Dream Log: August 11, 2000

The middle brother doesn't listen and gets shot by the thugs. Blood spatters against the wall, and he slides down it to a sitting position. The two remaining brothers are terrified, and they run back and towards the other side of the house, but more thugs arrive, coming in from all sides.

I wake up with my heart pounding, and I can't go back to sleep. I lay there for about twenty minutes, and finally just get up.

I forgot I had left my friend on hold, and rushed back and told him I was free for the day (despite that I wasn't?). He made a large exclaim of noise like in those auto-insurance commercials with the screaming customers. "I knew we'd be able to fight justice tonight with a hair curler!" I asked him what that meant and he tried to explain to me that our expedition would take us through Anchorage and Yukon. He told me he'd be over to pick me up in an hour or two and to be ready. I didn't know what to take on an expedition through Canada and Alaska, so I packed what seemed right, which really wasn't right for a dream: coffee mugs, family-size pack of condoms, one of those poiuyt optical illusion toys (you know, with the three prongs), and I think, though I'm not sure, some boxes of Ramen.

Later that afternoon, I heard a car horn honk, playing the tune of Scotland the Brave (or something close to that). I ran out the door expecting it to be my friend, but instead, it was his friend Goda, who I haven't seen since I was twelve. He blew me a kiss, and screamed something at me, but I can't remember what. The next part was hazy, something about my cat and how Adam would not be able to join us because he was tied up in the trunk. I was directed to address him as the new love of my life, and every time he looked at me, I had to kiss him. Kissing him reminded me of kissing my cat. We drove for 2 days before we reached the western U.S. and the border or Canada, and I progressed to vomit on the officer on duty, who didn't allow us to pass through. Something about Canada being a clean nation, and punks like us would just ruin things. I had a brief flash of the wannabe-punks on the escalator in SLC Punk, and I woke up.

Some of this shit just comes way outa left field.

Does anyone have experience with indreamnia, and know a solution for it? I would be very happy to hear your suggestions. This write-up is dedicated to all the indreamniacs.

What is the meaning of needing to shave in a dream? Last night I had this mildly disturbing dream of being at a combination rave/music equipment sale. I was preparing to go into the corridor where it was being held in a hotel when I looked into the mirror and saw that the left hand of my face was almost entirely covered in a beard (but not extending onto the right hand side). Looking for a razor to shave with, I realized that I had the wrong blades for the wrong handles. I tried holding the blade with my fingers to shave with, but my mother told me to stop as it was dangerous (a cameo). I couldn't locate anything to shave with, not even the cheap rip-your-face-apart disposables that girls use. Growing frustrated, I simply wiped it off my face with a damp cloth.

Now, I'm decent at analyzing my own dreams; especially since I understand the basic sorting functions that my brain does as I sleep. Usually if I connect-the-dots through a series of related memories and thoughts, I can see why certain things come to me as I sleep (dare I say the creation of soft-links?). But this has me mildly confused.

The dream was tense, but in that "I'm going to be late" sort of way, not in "Oh gods, my life will be over" way. I'm not particularly concerned about my looks as I realized years ago that they aren't going to change. I don't have any impending events or activities happening that I have to attend, nor anything that is "due" (such as late work projects). The only personal project I have hanging over me is installing this 37gb hard drive that I bought and putting together my most recent High Powered Rocket kit. But neither of those are pressured based.

The fact that I was disturbed by the hair's presence would seem to indicate something involving looks or the impression that I might be giving others. The inability to remove it in a conventional fashion might indicate not be able to use normal channels, or that I'm trying to show people something about myself in a different way.

Oh.

Who ever said that speaking about something doesn't help you work yourself through it?

It may very well being a showing of the dissatisfaction I'm feeling towards my writing here in Everything (it sucks to have big thoughts and a small language center). That's interesting and at the moment, the best possibility.

How do the rest of you feel about that? Any ideas?

• I am giving a tour of my old workplace, Nokia, to my girlfriend. We run into an old friend of mine who I haven't seen for a long time.

• My mother and I board an airplane and sit in the front-most seats. We are told we have two options: we can have drinks or we can watch the second half of the in-flight movie. We choose the second option.

• I am in the movie, starring Jeff Daniels as a tour group leader at the La Brea Tar Pits. I am part of the group and we are all seated in rows of folding chairs facing Jeff, who is giving a lecture on what we are about to see. Apparently we are not here to see fossils but a building known to have the worst architecture in the world. Afterwards, we will depart La Brea for Amsterdam. We all get up to go see the building and I notice a teenage girl giving me the eye. She approaches me and I kindly inform her that she's too young for me. She smiles and walks on. Outside, I catch a glimpse of an M.C. Escher-like adobe building. Dream ends.