11/20/11

I was in an airport getting ready for a flight. Once on the plane I saw that Johnny Depp was there, as well as some girls from the office, along with the other passengers. The inside of the plane was built like a casino or a restaurant, with tables, carpeting, big TV’s, room to move around, and movies playing in all the booths. The films all included horribly misspelled subtitles. I was freaked out because I had a pocket knife on me and I didn’t want to get in trouble, but no one took it away from me or even checked me. I never really got to interact with Mr. Depp, much to my disappointment.

[End Dream]

This was a long, long dream – it just kept going on and on. I probably could’ve recorded more about what all went on, but some mornings I’m just too tired and don’t want to write.

11/17/11

I got really upset because a dog kept jumping on me and eventually tore a large hole in my shirt. This happened in New Zealand, in the morning.

[End Dream]

I don’t even remember this. Sometimes I wonder if I didn’t just write these while I was still sleeping.

11/8/11

I was a tigress, and Peter Pan came to me and took me to Neverneverland. Eventually I grew up, though, and was fading away, back to the real world. Night came, and I knew that with the dawn I would fade completely, leaving all of that world behind. I loved Peter and wanted him to love me back, though, even though I was running out of time to be with him. He offered to scar his face to prove that he did love me, but I knew that it didn’t matter. If I thought that such an action could prove that he loved me, I would be content, but it wouldn’t. I loved him in my way, but that was the start of a deeper love than how Peter could ever love me. His childish mind worked differently than mine, and there was nothing either of us could do about it.

[End Dream]

This is, without a doubt, one of the most poignant dreams I can recall ever having. There was something so innocent and beautiful about it all, a feeling that I just can’t seem to recapture. I actually wrote a poem upon waking. Here’s the polished version, a poem which I probably wouldn’t share except for the fact that I workshopped it in the poetry class that prompted me to start this dream journal in the first place.

Oh, and a quick disclaimer: I’m a fiction writer who focuses on flash fiction and noveling. Poetry is not my strongest suit. Please keep that in mind while reading the following.

Second Star to the Right

When I was a child I loved
like Peter Pan – brief,
flitting through summer darkness,
too much heat to last too long
and knowing with daybreak I must leave.

I wait the way a plucked rose wilts
sky going pink while days flash
like firestorms on Jupiter, or moon’s
mantle, trapped by gravity
as you offer a self-inflicted scar –
you never know what I need.
I am a tigress, only feeling
just before that killing stroke.

I fade awake with sunrise, aging
years in moments and forgetting you,
a star dead eons ago.

10/28/11

I’m lying in my bed, and while everything seems normal, I’m wrapped in the arms of a giant. I know that the arms are just blankets – in fact, I keep thinking that I might be awake – but when I try to move the blanket-arms keep me pinioned down. I think that this idea, a girl in a giant’s arms, will make a god short story, maybe something I could use in my thesis, and I try to write the idea on a sheet of scrap paper by my bed. The letters run and blur, though, and even though I write them down, they don’t stay. When I do wake up, I find that I haven’t written anything down at all.

[End Dream]

I’m pretty sure this was a waking dream, or a half-asleep dream – something of that nature, where you’re not really awake but you’re not fully asleep. I woke up happy about the dream itself, which turned into a story I wrote for part of my thesis, but I was also pretty frustrated that I hadn’t managed to write down any bit of the dream. At least I managed to remember some of it.

10/21/11

I competed in the Olympics and won all three metals in a sport that was like Skee-Ball. I’m not sure what it was called exactly, but the sport itself was awesome and I was so proud of myself. Before the games, though, my teammates were my friends (though upon awaking I don’t recognize any of them). After I win, though, they are jealous but still somewhat friendly. I forgot to remind my mom to watch the Olympics, so she missed seeing me win, and that really disappointed her.

[End Dream]

Yup – I won gold, silver, and bronze metal in the same sport. That’s how awesome I was. Funny, since in real life I don’t think I’ve ever played skee-ball…

10/18/11

One of my roommates is getting married to a man she will not see, meet, or even know the name of until she actually weds him. We are at our apartment, watching The Simpsons, while we wait to leave for the wedding. The roommate who is getting married points out how the character Lisa has changed throughout the episode, while my other roommate bakes. The baking roommate just married a man she’d never met before, just like the one who is waiting to get married. We have to go to Traverse City, a town about six hours from where I go to school, for the wedding; her apathy towards this whole thing is terrifying. She just doesn’t seem fazed at all about what she’s about to do.

[End Dream]

I have two roommates, by the way; whenever one shows up in a dream, the other is usually somewhere in it, as well. They’re very close friends, so I think this makes pretty good sense. Still, neither of them are married or even close to getting hitched, so I find this dream rather interesting.

10/10/11

I have a ton of papers to grade, so I get ready to go home, but first I stop by an office – I’m not sure whose, just that it’s an office near my own. Plants answer the door, four of them, and I do their dishes for them before going home. When I get to my apartment, there are people smoking inside, a huge pile of dishes, and other people who are dancing. I do the dishes and am angry. I ask the smokers to go outside, since they’re all standing around right near the kitchen and directly under the fire alarm, but they refuse. I go to grade papers, but people keep talking to me and I can’t get anything done, which of course just makes me feel even more angry.

[End Dream]

I think I could title this dream “frustration.” Seriously, talk about everything going wrong – having to do not only my dishes but the dishes of others, having people stink up my apartment by smoking, and not being able to get any work done – what an awful day that would be. Also, talking plants – weird.

9/30/11

During the zombie apocalypse, I went inside a thrift store to hide. I found a huge knife and used it against a zombie who came into the store – but she just wanted to shop, and didn’t understand why I was killing her. More people came in – non-zombies – who also were there to shop. They were calm, as though they didn’t realize the state of the world. I ran to the register, but was very slow, possibly because I was so nervous. I kept the big knife near me – I was ready to use it at a moment’s notice. Someone with long hair came in, and I cut off a hunk of her hair after they sat on the ground near a wall. They looked up, and I saw that it was one of my roommates, who had just gotten a nice haircut. I yelled for her to leave, because it was dangerous to be around me. She left, and I watched her walk away, confused, with my other roommate, who was carrying a large gift bag that I think was meant for me.

[End Dream]

Zombie dreams are hit-and-miss with me. If they’re weird or fun, sort of like this one, then I’m fine with them; it’s when they get gory and creepy that I’d rather just stay away from them. This one was a bit bittersweet, as well, since I had to chase away my friends to keep them safe. Perhaps I was also a zombie, but just hadn’t realized it yet.

On another note, hiding out in a thrift store would be pretty sweet during the zombie apocalypse, provided it doubled as either a food store or a food bank. You’d never run out of clothes, and there are always a ton of books that you could read. Could be fun!

9/21/11

I was at the beginning of some sports event – American football, perhaps? – and the announcer, in the middle of the field, fell into a hole in the earth. A different announcer took the mike, and the crowd cheered as. Then, just like that, I was getting ready for summer camp – maybe I was already getting ready before the game, and just took a break. The camp felt familiar, but it wasn’t actually like any the places where I used to go to camp when I was a kid. There were people everywhere, and the announcer’s wife was stuck inside a hole. I braided a bunch of those necklaces you make at camp – macrame with beads and braids – together to make a rope for her. Some creepy guys walked past and asked me where in the camp my bed was. I told my mom, who got mad and to me to always tell her right away when that kind of thing happened. She gave me my stuff for camp, though I had worried, she hadn’t packed the wrong clothes and I was ready for camp.

[End Dream]

I’ve had similar dreams before, where I’m getting ready to go to camp and forget something. My guess is that it all stems from the one year that I went to camp and forgot to pack sheets. I ended up sleeping on top of a tiny blanket, which was uncomfortable because whenever I shifted in my sleep, the blanket would move and I would inevitably end up with my skin on the plastic-covered mattress – definitely an uncomfortable feeling.

9/20/11

By snapping my fingers in certain ways, I could travel to a limited number of universes or alternate realities. In one, I was in jail with my mom for robbing a bank, which really upset me. I was so upset that I discovered then that I could snap to go to different worlds as a way to escape my problems. The next world was dirty and infested with tons of rats. There was science-type stuff and decay everywhere; it looked like I was in the future, right after the apocalypse. In another world, I was part of a huge illegal diamond trade that also traveled with me to the other worlds. In each world, the guy I was a diamond go-between for would text me, asking where I was with the code word “heer.” In another world, a (possible evil?) queen ruled. Everything was beautiful, but it all felt like a cult – it was just too perfect to be true. These worlds had different times, kind of like time zones, so wherever I went, it was later than it had been in the previous world. I switched from world to world many times.

[End Dream]

Whenever I have a dream that involves some kind of super-power, it is almost always one of two things: either I can fly, or I can time travel, the latter of which is always turned “on” by me snapping my fingers. Usually I can only time travel a few seconds into the past – just enough time to, say, dodge a bullet, or, in more cases, avoid saying something that will lead to an awkward situation. I’m a super hero living in a not-so-evil dream world – it’s just super awkward.