met the ground. Written in red above the crescent over this hole is: “LIFE/DEATH”. At the end of the lane is a wall with several archery targets painted on. There’s blood splattered all over this wall.

The next people in line climb in. A man and his daughter. They sit inside something like a miniature bobsled. The daughter sits in between her dad’s legs, as you would at a water park. The man hosting this ride is… terrifying. Think an evil clown without makeup. He laughs like a mad scientist and pulls a lever. SWHOOOOM!! The bobsled shoots off at a-thousand miles. It rockets across the lane – the father and daughter speeding towards the LIFE/DEATH hole—

SPLAT!!

The dad is far too tall. There was no way he was making it through the hole. His torso is ripped clean off its hips. The impact sends the girl and the man’s disembodied legs flying off the sled, through the air, and SLAMMING into one of the archery targets. Blood goes everywhere. The clown host laughs again. I’m outta here.

But this dream is far from over.

I’m now at a camp. Some kind of Summer camp, with about 300 campers  - boys and girls both – around my age. We’re all sitting on an open field. The wooden lodges are over the hill. The clown man stands before us. He’s the Camp Leader.

The Rules: Play the games, go to sleep on time, clean up after yourself, and you’ll make it out alive.

Here’s the thing. Everyone else takes this pretty well, like this wasn’t all that unusual. I, on the other hand, could’ve pissed through an extra pair of pants in fright. Still, we all kinda mumble in agreement and get up to play the first camp game. It was netball, or something. A couple of people aren’t playing well, so they get walked off by other camp leaders.

The day progresses, we have our meals, more events, and more unenthusiastic campers are sentenced to death. All the while I’m becoming quick friends with this other guy who is equally as frightened. I should note that I didn’t recognise this guy as anyone in my real life. A total imagination newbie. We learn that sticking together is best, because we keep each other vigilant.

It’s bedtime, and we all retreat to our rooms. Each room has four bunk beds. I’m in a separate room to my new friend, who’s somewhere down the hall. I have a top-bunk by the window. The lights are switched off and everyone goes to sleep. I’m sitting up, arms wrapped around my knees, peeking through the window curtain. I can see Clown Man and the other camp leaders together, whispering excitedly as they sneak into one of the wooden lodges. I hear screams, gunshots, then silence.

“Hey man. D’ya mind if I stay here for the night?” I ask my friend. I’ve snuck into his room.

“Sure, no problem,” he says, and lets me crawl in beside him. Then, he sings. I’ve never heard this song before. I can’t remember the words, or even the melody. The overall message was something like, call out for me if you’re lost and I’ll be there. You know, that usual faff. But his singing must’ve been comforting, because it was enough for me to forget that we should be asleep or we’d be killed. As he sings, he takes my hand in his. I didn’t think anything of it than a gesture of friendship. Maybe it was something deeper, I mean, we were the only things keeping each other alive. I saw it as a symbol of the close bond we’d formed, and it helped me go to sleep.

It’s the last day of camp and the Clown throws a banquet. The 200 of us sit inside a HUGE dining hall (just like the one in the Harry Potter movies) as the food is laid out before us. It’s all thousands of kinds of cookies. Every cookie you can imagine. Gingerbread, shortbread, chocolate chip, macaroons, Jammie Dodgers, Venetian biscuits… If you know it, it’s there.

But of course, there’s a twist. The cookies aren’t laid out on tables. Rather, we’re sitting at what looks like the high-speed moving walkways at the airport. And they’re turning a-mile-a-minute. The cookies flash before our eyes. You have to snatch them to be quick. But even that’s dangerous. Because dream physics like to be a total bitch, if you hold a cookie for just a millisecond too long, it locks itself into its bowl and you go flying along the travelling table with it. And if this happens, you’ll find yourself thrown into the deadly food processors waiting at the end of each table.

My friend and I decide we should take as much food as we can. We deserve it, don’t we? So we be as quick as we can, stuffing the cookies into our bags, as much as we can fit. I hold one biscuit for too long and find myself flying down the table, rushing towards the grinding, slicing food processor. I let go just in time and crash into another table. But I’m alright.

We’re getting our luggage and throwing it onto one of several buses picking us up to take us home. I take my seat at the back and realize: WHERE’S MY FRIEND?!

I run back off the bus and my eyes dart left and right, scanning the field. I can’t see him! What happened?! The buses are leaving. I’ve got to go. Maybe he’s on one of the other buses? I can only hope.

I retake my seat amongst the happily chatting others. But even the thought of going home doesn’t take away from my intense sadness. Could he be dead? In my gloom, I do the only thing that can comfort me. I sing his song. Everyone else on the bus stops talking and turns to listen. That’s about when I wake up.

***

5th Night – Bird Migration

I’m coming out of school, crossing the large oval at the back to where the grade 12’s park their cars. It’s my turn to be soccer captain (a dream-logic thing) and the boys are all waiting for me. We start walking to the park where we practice. I make small-talk with one of the guys. He’s going to see a new IMAX film – a documentary about the migration of birds. I start listing off my five favourite bird-migration related IMAX movies (again, dream-logic).

We reach the park, but find that the entire thing has been excavated into what is a deep, deep, DEEP hole the size of the three Roman Coliseums. Dug into the walls of this hole are several seated balconies and what looks like garages for many Star Wars fighter jets. X-Wings, Y-Wings, TIE bombers…

So now we’re not practicing soccer, and instead we’re recreating the space war at the beginning of A New Hope. I know there’s not really a space war at the beginning of A New Hope, but do I have to say dream logic again? We’re flown to one of these garages where we each choose our vehicles and start planning out the fight. I show them a crappy droideka I can control via a handheld controller (Note: I hate droideka’s with a fiery passion) and none of them are too impressed, rightfully so. I discard the walking metal mistake and next thing I know:

Snap! I’m now part of this drama romance show. Or, I don’t think I was part of it. It was like I was an observer of this show, but still in front of the cameras as they acted out the latest episode. I really don’t know what was going on. I kinda walked around with the actors (playing their characters) – there were three guys and four girls. The guys were about my age, as were two girls. The other two women were on wildly different spectrums. One was in her 60s: grey hair, quite large but in a tenaciously sexy way. The other was like five years old and carrying a teddy bear.

We’re walking across my school’s oval. In this episode, humanity was coming to an end so the group had to pair up and make babies for the post-apocalypse generations. One of the guys was begging the older woman to be with him. Begging. She was quite flattered. Don’t worry, no one asked to pair with the little girl – but that’s because she was missing.

We all go to sleep on the side of a hill. I wake up yelling, “SHE’S GONE!!” as if it had only just hit me. The others spring to life and we run across the oval calling out for the little girl. One of the guys takes out these gerbil/mice/rats creatures. Apparently they can help find her. We follow them around until they quickly bury themselves underground.

“Oh, shit,” the guy says. He tells us that his rats might be responsible for the girl’s disappearance. He forgot that his rats like to eat.

We’re now searching the ground for any ratty dig sites where the girl’s body might be. We find two small mounds of dirt and start digging with plastic measuring cups. We dig and dig until I hit something. I’d say ‘and there it was’ but all we saw where thousands and thousands of the creepiest crawliest bugs covering every inch of what we guessed was a decomposing body. I started gagging and had to step away for a moment. The others were far too disgusted to try rescue the body (I guess they thought there was a chance she was still alive). I pull myself together and decide to be the hero.

Yep, to hell with the bugs. I’m going in. I kneel to the ground and throw my hands in to try get a good grip of the body, but that’s when:

EEEEEEEEGH!!!

One of the rats leaps out of the ground for my throat. His claws tear at my neck. His fangs rip through my skin. I scream in pain and—

I’m jolted out of this dream, sitting straight up, clutching at my throat. That’s when I knew this was a good time to start typing up this ridiculous series of dreams. Who knows what tonight will bring…