Dream Log: May 11, 2001

I had a tapeworm.

I've never had a tapeworm, nor have I ever known someone who had a tapeworm, so I don't know the symptoms, and I don't know how you get rid of them. But in this dream, I had a tapeworm, and the only way I could get rid of it was to puke it up.

So I stood over the toilet, feeling my gorge rising, and I started to vomit. Immediately, the tapeworm starts to come out. But it isn't a small worm -- it's damned colossal. It completely fills my esophagus, bulges my throat out enough to force my windpipe closed. It almost distends my jaw as it pushes out my mouth. It's colossal. No mere worm, this is an eel -- a lamprey -- and surely it's the King Dog Daddy of all the Slimy Gut-Dwelling Eels, because it just keeps coming and coming. Its head plunks down into the toilet, but it keeps coming. Its oily, greenish-black hide, flecked with bits of vomit and spatters of my own blood, keeps surging out of me. I'm terrified, horrified, unable to breathe, crying, making little choking sounds that would be roof-shaking screams if I could only breathe around this monster eel.

It seems to take forever, but surely only 30 seconds to a minute have passed by the time the thing's tail (or head -- god help me, it's got a mouth on both ends) slides out of my throat. Its front end is still sunk in the toilet, but the rest of it is humped up over the rim and coiled wetly on the bathroom floor. The thing is eight feet long, and this little voice in the back of my mind is gibbering surely you've lost weight now, boyo, who needs diets and exercise, just barf up a sea monster every now and then.

I lean out of the bathroom, drained physically and emotionally, surely feeling like a few years drugged up in the psych ward would feel just peachy right now, and I call for some assistance. My mother comes over, glances unconcernedly into the bathroom, and calls for my dad. "Say, how should J-P dispose of that?" she asks. (And a good question, too -- No way in hell our plumbing can handle that, har har har). My dad looks in, shrugs, and says, "Put it in a plastic garbage bag and throw it in the dumpster." They both move on, leaving me wondering how much of my sanity will be left after shoving eight feet of dead eel into a trash bag...

Two dreams:

I was in a large, old-fashioned bar with an excitable, flashy playboy who whipped out a crack pipe at the bar and started smoking. He seemed very obnoxious, and kept explaining that he had some kind of privilege to do this.

I was hunting fleas on my cat Curve. Considering that she's been an indoor cat for the past year, this HAD TO be a dream!

Mononoke Wheel Of Time

• This is the climax and conclusion to a non-existent book in the Wheel Of Time series. I and one other must surprise and kill the group of darkfriends who are camped in the forest we are stalking through. They have in their possession an artifact of unbelievable power which allows them to control certain animals of the forest by turning them into demons (i.e. the demons of Princess Mononoke). We find their camp and attack. Despite our advantage of surprise we are far out-numbered. They drive us back into the woods and use the talisman to call an enormous boar demon to attack us. It's the size of VW bus and chases us through the trees. The monkeys that live there help us by throwing stones down at the beast but it does little good. We're able to cripple the demon by cutting one of its legs off but this becomes a turn for the worst. The spectating darkfriends escape but before they do they send so much evil energy into the boar that it turns into a time bomb. The monkeys help us up into a tall tree as the boar's body explodes outward in an avalanche of fire and lava. We barely escape the heat, perched high in an ancient tree.

I think the giant tapeworm is a meme dream. The type of dream that many people commonly share: such as dreaming of falling or the "naked at school" dream. I've also dreamed I was vomiting a long, obese tapeworm. Left me horrified for days.