Unrelated
June 28th, 2006 by Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley; no comments
These are from a few nights.
I was at an outdoor pool with a two-word name of which the second was “Tracks”. The name implied that it was a pool to swim in after exercising, which worked for me because I was dirty and sweaty. There were two inclined parallel bars that I wanted to slide down but could not because a baby was playing on them.
I was at a sandwich shop getting a sandwich, but it became increasingly clear that the only delicious toppings in this place involved animal products and a vegan sandwich was going to be really boring. (The sandwich-induced boredom might have woken me up. Something did.)
I needed to meet Elaine Tanner (true), but found that this would be really difficult as I actually had a few more weeks of high school to attend. When I went home to get the signs to give her, I found that she had left her car door open and there were two cats in her car. When I tried to access the car, many other cars came very close to m, all crowding around Elaine’s car. I traveled to her house in a rolling desk chair.
Some sort of talking-circle had been organized through BHS – advertised on the morning announcements, etc. I attended with a group of Earth Service Corps members. On the way in, I handed Tyler Caughie a book, which I think was supposed to be like a host gift, but he handed it back. The other ESC members, including Tim and Lee, and I stood in the middle of the circle because we were the only people who hadn’t been to one of these events yet. The other attendees were a mix of BHS and Players people, including Ian Donahue.
Adrian gave me a back massage while I was laying face-up, which was difficult. Occasionally he touched a breast but this was not a problem. I partially woke up and realized there was no massage going on, but must have fallen back asleep because I remember explaining my confusion to him – I had accidentally opened my file for my neighbor Mark, who gives back massages (and who we had talked about the day before).
Excitement bomb
June 21st, 2006 by Adrian Sampson; 3 comments
A war is going on. Many warriors and myself (I’m not sure if I was a warrior) are stationed in a small house (much like my grandparents’ old house in Florida). The house is by a beach (not like Florida) where airplanes are flying over and dropping bombs. The bombs don’t explode, however; they release very strong emotion. Anyone near the bomb becomes filled with that emotion. Previous bombs have contained excitement and sadness. Usually, the bombs are not lethal, but they can be upsetting.
Some people have died, however, as an indirect consequence of the bombs. I and one other person in he house need to go outside to the beach to pick up some bodies. The beach is picturesque, the water is turquoise, there are rocks near the shore, we are in a little, sandy cove, and it’s a bright, idyllic, pleasantly warm day. A plane flies over while we are gathering bodies; I become worried but comfort myself, knowing that I will be able to deal with the emotions.
A bomb falls and lands just on the calm edge of the water a few yards away. It opens up, extends a small antenna, and makes an electronic sound. It seems that it’s an excitement bomb. We, the body-gatherers, are able to control ourselves with little effort. We return inside with the bodies.
Rocko (the dog I have just finished sitting) is there. He is so excited that he has jumped onto a few planters that contain rows of baby tulip plants, doing great damage to them. I drag him off and, to punish him, rub dirt onto his face, careful to avoid his eyes and nose. I have done this before.
I am enrolling in or being pitched a program at Whitman. The process is very boring; it involves a lot of standing in line. There are many pre-planned, very organized steps to the process. Everyone else at the enrollment/pitching seems to know each other. There is a charismatic, female leader throughout the process. It is always evening.
In a small house, we fill out a survey done in attractive, expensive graphics. It asks our AP scores and how we feel about physical contact. The survey warns us that physical contact is very likely during the course of the program. I get the sense we are being screened scrupulously.
I am sitting outside at a table at Scripps (not a recognizable location) when Serena walks by. Of course she’s here; this is her school. All this longing for and missing of her was the result of a mistake I made. She was here all along, naturally.
She’s a little silent when I try to greet her and ask what she’s doing tonight, so perhaps tomorrow, okay. As she is about to go, she asks me to kiss her. We kiss, twice, mouth closed. She seems nonplussed. I worry that my breath is bad.
I receive an email from Gillion. The subject is “adrian please write me a complicated email”. The body is a screenful of a single paragraph with sparse capitalization and punctuation. (Gillon would never have such poor form.)
The Love Solution
June 18th, 2006 by Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley; no comments
A man in his late 20s or early 30s came to give some sort of environmental presentation for a group I was part of at school. I fell in love with him. He seemed to reciprocate and told me he was staying in the area to come to my English class and listen to my credo.
I reflected on how little work I had done since Cynthia’s dad had taken over teaching AP English. I also called him Nick instead of Mike, but Lee Foley corrected me. She said something about family.
The man that I loved was the solution to all my problems.
Fire
June 17th, 2006 by Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley; no comments
I had just climbed a very steep rock face with two other people, one of whom was Joel. We might have been competing. As the anonymous person reached the top, his shoulders burst into flame. This was an Act of God. The others seemed surprised when I started to climb onto the top ledge, where the fire had happened, but I knew that I would not suffer the same fate. I really needed to blow my nose, and Joel handed me a partially used tissue.
Eric Chilton had won a casual boxing match, and was posing seductively and triumphantly in a tee-shirt with fitting messages Sharpied onto it. I really wanted to take a picture of him, and frantically searched for a camera, eventually taking Adrian’s, but only after Eric had gone somewhere else. I found him (only by this time he was Adam Wade) immersed in a really intense PE class. I would have to wait.
As my cat walked into my room, I noticed that the tip of her tail was on fire. I commented on it. It was not very alarming. I blew it out.
(In real life, as I walked home from the ferry yesterday I saw a significant amount of orange flame coming out of a satsuma-sized hole in a metal plank in the sidewalk. I can’t really explain this (underground fire? visual/olfactory hallucination?), but it does provide some explanation for two of these dreams.)
S
June 14th, 2006 by Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley; no comments
I remember very little:
I was with Adrian, probably at Hyla. We had worked out something pretty funny and important that had to do with Tuesday – maybe we had eliminated Tuesday?
Adrian’s hair was shorter, and I had an idea.
We had also worked out a way of balancing comfortably on a precarious edge.
A mythical amputation
June 12th, 2006 by Alex Walton; no comments
My mother goes behind my back to return a bunch of my library books. Unfortunately she also “returns” my left hand to the library as well. Out of the stump at the end of my arm two tiny wolf-heads grow, and I call them Romulus and Remus. I write award winning stories from the stories they whisper in my ear, but I publish them as non-fiction.
Three mistakes
June 11th, 2006 by Adrian Sampson; no comments
I wake up slowly (as I am wont to do). As I peer blearily about my room, I notice that Ariana is there, trying to tell me that we’ll be late for school. After some witty conversation with my parents, we climb into our 1940s-era Ford and rumble down the gravel road through the dark, foggy forest my house is in. Eventually, the trees clear away and there’s a magnificent, though still foggy, view off to the left into a sun-filled valley. It’s at this point that I notice that it’s already 8:57 AM. We’re late: school started at 8:50.
This is okay, however, because I am taking two classes on !!! albums (incidentally, !!! has exactly two full-lengths out to date), which are total slacker classes. One of them is my first class today.
It’s also at this moment that Ariana points out that I ate Starbursts for breakfast. I don’t precisely remember doing this, but I realize she was right. Not only is it disgusting to eat candy for breakfast, but they have gelatin in them (they really do). Damn. I’ll have to be more conscious next time.
We arrive at school about fifteen minutes late. School is held in a giant, stone building (like many I remember in Berlin). Today, all the classes are held in the marble-floored lobby about small, round tables. Some students have been tapped as waiters and are walking around with platters of hors d’oeuvres, offering them to the various class-tables. I make a mental note that the predominant dish consists of little white blobs of chicken on skewers and that I should not eat them.
I sit down at the table at which I recognize most of my !!! classmates. My teacher jokes cooperatively about my tardiness. Soon, a waiter with the chicken comes by and offers me a blob. Even though the chicken is really unappealing, I take one and put in my mouth. My teacher notices and reminds me that I am vegetarian.
Damn! Not again. I stop chewing and walk over to a trash can in the corner. The lobby is now entirely forged of a sort of bright, golden-tan stone that is just rough enough to catch clothing but is immaculately clean. It takes me the better part of a minute to spit the chicken out. Dgro, who is seated at table near the trash can, leans back in his chair and sympathizes.
Example
June 7th, 2006 by Ariana Rose Taylor-Stanley; no comments
Anna was giving a speech on love, possibly in a library. My head was close to hers and she used me as an example.
Lilly Schneider needed someone to talk to and it was me and I think she talked about boys.
Anna waited by an upstairs window for her ride to come. I was there for another reason.
Paranoia
June 7th, 2006 by Adrian Sampson; no comments
I am sitting on a stool at the counter in my dining room/kitchen. Through the various windows on the southwest side of my house, I see an ancient Jeep rattle up my driveway and come to a halt next to the other cars at my house. I can see two children in the back seats and a driver. I don’t recognize the Jeep, though, and no one gets out, so I walk outside to investigate.
As I do, the Jeep begins to roll down the hill as if the driver had put it in neutral and taken his foot off the brake. I see suddenly that the driver is no longer at the wheel; the children seem to have gone, too. I run down the hill of my driveway and am joined by my father. The car inexplicably stops at the bottom of the hill. I hear incomprehensible jibbering from within the car from no discernible source.
After about thirty seconds of this, I lean into the Jeep and see, on the floor, a crumpled, almost dead man. He looks to be of Middle Eastern descent and is presumably speaking Arabic. I run back to the house, telling my father that I will call 911. While running, I mentally rehearse what I will say.
As soon as I arrive at the house, however, my father comes in, carrying the broken, collapsed frame of the man in the car. This immediately becomes my experience; I have carried the man up to the house after he asked, in broken English, to be let into our house.
From my arms, the man reaches weakly for an object on the counter. I look closely and realize that he’s reaching for a bomb — it’s small, complicated- and electronic-looking, and ticking. I am once again not carrying the man but instead watching my father tend to him.
I consider my options quickly. The fastest way to get rid of the bomb would be to pick it up and throw it through the large windows on the other side of the dining room table. The loss of a window would be regrettable, though, and it would only be slightly more difficult to pitch the bomb through the open front door. The fact that the bomb would be much closer to gasoline-filled cars comes to mind but doesn’t seem important. After a moment’s hesitation in which I visualize the bomb exploding in my hand, removing my arm and sending me flying, and consider the range of intensities the bomb could have, given its size, I pick it up.
I am working on a giant boat, perhaps a cruise ship. As part of my training, I am shown how to operate some emergency-preparedness equipment. Its operation involves lighting a fire under a large tank (which looks like a water heater) and getting someone to help you, simultaneously, move the hanging cloth around on another machine in adjacent room (the machine is exactly like the hand towel machines on the ferries — pull repeatedly to reveal clean cloth and conceal used cloth).
Soon after, a disaster occurs on the boat. The feeling is one of personal responsibility and panic. Even though I may not have caused the disaster, my ass may still be had for it. In order to avert a very public, very dangerous resolution to the disaster, it becomes necessary to undergo the emergency operation described above. Communication is difficult above all the screaming.
(After awaking and deciding to return to sleep, themes shifted:)
I am at a small exhibition of drawings, short stories, poems, science, and jewelry. As I enter the small, stuffy, yellow, dimly-lit room, I become aware that I have entered all but the latter. There is a surprising array of wonderful jewelry, though, and I don’t see any drawings at all except, crumpled and between earrings and science demonstrations, a drawing incorporating tiny hands and a large eyeball that I recently sent to Serena (this drawing is for real). There is some truly substandard science there, including an installation that allowed you to close a circuit and watch a light, magically, turn on. The craftsmanship of the exhibits is similarly third-grade.
Through talking and looking, I become aware that my exhibits in this show have earned me passage to space. I was selected as the sixth of six astronauts on an experimental mission.
I am a Jerk
June 2nd, 2006 by Kris Skotheim; no comments
(there is a first half of this dream that I can’t remember)
I find myself in a living room in a mysterious house. There is a girl sitting on a couch on the opposite side of the room. I have the sudden realization that I am dreaming and that, now that I am aware of this, I could do anything that I wanted to and not get in trouble because I am in a dream…
That said, I decide to walk over to the girl on the other side of the room and talk to her. She is not very interested in conversation, so I start mocking her and harassing her. She becomes very angry at me and chases me out of the house into the woods. I decide that instead of trying to reason with her and apologize it would be easier to just leave the whole situation behind. Soon, however, I find myself being chased through the woods; I am being followed by the angry girl carrying a board with a rusty nail through it. I outrun her, but just when I think I am safe, I find myself being chased from a different direction by the same girl with a different weapon. I realize that because I am lucid dreaming, I don’t have to put up with this, and I should be able to stop her by willing her away. I try this, but she keeps running towards me, so I decide that I should keep running away just to be safe.