Dream Archive 32: A Complicated World of Meaningful Objects

A lantern, a bell, a manor house that I(?) inherited(?). In the dream I was writing down the dream. In one of the shared rooms we were all sitting on the floor. It was a mess. Someone’s pet turtle was crawling around. He opened his mouth and fifteen little foam balls of different sizes rolled out. We realized we needed to clean the place, because he’d been eating them for a while. This was maybe a shared house at a college(?) because people started discussing the legal ramifications of cleaning up other people’s stuff.

There was some kind of story that kept repeating. It was a story of intrigue that involved riding motorcycles through a complicated world of meaningful objects, perhaps in a museum(?). In order to be on the motorcycle team, you had to log in and create a character. My login was “japan5”.

There was a street that looked like it might’ve been in Cork or Edinburgh. It was bustling with activity, and there were shops and restaurants everywhere, but it was apparently still part of the college(?). I was supposed to be doing work, but I kept looking around. My father was there, and he lifted me up and swung me around so I could get a better view. There was a window set into the floor directly above me about six floors up. Someone, a student, was looking down through it as though they were sitting in front of a regular window. I got the feeling this was maybe the school library(?). I started to feel self-conscious and told my father to put me down, because being on your dad’s shoulders is only for little kids.

I knew I should check my email and see what work I needed to do, but I was hungry. I asked my dad if he wanted to go to a cafe(?) called Savannah. He froze up, trying to think of what to say, an I realized he was supposed to be undercover. I was blowing his cover story. My brother and I looked at each other, trying to figure out what to do. A woman came over and asked if she could help. She clearly thought my dad was having trouble remembering things.

I said, “No, it’s okay, he...”

“Yes,” said my dad. “It’s okay. I’m Savannah.”

Dream Archive 31: Joysticks

A (recurring?) dream about a party in a basement. This time it’s being thrown by Rick from Rick and Morty. I’m Morty, and there’s two girls I’m trying to impress. They want to play a video game, but there’s no joysticks. I keep asking Rick to fix them, but he’s using them for something. People upstairs are playing some kind of team sport. Some of them are naked. I think in previous dreams they've been wearing white togas, and the party was thrown by someone else. But the joystick thing has always been part of it.

Dream Archive 30: Schoolwork

Had to drive all over creation for schoolwork. The esteemed, indefatigable Professor Leonard Miles was threatening to fail us, even though it would be mostly his fault because he’s a terrible teacher. Suck it, Leonard! You’re wasting everyone’s time. 

Dream Archive 29: Cartels

A movie about drug cartels starring Dennis Quaid and Luis Guzman. People were after a big cache of money, but it turned out the drug lords were faking the whole thing in order to draw people in and capture them. 

Dream Archive 28: Installation

An unspecified member of The Cure made a public art installation that was basically a huge green bell hanging from a tree. If you went up inside the bell there were posters and things plastered to the walls. 

Dream Archive 27: Work-Study

I was in Ireland on a work-study program. I worked in a cool coffee shop. The owner was very nice. There were more employees than he needed, but he kept all of us on even though we screwed around a lot. We were talking about place names, and his daughter told me that “twain” means “island.” Then she paused and said, “Wait. Ireland’s an island, so why’s it called Ireland?” I said, “I think it’s named after a river.” The owner’s wife nodded and pointed to a map she was drawing in pencil on a piece of paper. It showed all the rivers in Ireland. She asked me to go pick something up at a friend’s cabin and drop off a DVD of Planet of the Apes she was lending him. The owner turned to one of the employees and said, “That’s the cabin you’ll be living at over the summer.” The employee looked excited. I took the van and drove to the remote village where the  friend lived. When I got there he asked if I’d brought Planet of the Apes. I realized I’d forgotten it. I apologized profusely and offered to go buy a copy somewhere. He said not to worry about it, but I could tell he was disappointed and annoyed. It didn’t look like there was much to do in the village, so getting a new movie to watch was probably a big deal. We loaded a wooden bike into the van, and he went back inside. I went in to use the bathroom and met his wife on the way out. She was making all kinds of candy and baked goods in the kitchen. They looked really good, but I knew I didn’t deserve any because I had forgotten the movie. God damn it, I still feel bad about that.

Dream Archive 26: Fox Pack

Worked as a process server in rural America. Stayed at a house in the desert where a fox was sleeping under a bed. He had found a scout pack filled with useful things. I went through it and tried to find mace in case people being served got violent. Found it. In the morning the fox got up and walked around. He was going to leave, but I petted him and he lay down and rolled over like a cat. I scratched his head for a while then had to get going. I was actually filling in for my dad, who wasn’t sick or anything, he just wanted me and my brother to cover his shifts. I came up with song lyrics about someone jumping off the roof of a TV station to kill themselves, but I forgot because I couldn't find a place to write them down. I wish I could remember. I think they were really good.

Dream Archive 25: Amateur Starter

I was a starter for classic cars, meaning that I was one of the only people who knew how to start them when they needed to be moved from display to storage or wherever. But I didn’t have that much expertise, so it only worked about half the time. Apparently that was enough for them to keep calling me when a car needed starting, although they always looked at me skeptically when I arrived. I was basically guessing and sometimes getting lucky. I wondered if other starters knew what they were doing or if we were all just pretending. Maybe there were no professional starters in the world, only amateurs who kept getting lucky. I was also taking improv classes at a place nearby.

Dream Archive 24: Célèbre

A man came into the bookstore where I was hanging out. For whatever reason I was over by the Language section. He pointed to a book called FAMOUS and insistently tapped it with his finger while saying something in French. He was worked up about something. He grabbed a French-English dictionary and tried to show us what he wanted. We figured out that he was trying to find the French word for “famous” so he could learn what it meant. The man’s companion told my friend a story. Apparently the man’s wife had died, and the last word she said was “famous.” He had never been able to figure out what she meant because he didn’t know the word’s meaning. The internet didn’t seem to exist in this world. We began searching the dictionaries, but none of them had the word. Some of them turned into nonsense in the section where the word should be. I was frantically paging through them, and I got so upset that I ripped out one of the pages in frustration. I offered to pay for it, but my friend who worked at the bookstore said I didn’t have to. The closest word we could find was “notoriété” (notoriety), which wasn’t close enough. Having failed the man, I asked for his phone number so I could contact him when I found the answer. His companion gave me a business card which had an email address on it, so maybe the internet existed after all. I was sitting and thinking, holding the card with the edge pressed against the side of my face. It slipped and brushed my eye. I was worried I had given myself a paper cut on my eyeball.

QUESTION: Why have the past two dreams included both bookstore and famous? Did this dream come from the previous one? Or from writing down the previous one?

Dream Archive 23: Two Brothers

Long lost sister and twin brothers who are soldiers. They’re knot experts. They wrap themselves in sheets of fabric and do complicated jumps and flips to tie the knots. They activate things on the walls to make us move around the room. There’s also a man who’s a tiny dictator. They trick him and tie him up. He is arrested and incarcerated. One of the brothers fakes a hand injury so that the dictator will think he’s got the advantage if he ever escapes. All of this takes place within walking distance of two libraries, several museums, a movie theater, an outdoor mall, and a famous bookstore. It’s like the cultural center of town.

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