Rather disturbing last night. First I remember beaming down to some planet in with an away team. Captain Janeway and some red-shirts; we were all poking around for some life form or another that was registering on the tricorders but we just couldn’t get a lock.


We ended up in a vast room with Stonehenge-like rock formations in the center. Like idiots we crept up into the circle of stones, phasers drawn and ready. Of course, the readings got stronger, and then they were bouncing around so we couldn’t tell what direction an attack might come from. Some red-shirt lost his cool and started opening fire, which led to all the other ensigns going nuts.


In a sudden turn of dream-logic Janeway and the team were gone and I was left alone. Out stepped a particularly voluptuous young woman, whom I proceeded to have hot dream-sex with.


I was then in the apartment of a lady whom I’ve recently befriended. She’s much older than I am. This part of the dream is hazy for me, but I remember us having one of those romantic moments where a first kiss occurs. But as I lean in to kiss her, she’s suddenly the woman who I’m involved with. This does not shock me. Again, things change and we’re in a house, and I’m trying to install Half-Life 2 on the desktop; only it’s a pirated copy, so I’m having issues.


I know that for some reason or another she (the lovely woman whom I love, my SO) and I have been having a quarrel. It is night, she is dressed in a pink, shiny, what I assume to be silk, nightie. I realize that I’m sick of trying to make half-life work and that I’d rather be making love with this beautiful woman, however, she’s locked herself in our bedroom. Unable to communicate with her, I go back to fuming over half-life.


Suddenly, my SO comes out of the room and is standing by my side, with her hand on my head, stroking my hair. Before I have a chance to ask what’s up three hooligans come up the stairs, apparently invited by my SO who’s still in her nightie. One of them is a short, latina guy who comes over and sees that what I’m doing on the computer. The other two are women, one of whom I cannot see any details of. The other is an extremely skinny blonde girl dressed in a sea of frothy, blue lace. She plops down on one of the chairs and begins unlacing her combination pump/knee high boots.


This is all very strange. It puts me on guard and my SO is just standing there, stroking away at the back of my head like I’m a cat or something. The guy who has come over to the desk I’m sitting at asks me Hey man, why aren’t you playing?. I mutter to myself that I’m using a pirated copy and I just need to make some adjustments. He takes another step forward, crossing into my personal space bubble, I’m uncomfortable. From nowhere, he produces some CDs which he brandishes in my face like Mike Meyers in Wayne’s World when he buys the fender. “Do you accept cash? Cha-CHING!”


He wants me to use one of his CDs to make the program work, but I’m not concentrating on the program anymore. I’m on edge, trying to understand what there people want and why they are here. Trying to explain that I’d really rather fix it myself the guy picks up on the fact that I really don’t want him there and we exchange some sentences.


It escalates from there. This guy and I get into some sort of verbal battle ending with my SO and her invited guests to begin streaming out of the house, giving me weird looks. The others leave immediately, but my SO ducks into the bedroom and comes out fully dressed. She and I engage in an argument that centers on why she’s going out at this time of night, and why the fellow and I got into an argument. She insists that he could tell I was uncomfortable with him there and my defensiveness triggered the fiasco.


I’m trying to explain to her the absurdity of the situation as I see it when I find myself so worked up that I realize that I must be in a dream-state.


I wake up, and I am crazy. Still caught between trying to understand what I had done wrong, why this was happening to me, and realizing that it was a dream. For a few moments I’m angry at my brain, why is it doing this to me?


Take a closer look: Maybe it’s teaching me a lesson. Now that I think about it, I’ve learned a lesson. I do have issues with being cool to people. In new situations I tend to become a physic hedgehog, curled up in a spiny ball. Or I sidestep and retreat into my shell. My SO says (in real life) that there’s two different mes. There’s the kind, loving, human me, and then there’s the guarded me. She says it’s like being able to see thousands of little tiny sharp hairs that rise up in defense when I’m uncomfortable. It’s very apparent she says.


She told my to try something: She said next time I’m in public and I feel my little hairs go up, I should try and smooth them down. A flame and the void effect, the turbulent pond exercise… All this comes to me and sends me reeling, amazed that either my mind/subconscious has presented this to me as something I must be mindful of, or my self has connected two dots of seemingly unrelated significance.


In any case I realize how easy it is/would be to defuse these situations with a little bit of calm and confidence… Weird eh?