Weird, Trippy Dreams I’ve Had: Redux

I had some more interesting dreams since the first time I shared some choice pieces of my dream journal. Continuing on…

#17 Christmas Miracle

I dreamed OJ had actually committed the murders in Christmas time. He went to the town square on the anniversary of the crime to sit and be heckled by the crowd. Throngs of people came to see the freak. At some point though, in the spirit of Christmas, we decided to do a potluck dinner out in the snow covered park with OJ in keeping with the example of Jesus, who taught us forgiveness.

#18 The Case of the Forgotten Egg

I got laid off due to the corona virus in real life, and in my dream I had my old job back but they never gave us back ID cards, so when i went to the bathroom and got locked out, the man behind the front desk was giving me a hard time at first since I had no ID, and then after looking it up in the system was stonewalling me because my ID card had my deadname on it.

I go home and now suddenly it’s understood I hadn’t been at work but a “past philosophy” course in college. I was feeling exhausted and “remembered” the curriculum to be quite rigorous on the way. It turns out that I lived on the beach with my family like a bunch of surf bums. Some woman I thought was cute lived on the beach next door and we walked together. I wanted to ask her out, but was too shy this time. I made a note to do it tomorrow.

On the beach, a friend taking “present philosophy” was giving me a hard time for considering my class difficult. I offered him an egg from a carton I’d been given at school and I tried to prove him wrong by pulling out my study books. But instead of Plato and Kant, they suddenly consisted of Encyclopedia Brown books and childhood brain teasers (monk who always lies and another monk who is always truthful, etc). My friend was laughing at the thought of me being confounded by these and pulled out a sample problem to test me with. It was the whole “guy eats a third of the eggs, other guy eats a third of the remaining eggs, other guy eats a third of the eggs” thing. I tried to give the correct answer but then my friend said I was wrong–I’d forgotten to take into account that someone had eaten the first egg before anything else happened. I checked the answer key and this was correct, like they knew what I was gonna do with the carton of eggs I’d been given to reenact the riddle.

I got chills as though I were being watched, and then my sister said we had to run because she had been scouting over the north side of the beach and found a bunch of cannibals not too far away.

#19 Dinosaur Baby

I had like a weird science fiction dream where a bunch of scientists raised a dinosaur baby purely with computers and mechanical robot hands doing all the day to day work. The dinosaur they were rearing grew up weaker and smaller than the ones which were raised normally. Two of the scientists were discussing this and one of them was saddened and gravely concerned while the other was dismissive. “Maybe we got unlucky and picked one with bad genes.” Just then the loveless dinosaur they’d raised led a rebellion of all the other dinosaurs against the scientists. One subservient dinosaur who was like their trained butler tried to stop the others but got killed. Even in my dream the dinosaurs were “understood” to be actors in brightly colored rubber suits. (Like Theodore Rex minus the goofy clothes.)

#20 For the Cause

My brain took the twinge of pity I felt for Trump walking back to the WH after his embarrassingly small rally and created a dream. He was staying at some kinda hotel for some reason and his neighbors were freedom fighters trying to counter his presidency. Melania apparently did not exist in this dream-reality. I had to “spend time with him” to accrue information for the cause and that was…something. Eventually I understood Trump to be kind of a pitiable figure who did not comprehend how to govern or why people hate him or how to fix it. He was a single-minded creature who only knew how to lash out against anyone he deemed a critic or an enemy, creating a negative feedback loop against his administration. Eventually, I stopped gathering info on Donald because there was nothing of value to learn from this man. Instead, I tried to, uh, keep him at the hotel for as long as possible and as often as possible so he would do the least harm. At some point, the freedom fighters told me they were going to escalate their plans and take him out and I felt kinda bad in spite of myself. I woke up before anything else could happen.

This was definitely the weirdest dream I’ve had in many moons, and it left me feeling the need for a cold shower after I woke up.

#21 Pac Man, Revolutionary

I had a dream we were all allowed to play real life pac man outside, it was understood this was a limited time thing. If you went outside these bosses every so far apart were throwing basketball sized power pellets into the crowd. They were understood to be like the ghosts in the game. If you got it, you turned into pac man chomping. Everyone was excited to become pac man but now that I look at it with the rationality of the waking world, there was no real benefit to doing so. I think you could eat other people once in a pac man state, maybe, but I don’t remember. So I’m walking around the streets as this is happening and I’m enjoying it. People are almost like being herded down these narrow paths as a result, always moving forward as a group for the next opportunity at a power pellet. I get one and try to turn against the ghosts. I yell “plebeian revolution” or at times “pleistocene rebellion” (Which, in the dream, I thought meant the same thing but no, pleistocene is a period of geological time.) I wanted the other pac men to eat all the ghosts with me but they didn’t so I lost the ability and went home in defeat. I remember thinking that next time I’d have to coordinate my plans with everyone before acting.

I get home, suddenly know the previous scene just a dream and try to write all of the specifics down, erroneously thinking I was now awake. So I’m trying to spell it out on the ground with paint or by moving physical objects as if a birds eye reading view was the most beneficial way to record what had happened. While I’m doing that, my boyfriend keeps excitedly asking if I’d been outside to play pac man yet and that we should play it indoors. I keep writing down the details of the earlier segment of my dream but I’m running out of physical space in the house to spell it all out. I have the limited floor space with limited furniture. While I’m doing this, no joke, two young handsome men start fighting each other. It was understood at the time that they had been involved in the previous phase of the dream but really they hadn’t been. One had somehow wronged the other. Their struggle made it hard for me to write and eventually there was an indoor stream or moat as the border of my usable place. I suddenly remembered one last detail to write down but there was nothing to use to write but a watermelon and one of the fighting guys heads was stuck inside it as he lay down, defeated.

#22 No-Shadow Time

I had a dream me and like 3 or 4 other friends were driving up to go to some field trip or whatever. We were inexplicably driving a bus only to pull into the bus station and board another. Someone who had wronged me in the past was on the bus but couldnt recognize me due to my transition. I debated revealing myself and making a big thing about it but decided not to for the sake of everyone’s good time.

Our new bus made a stop at some weird stoner guys house. He had long blonde hair, wore a bathrobe and his apartment was dark because all the blinds were closed. Once there, we witnessed a strange demonstration of a malfunctioning computer program acted out with real people. This next paragraph is how that scenario played out:

There was a circular stonehenge type of building (i think the Harding tomb since I saw a pic of it before bed) surrounding a giant sundial. As the shadows moved faster and faster across the dial, more people where walking across four parallel walkways, two red and two gold. There were two people who couldn’t seem to fit in no matter which path they were on and which direction they walked. At no-shadow time all other people were off the paths except the two malfunctioning. The system rebooted as one stood in the red and another in the gold. Somehow this made it so they wouldn’t cause anymore problems. To coincide with the demonstration, the weird stoner guy opened the blinds and I remember feeling like I myself had been rebooted and could now do anything.

Finally, there was a dance and we had to buy tickets. I bought mine but some guy in line made fun of me for my voice/being trans so I got really self conscious about going at all. The cashier literally left in the middle of our transaction and I wasn’t sure if my ticket had been authenticated. I tried to find out but people in line kept giving me grief for holding things up. Eventually I did follow a friend from our bus (we had no individual rooms and lived in the buses in an intimidating dark garage) to the dance. There was no wide open area to dance though, just a maze of hallways where everyone stood around pointlessly trying to look cool. A group of women left the halls and went up a staircase that let off on a big snowy mountain peak/waterslide where you jumped off and glided down from the top. They did it and i tried to follow but instead of falling down with them, I was sucked back as if by an invisible ocean current and compelled to the other direction.

#23 Wacky Political Conventions

I dreamed it was Christmas time and also that the political conventions occured at that time of year. Since I’m a nut who actually watches that kinda thing wholesale, I saw every single one. In this reality, they were more like SNL sketch shows, not dry 4 day stretches of mostly bad speeches. During the Vietnam Era, one party ran a sketch about the Civil War where the army kept letting soldiers go home only to force them back again. An exasperated general kept getting notice to dismiss whole divisions right from the battlefield. He’d comedically complain “how am I going to win with such shortages!” then bring them back. The soldiers would get their hopes up that they could go home only to be crushed as they were called back in. It was played for laughs.

(As I wake up I realize that scenario makes no satirical sense but in my dream it was understood that dismissing and recalling troops was a common issue. Maybe it was meant to be a satire on hippies and saying “if we’d done what you wanted in the Civil War and let people leave, there’d be no America today.”) Another convention had a song and dance number like a terrible Oscars routine.

Earlier in the night I had a disconnected dream I was putting up Christmas decorations with my extended family and a wall clock was fast. Eventually someone took it down and rolled it back, which I was convinced would send us back in time. I can’t remember what else happened in this section, I fell back asleep before I could write it down. Finally, even earlier than that, I had another dream I was playing Castlevania. Sometimes it as though I was playing the NES original but then if I went through certain doors, the graphics would change and it was like I was suddenly playing Bloodlines on Sega. By the end, it’s like I was really Simon Balmont and running through real corridors. I vaguely remember confronting Dracula on a balcony but I don’t remember what we said.

#24 When Luke Skywalker Met Donkey

Donkey from Shrek was a member of my family. It was a new year’s eve party and he got insanely drunk, ruined an uncles marriage proposal and the night ended with everyone miserable. Some of us regrouped at my house and I said “hey…at least there’s thanksgiving!” Then I was back in my home city and needed to take a train somewhere but I got on the wrong one so I jumped out–but left my luggage on board.

Finally, I imagined a different version of ROTJ that was both more at ease and more scary. Luke got a lot more free time with Leia after knowing she was his sister which led to some sweet scenes where they talked and spent quality time. But Luke was a lot creepier too in this version. Someone at some point made an innocent joke at Leia’s expense and he barred his teeth in anger like a wild animal…until everyone turned to him and Luke pretended he was just laughing along at the joke.

#25 The Happy Haunted Sunshine House

I had a dream there was this ridiculously luxurious hotel/lounge/impossible indoor paradise that was locked down and no one could leave. At some point Vertigo was playing on cable and i wanted to see if there was a way to tape it so I’d always have a copy in case the lock down lasted forever. I realized there wasn’t and other trapped guests laughed at my misfortune

At another point, in the buffet room, there was a person whom I didn’t want to run into because it would be awkward so I puffed myself out like a big balloon and flew over them. Everyone stopped and watched me fly up towards the ridiculously high ceiling. It was like the last scene in Willy Wonka, in terms of the flying and whimsicality of it all.

Someone sprayed fecal matter all over one of the toilet bowls (which was inexplicably in the middle of a regular room) and was forced to get paper towels to clean it up or they’d be torn limb from limb by the angry residents. But this really nervous, anxious-to-please guy did it for them while the perpetrator was gone to try to endear himself to the crowd. I laughed at their willingness to do such a disgusting job while the other guy was literally about to do it himself.

A man cornered me in an inexplicably abandoned, multi-tiered room full of restaurant tables with unclean intentions on his mind. He chased me down and pinned me into a booth. As a last ditch defense mechanism i tried to look off in the distance and pretend he was Robert Redford or James Mason but then, after all that, he was too self-conscious to follow through. I remember feeling bemused yet disgusted, especially because at that point I had psyched myself into the mood. [Not trying to be cavalier about such a serious topic but, this is honestly how i reacted in my dream.]

I was now in a hallway where guests’ coats were kept. I had someones priceless fur coat to sleep in and lay on the linoleum tiled ground. There were several people around me, kissing or else holding on to each other for comfort. A couple made a derogatory comment about me, something like “white trash urchin” or something. I followed them with unknown intent and found myself in an impossible indoor water park and mini golf course which somehow only one other person had found yet. I told him we must barricade the doors to keep it all for ourselves.

#26 Muppet Christmas Carol

My dreams can get really weird sometimes. Some people imagine they’re making out with the girl of their, y’know, dreams. Or they’re a beautiful gazeebra with rainbow stripes frolicking in a blue meadow that never existed.

What do I dream about? That I was watching this particular scene from Muppet Christmas Carol on my laptop w/headphones and balling my eyes out. My roommate looked over and made a “WTF” face at one point. Then there was a new scene from the movie after that where they go to McDonald’s (yes, really) and the Spirit picks up a donation box and holds it up to those coming in. As he’s not looking, Scrooge takes some of the more decorative ornaments off the tree that’s in the building and then walks over to the box and makes a big phony show of donating them as if they weren’t stolen. How he expected the Spirit not to notice is beyond me, but what’s weirder is my brain invented a scene that completely negates the impact of the previous one despite being so moved by its emotional resonance. Very strange.

#27 Bully

I had a dream it was Halloween and we all left candy and notes at some guys house who was too scared or non social to go out himself. And there was something said about dinosaurs but I can’t remember. Then, later in the night, I dreamed I was back in high school. My real one burned down or something, so we were in a different building next to it. The buses were newer and white, and some were futuristic where the passengers got inside the little plastic capsules on the bus itself. But it was terrible. A certain someone with the initials Devil Beelzebub, would viciously harass me from class to class. I was trans in this dream, and he would make fun of me for everything I’m self conscious about already–eyebrows too thick, boobs too small (or obviously padded out, etc. It was a blast from the past in the worst possible way, as I became more and more withdrawn to avoid bringing attention to myself, constantly worrying about where he was in the room to try to stay away, and picking over my own internal shortcomings.

Someone else (the dreaded BC) who wronged me in high school had a personalized section published for them in the yearbook about their best friend and I wanted to gag. But then I saw ANOTHER personalized section apologizing to me and listing my positive qualities they’d noticed and I felt touched. When i woke up, the most overwhelming feelings was sadness that in real life that person never apologized and for all I know they never gave it a second thought when I still sometimes indirectly dream about it 9 years later. I really wanted to believe that touching message had been real. I was very happy to wake up, and to cling to someone who makes me feel safe.

#28 Some Kinda Metaphor for Life, I Think

I dreamed it was Halloween and a whole grade including me had to do an interactive scavenger hunt in a giant stone gym. In my minds eye during this part I was like Alice in Wonderland but with a para-glider that’d blow me up to the ceiling when I took it out. Dozens were playing at the same time and scrambling to find all the clues and get the best score. At the end, jobs were handed out. One girl who was playing wanted to be a stone mason, but the instructor said he that he’d made another kid the “owner of the masons” as his job so it was now up to him. The new “owner of the masons” passed the instructor a note saying he wouldn’t take her. So, the instructor let her down easy.

There were two doors leading outside and I was trying to decide which to take. I thought about following this one attractive girl with long black hair but then I saw the other door was closing and, in a panic, I ran through it instead. In making this choice, I knew I’d never see that girl again. Outside, I listened to my ex-friend’s annoying girlfriend moan about not liking her newly assigned job. I say “hey congrats!” To try to cheer her up but she scoffs and assumes I’m being sarcastic. Her friend explains to me that the job sucks because automation makes it irrelevant. While all this was being said, we walked a stone path with stairways outside at night.

Suddenly it’s Halloween and everyone is reaching for the big goodie bags left in a pile on the way out. They contain candy and booze. I get texts from my lifelong friends who are stoned and ask if they can spare some for me  I meet up with them and it’s great–everyone uses my correct pronouns and I’m guzzling champagne from my basket. Suddenly some family members are asking for me to give them some booze and I’m selfishly reluctant at first but then i relent. I photo bomb some pictures and, after someone gets upset about it, I say “boy, you guys must not be mixing the right kinda salads then.” And I laughed hysterically. I think it was said in reference to a previous comment but I’m not sure.

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#29 Angels in the Outfield

In my dream, I was reimagining scenes from the original 1951 Angels in the Outfield. I saw a different, older, less annoying version of Bridgett. Instead of manufactured Hollywood cutesy in the vein of Shirley Temple, she was a lot more naturally charming, 10-13 (instead of 8) had her own identity and plans for the future. Guffy McGovern was totally overwhelmed with protective feelings for her. I remember feeling sad, wanting to know what that’s like to feel that way for someone and sad it probably won’t happen because I can’t have kids.

In fact, at one point my mind left the AitO movie universe and I saw myself in a cramped dark room writing my own suicide note because I felt lonely and any efforts to alleviate that would mean bringing a kid into the horrible disaster awaiting the planet.

My consciousness semi-returned to AitO and I saw ill-fitting images of lonely ball players camping out in the field wearing their sweaty uniforms and their hands stuck in vending machines as they had tried to steal a cheap dinner. Back into the movie universe, I saw a montage of McGovern succeeding after Janet Leigh’s character takes an interest in him. I saw an alternate version of McG and his estranged ex-friend Sal trading harsh words, and this ended with McG throwing a baseball at his back, though Sal spun around and caught it. Basically in my dream version it was Janet’s coaching, not angels, that most helped him end that kind of behavior.

I saw the “courtroom” scene where McG punched out Fred Bailes one more time after Bailes attacked Bridgett’s character. I felt both profoundly sad seeing him do something wrong yet touched seeing him stand up, in his own way, for someone he cares about.

It was like my conscience talking at one point as my mom walked in on me sleeping on the couch (where I fell asleep in real life to have this dream) and chastised my laziness. I was watching AitO on TV during this scene! And eating mega sized M&Ms which she also disapproved of. She basically gave me a tsk tsk “I just wish you could finally be the MAN I know you should be” lecture. I was super upset she misgendered me. Even dream-me knew I was supposed to be in class and was anxious/guilty about it.

#30 “Man’s Inhumanity to Man, Klaus”

I had a terrible nightmare that there were two camping parties. The first one was a dad, son, extended family. Second was dad and son alone. They looked exactly the same. In the end, the second pair pulled a rifle of the first group and held them at gunpoint. They forced the others to strip off valuables and form a line where they could be seen. There was great fear in the first group and sick pleasure from the second. The entire ordeal was dragged out to an excruciating length, and the whole time there was a feeling of inescapable dread. The gun wielding dad made a point of humiliating the victimized dad as much as possible to tease how helpless everyone was.

What’s worse, this dream then repeated itself in several scenarios where both families’ positions in the woods and relation to each other were different. (So, the same story in a slightly different part of the woods.) Each time ended the same, however, so the first group’s death was inevitable. I felt extremely helpless and disgusted each time the situation repeated, waiting for the inescapable. By the end I was disturbed thinking I’d never be able to unsee any of this. I woke up feeling like I just saw something I shouldn’t. I felt disgusted at myself for doing so, but also scared for the imaginary campers.

I think I’ve been watching too much Investigation Discovery shows  The dream didn’t start out so horrible either. Initially the first, peaceful family were making sandwiches before the nightmare loop started.

#31 *Holds Up Spork*

This dream was long, but I remember two distinct scenes at least.

One was like a Full House episode where Kathy Santoni spent the night after a party in our basement and DIED. then DJ, Stamos and Danny are cleaning up the body and gathering her things while I’m still having fun in the basement, either playing with electronics or still dressing up with the girls at the slumber party. (It was my parents basement, not the one in Full House.) I remember Kathy Santoni was played as a black haired girl, a “bad girl” in a white dress. There was one picturesque shot, like out of a movie, where her head came before a circle of black and white cloth on the wall. It looked like a corrupted halo, and I knew then that she was not long for this world.

There were a series of vignettes like that as I drifted in and out of sleep for 10 hours. Another was a spectacularly bad All That musical guest. People threw food at them, and I was left to clean the set and pack up the band’s stuff. I didn’t actually get to see their set. I put an extension cord in a medicine cabinet. I walked over to and on top of a table the band was discussing their fortunes at. I shook hands with a lot of them and we crewmen saw them go. There was only a woman singer and older manager left. They had a big wasp or similar insect in a cage. It slept peacefully, until I picked the cage up. It started thrashing wildly on its back, then exploded in a red splat. The woman was wondering who to direct prayers towards in order to reverse their fortunes. I grabbed her hand tenderly, and I told her if there really is an all powerful being, he could hear her no matter how she prayed. She liked this and we stood up to start making out and dancing. It was cool and all, but I was tired so I slept on a bed conveniently right in the doorway. She woke me up to see her off.

I went outside and she got in her cars. But it turns out I was locked out from the building which we had just exited. I saw some kids I knew jumping on a trampoline outside (but still beyond a tall fence) and planned to bang on it to get their attention. But they walked away before I could, and suddenly I wasn’t sure this was even my house. I ran out into the road to get the singer’s attention so she’d put me up for the night, but instead she tried to run me over.

#32 The Incomparable Failure of HRC

I dreamed it was election night ’16 but from Hillary’s camp. For some reason she was in a shopping mall with Kaine and Mook (her campaign manager). They were very confident of a victory–at one point Hillary shouted “I won!!” to no one in particular and started dancing (as well as she could…like an awkward shuffle) while shoppers looked on in disgust. Mook suddenly got nervous and bought 3 cans of orange sprite. When Hillary noticed he said “it’s just that I’ve been working so hard” and Hillary said “Mook, you’ve earned your Sprite.” He was never seen again. Then Hillary and Kaine were hobnobbing around (I forget details here) until her loss broke and she swallowed a tab from the top of her own soda can. She was taken to the medical ward of the mall.

Suddenly the dream focused back on myself. I pulled a huge chunk of earwax as big as my fist out of my head. I wanted to make a candle out of it to see if earwax was just as good as the real thing. I microwaved the mound so as to harden it up but I couldn’t find a wick. Out of the microwave the earwax-cylinder looked like a refreshing glass of iced tea so I drank some…and then realized what I’d done and felt revulsion. I threw it on the ground and planned to light the mess on fire to see if anyone wanted to use it as a coal walk. Some girl said yes but then chickened out.

…The First Dream I Can Remember

When I was very young, like…4 or 5 I wanna say…I was briefly scared of water. I don’t even recall being cognizant of the reason why at the time. I just vaguely remembered never going into the ocean when my family went to the beach for one or two years before getting over it. Sometimes I’d even stay home and watch The Magic School Bus with my grandma as the rest of my family went swimming. I don’t know how, but eventually I got over it. Years later, I was told that when I was really young my dad was carrying me in the ocean before his knee unexpectedly gave out and I fell under a wave with no warning–undeniably the genesis of my phobia.

So, with that backstory out of the way, I recall having a dream from around this time where I was seeing myself in the third person, looking into my own terrified eyes. I was deep underwater, in a sitting position, drifting slowly but disconcertingly downward. My face was largely obscured by shadows and the expression a mixture of fear but also quiet resignation. I heard the sound of water rushing, and woke up to my mom coming into my room to wake me up. I thought nothing of all this at the time but looking back this period in my early life probably had some kind of profound impact on the course of my life.