fail

A dream about a haunted house. I was telling my friend Shana that it's the most haunted house I've ever lived in. She had a room down the hall. It really upset her and she wanted me to sleep in her room with her. It was one of those huge houses with lots of rooms, and there were only three people living there. In the basement was a labyrinth of stairs and doors, a confused cluster of passageways. I never ventured down there alone.

In the next part of the dream, I was in a lit class and realized I had put off reading some book by Charles Dickens because it bored me so awfully. It was that sinking feeling where I knew I didn't have the paper and I was going to fail the class. And the instructor was Ana, the head of the bilingual program in the school I work in. She was so tall and intimidating.

gang bang bang

Another awful, fear-filled dream.

I was in a bad neighborhood, running and hiding from something or someone.

Then I was in a dimly lit room with six other people. We were standing around a round table on which there were several guns. A woman explained the rules of the game.

"Group Russian Roulette. When I say go, grab a gun and shoot one by one around the room. Last one living wins."

The panic struck and I ran for the door. "Jesus CHRIST, I don't wanna play this game! STOP!!" They looked angry and panicked. They all pointed their guns at me. Then I woke up.

more terror

In the first part of the dream, I had moved back to Columbus. Fuck if I know why. I was bringing my things up to the third floor of my new place in a crummy old apartment building (you know, the kind that always smells like ramen noodles and has stained, carpeted stairs) and I saw David and Kendyl. "No shit!" David looked shocked to see me and shook my hand. Kendyl shrugged and gave me a dirty look. I excitedly tried to relate to them why I'd moved back and tell them about my life as of late, but they weren't listening. They stared blankly forward and then looked at me like I was some kind of freak. A really strange reaction from such warm and vivacious people. Kendyl looked at David and rolled her eyes. I felt so stupid and awkward. Then all of a sudden a really tall guy put his arms around me. I turned around to look at him. He was a bland, athletic looking guy about my age. He was wearing some sort of letterman jacket from some school and looked like he just stepped out of the 50s. "Umm...do I know you?" I asked him. He laughed, and then told me we had slept together the previous night. And I didn't even remember him.

In the next part of the dream, my mom had called me and told me to come over because she had found my older brother (apparently he hadn't been heard from in a few months) and that I needed to see him. I felt an angsty knot in my stomach on the drive over. I wasn't looking forward to whatever fucked up drama my family had in store for me this time. I went into the house and my mom's expression was cautious. "Kenny, she's here," she yelled over her shoulder. My older brother came staggering out. He didn't have any eyes. Just two little black marks where eyes had been. He was horrifying to behold. He jerked his head around in every direction as if sniffing the air. "Is Melissa here?" he asked in a stern voice. I shrieked and cried and asked what happened. "What did you get into now? Who did this to you?!" He said nothing. He just sat on the couch and smoked. He was very negative. Every word out of his mouth was vitriolic and flittery in his usual manner. Things like "Yeah, that's nice. Why don't you fucking take that knife, put it to my throat, and end this shit you stupid fucking cunt." He was being alternately quiet and mean. He looked like that villain from Dick Tracy. I felt so awful for him. I understood why he didn't want to live. It was an awful, deep, dark feeling. That things DO get shitty and some people can never get their heads above water and some people ARE better off dead. I remembered how unhappy Ken was before, drinking his life away. And now he would spend the rest of it blind and yelling at people, cursing my mom for not bringing him beer. Until he'd eventually stagger out of the house and get as far as he could before jumping off an overpass, getting hit by a car, or being picked up by police and spending the rest of his days in a psychiatric hospital like my younger brother. Not alive. Not happy. Basically a vegetable.

What a terrible way to start the day.

childhood

My little brother and I, playing with those robot-car-ball thingies. Those toys that are in the shape of a ball but break apart and become something else when you throw them. Mine turned into a little white Fiat type of car, and my little brother had a red hot rod. We were racing them around, just being kids. Then all of a sudden a boy I'd never seen before ran up and started attacking me, trying to get my pants off. I was screaming and resisting and my little brother was too, but was powerless to do anything about it. I finally managed to push him off of me in a great bout of anger.

Cat Kingdom

In last night's dream, the pervading theme was a moment of terrible indecision. I was trying on a pair of shoes I adored but couldn't decide whether or not to buy them, because they looked very similar to the ones I already had. The old sneakers were torn up and dirty, but I couldn't shake that terrible feeling that I was a boring person for buying the same shoes. The friends who were with me were laughing because I wanted to buy shoes so similar to the ones I already had. So I spent hours in the store in a state of panic about whether or not to buy the shoes.

In the next part of the dream, I was walking around the woods with a group of friends, looking for a place with "good vibes."

"This place is great," I said as I opened a gate. "The chick who lives here kind of has some negative energy, but the place has good vibes."

In the last part, we were in a clearing in the woods, surrounded by groups of cats of various colors and sizes. I pet an orange one and it talked to me. "Stay here," it told me, "this place has good vibes."

typical ending

Me, Winona Ryder, and Anthony Hopkins. My dream was bits and pieces of a movie I'd seen before and I was reliving the scenes with Winona Ryder. Anthony Hopkins was Hannibal Lector and was doggedly pursuing Winona Ryder, whoever she was supposed to be...she sure wasn't Clarice Starling. Anthony Hopkins was obsessed with her and I was her friend. We traveled from place to place witnessing his atrocities. At a crowded nightclub, he discreetly stabbed a young woman and carried her body out of the place. He kept following us around, saying creepy things to Winona Ryder about how lovely she looked and how she was next. He was skilled and sly, always hiding in places eyes never wandered. At a party we had in our house, he hid in a cabinet and stayed there until after everyone left. We were in the kitchen drinking tea when he jumped out and attacked her. I was horrified and powerless as she screamed and I struggled to pry her from his arms. He threw me to the floor and left with her struggling and slung over his shoulders. I was devastated. I knew he would eat her and I'd never see her again. But the next week she ran into the house, nearly naked and shivering. She cried in my arms and recounted the hours she'd spent imprisoned in his basement.

We went through the whole house bolting doors and reinforcing windows. We were terrified but too terrified to leave the house. We stayed there and waited, knowing he would come. And he did, sneaking in through a rooftop window we had overlooked. He laughed wickedly and took her by the neck. He cradled her in his arms and danced a tango with her as she whimpered and struggled. "You're mine this time," he whispered into her ear with an ugly toothy grin. But all of a sudden, four of our leather-clad anarchist friends jumped through the windows with hatchets and clubs. "Not this time!" one of them yelled. Another screamed, "We're gonna beat you to death, you maggot!" They began swinging their weapons at Anthony Hopkins and Winona Ryder escaped his clutches once again, running into my arms. They beat him brutally. They pounded his head and stomach with the clubs and hacked him bloody with spears. I thought for sure this time that we'd be safe from him once and for all.

But soon enough we were riding an escalator to the second floor of a shopping mall (or was it an airport?) and I realized I knew what was coming. "We have to turn around and go back downstairs and leave," I told her desperately. I told her I knew what was about to happen because I'd seen this scene before. He was waiting for her upstairs and she was finally going to meet her end. She looked at me stone-faced and said, "I have to go up there then. I can't change the scene." I knew she was right and I cried for her fate.

The next thing I knew, she was wearing some sort of peasant maid's costume and stepping into a wooden cart where other costumed people sat on wooden benches surrounded by hay. I waved goodbye jovially and she waved back. Then I noticed the costumed man sitting to her right, flashing me an evil grin. It was HIM, face painted white and red, wearing a gray curly wig. My stomach dropped and the cart drove away, getting smaller and smaller in the distance. Winona Ryder kept smiling and waving and that's the last time I saw her.

shouting

It's been so long but last night's dream was so vivid. There was my roommate Ashley sulking and asking me if I had any cigarettes. There was my father on the phone, starting to get angry and cursing at me. "I haven't heard from you in how long? You only call when you want something. Rah rah rah!" There was the German guy I met at dinner last night, shouting something about German language to me over all the noise. There were other vivid scenes too. I hate those really real dreams. They sometimes leave me uneasy.

There was big gathering at my house and my ex and his family were there too. I don't know what the big event was, but they were celebrating something I had accomplished. It was the end of the night, and everyone was chilling in the living room, playing Guitar Hero and Wii bowling. Everyone had brought their pets, so there were tiny dogs everywhere. I went into my room and laid down. I wanted a nap, but the noise in the living room was pretty loud. There were two cats and a very stubborn pug on my bed. The pug lay on my chest. For some reason his presence was annoying me. I pushed him off. He held firm, like a tiny little mass of muscles stronger than mine. I picked him up and carried to the door. He yipped and growled in the quiet way a pug does. I put him outside of the room, in the hall, and he ran back in the room and jumped on the bed. I was so tired I stopped fighting.

I woke up an hour later and jumped out of my bed. My window shade was open and I became aware that my ex was outside on the terrace, sitting in one of the patio chairs, watching me. I went back into the living room. My ex's mom and sister were snuggled up on the couch. I snuggled up with them. His sister played with my hair. I told her how sad I was about losing her brother. We both cried and she said, "I know. You're such a doll!" I realized they were about to leave very soon and I hadn't spent any time at all with my ex. I rushed out to the terrace with this heavy sense of urgency, pushing past the other people on the terrace to run towards him. He looked so small. I felt crushed, like I was losing an old friend. My heart sank as I saw him in the corner, drinking vodka straight from the bottle. I hurried towards him and saw that he looked miserable. "Hey!" I shouted, trying to sound chipper. He gave me a pained look and took a long, hard swig from the bottle. He looked angry and sad. He made a snide remark, something like, "You're gonna go to Sasquatch Festival again this year? You're gonna spend like 1500 dollars."

That's all I remember.

trampy wench

Wow, a dream. Finally. I haven't dreamt in so long. I'm now in Spain for the next year. Maybe it's so awesome here I finally sleep well enough at night to dream.

As usual, it was a weird one.

I was in London, and had agreed to meet some guy in a pub, a blind date sort of thing. We met and drank and laughed and I was really turned on by his accent. After a few beers, he said "I dare you to take your shirt off and meet me upstairs." I guess my dreams include bad stereotypes where one sort of information is filtered from random movies into my brain and all British pubs are also inns that have rooms upstairs. Anyway, I was drunk and I took my shirt off right there in the pub. I heard shouts and hoots from the bar. A disgruntled old bartender, who was drying a glass, glared at me and said "As long as you're going upstairs, honey." I stumbled upstairs to an attic with a low ceiling. A middle-aged woman was in the room and gasped when she saw me. She went downstairs. I waited for the guy and started to feel silly sitting there naked. I was relieved to find clothes in the bathroom and put a shirt on. The woman came back into the room and called down the stairs to her young son that it was okay to come up now. I felt like such a tramp.

The guy finally came up and I half-laughed and half-shouted at him. Then we wrestled drunkenly, playfully. Then I fell into a deep sleep, cuddling with him.

dream on

I don't dream anymore. My dreams are dead.

When I sleep, it's so deep and desperate that I don't remember a thing. Sometimes it's because I'm drunk. Sometimes it's because I'm so tired.

I want to dream again.