anotherone
28th January 2008, 04:31 AM
This is all from this morning. Enjoy.
---
I have a thing about my my pores. My skin is actually really clear, but back in middle school when it wasn't so much, I developed a serious squeezing habit. I still do it, even though I have nothing to do it on except the normal, imperceptible amounts of whatever it is that pores get in them. There's just something about getting crap out of my face that's extremely satisfying. So: I dreamed I had a largish pre-pimple on my cheek, so I worked on it, and what came out was... something like a small stemless mushroom, about as big around as a nickel. I spent awhile just being fascinated by it, inspecting it closely, and feeling kind of triumphant and creeped out at the same time.
THEN
I took my brother to visit the town I went to college in. We didn't find much to do, and we were just about to go home when one of the buildings we passed on campus had a sign out front advertising a Star Wars convention or something. When I saw it I remembered getting an announcement of some kind for it in the mail, when I had actually lived there (IRL it's been much too long since then for that), but had assumed I wouldn't be around to go to it. We went in to check it out and have an awesome time. But we found out it was near the end of the last day, and while we weren't in danger of being closed upon and thrown out, hardly anybody was there, and all the good stuff had already been bought or packed up, and all that was left was cheap, gaudy, slightly to wildly inaccurate props and costumes and the vendors who loved them. We did play with the stuff we could find, and spent a fair amount of time there as I recall... but it just wasn't the same.
THEN
I was in some antique and/or metaphysical shop by myself, poking around... I came to a little glass case with a few unpackaged tarot decks, spread out a little rather than neatly stacked so you could see more of the artwork. The one that interested me most used entirely different symbols, but it was at least clearly a divinatory system of some kind. It was done on paper, turned colors in places from age, with simple black ink drawings and elegant cursive titles, in French. The only one I remember read 'La f________," some 2-syllable word. I might know it if I saw it, if it's even real French. I decided not to ask about it; I suspected it was really old and valuable and should be preserved better than I was likely to do. I wouldn't know what to do with it anyway... I was content to have seen it.
THEN
I ran into a woman I thought I recognized as a psychic (or whatever she is) I went to in real life a while back, this time at her day job, or at the store, or some form of Clark Kent mode; I forget what. She looked just slightly different so I wasn't sure it was her-- I tried her name, and it was. She remembered me, and asked how I was doing, but other than that the conversation really didn't take off. She seemed to have other things to do.
THEN
It was the day before, or the day of, my math final. Pre-calculus, maybe. At least, that's what I thought. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if I had the date right or not. Was it later? Or worst of all-- had I missed it? I went through all my papers from class, looking for the syllabus with the schedule. Page after page of notes and tables and diagrams-- and it was nowhere. I found the booklet we were supposed to do all our work in, with the middle two pages left blank, saved till the end to do the final on (something about using those two was supposed to help prevent cheating). I tried to use that piece of knowledge about the test to bring back more, but none of the things I came up with were what I needed. I decided to leave my room, having exhausted all my options there, and see if I could find more information, or someone to ask. I ended up just getting on with my day, worrying all the while. I went to other classes. I did other things. Eventually I gave up. 'Even if I haven't already missed it,' I thought, 'I'm still screwed. I don't know this stuff. I'll just not show up and never look back.' 'That's a terrible attitude,' said my mature side. It was not remotely effective.
THEN
Possibly in an attempt to distract myself from the problem of the test, I went outside to a little sunny, grassy area-- a treeless, landscape-planned rectangle, but pleasant. A group of other students was already there talking about whatever and having a good time. I looked down and saw a little white thing in the grass nearby, so I went and picked it up. It was a carved figure of a monkey, sitting and curled up a little so that it was essentially round. It had a flat base so it could stand, or be a large gamepiece, or something. I thought it was neat, so I kept it. As I made my way around, I found more of them-- identical at first, then some that were crude people or dancing pairs of people. I wondered if they might belong to the other people who were there, but nobody stopped or even seemed to notice me, so I scooped them all up and left with a neat collection.
THEN
A part that was more like a movie. Out in the desert, there was a wave of warriors, all on dark horses, wearing robe-uniforms and bright red headwraps like turbans, but simpler. They charged over and down a huge dune of golden sand, maintaining their even lines and rows as they rode, even with the mild avalanche they were causing going on underneath them. Then, unexpectedly, one of their horses lost its footing and fell, and it and its rider were almost instantly buried by the rushing sand. At the same moment (it really was like a movie, set to music and perfectly synched with the dramatic finale) the charge ended, and they stood in formation before an unseen speaker, someone who greatly outranked them, and from whom they were there to hear a pre-battle speech. 'We have lost Moses,' they murmured-- but very quietly, not even raising their bowed heads to look at where he fell, afraid to be seen abandoning their discipline. The speech he gave was long and mostly in praise of their leader, who I'm going to have to refer to as Prince Longname (third of the line of such and such, whose bravery and glory, etc.). To everyone's complete shock, when the speaker finished, one of the warriors stepped out to the front on foot and began to correct him. His coming forward at all was preamble enough-- he launched right into what he had to say. '[Prince Longname] is not the third; he is the thirteenth. Furthermore...' Beginning with details like that, he quickly moved onto larger points, such as the origin of the conflict and finally the justifications for the current strike and the war in general. There was silence. Miraculously, the speaker seemed amused or even admiring of his boldness, and called him to come with him to his palace... or wing of the palace... or whatever.
Here I started to participate in the dream. I waited in a larger room, with minimal decoration and made entirely of very dark wood, just outside where the two of them were meeting. I didn't try to listen to them. On a pedestal I saw a chess set that matched the room, but it only had the black pieces. I thought of my white figurines I had collected earlier and wondered if they were supposed to be the other half of the set. Not that they looked like they went together at all-- more in a 'meaningful', maybe-this-is-why-I'm-here way. Then I was in the role of the warrior, but as myself. The speaker emerged and showed me another pedestal with a bowl full of tiny coins and a hollow wooden sphere. The sphere was incomplete, cut into pieces of different shapes that would fit together tightly like a jigsaw puzzle, and would only hold together if they were all in place-- otherwise nothing supported them and it easily fell apart. He told me to try finishing it. I picked it up, turned it a little to look at it-- and it fell apart, more coins spilling out of it into the bowl. I made a whimpery 'ehhn!' noise in protest, like 'Well, how am I supposed to do this, then?' He said nothing but implied I should keep working on it. I picked it up again, and mostly just looked at it, not sure what to do. Soon I was separate from the warrior again. The two of them went into a different room to talk some more, and I was told to clean the walls.
So I did. I got water all on them and started scrubbing. The wood was a much lighter color-- I don't know if it was because the scene shifted to a different place, or my brain just couldn't keep track of what everything was supposed to look like, but I don't think it was because of me cleaning them.
THEN
It really did shift scenes, because I was working alongside an old(er) lady doing the same job on the stall doors of a large public restroom. She was quiet and slow and seemed to feel insulted but resigned to doing it. There was a TV in there, which I watched because she wouldn't talk to me. I saw a commercial with a series of beautiful women talking about the product through reverse sexual innuendo. 'I love it in the morning!' -- 'I don't do it very well.' -- and several more. Turns out they were talking about... making waffles! Try our delicious, easy-to-make waffles! With fruit! What a weird commercial, I thought. I couldn't really stop thinking about it. I just kept saying to myself-- I can't believe what a weird commercial that was.
THEN
I was hanging out with some people who I guess were my friends, but no one I've ever actually met. It was a pretty small house, and we were in the living room sitting on couches and the arms of couches and things like that. It was very relaxed and a little silly-- and then for some reason some famous sci-fi author was at the door, and they decided to pretend he was dangerous and try to keep him out, just as a game, even though they knew who he was and were fans, I guess. And he played along, acting ominous and trying to get in, and pretty soon everybody was shrieking and giggling and going 'NOOOOOO' and basically turning into endorphin zombies.
THEN
At my house, my mom was taking a large poster out of the closet to show me. She said, sort of laughingly, it supposedly contained some terrible dread secrets, and more Lovecraftian descriptive language followed, and I was like 'Not for the uninitiate?' and she was like 'Exactly.' And we laughed and rolled it out on the bed. It was one of those Magic Eye posters with the 3D picture. The 2D part was made of enlarged color print-dot patterns in bright colors, with some of the darker colors forming big concentric circles and a very basic human outline. I stood on the bed over it to try and see the 3D image that would reveal the mind-crushing horror, but I couldn't get it to line up and lock into place properly. She asked me what it was and I said I didn't have it yet because I wasn't used to standing so far away from them. But then I woke up.
---
I have a thing about my my pores. My skin is actually really clear, but back in middle school when it wasn't so much, I developed a serious squeezing habit. I still do it, even though I have nothing to do it on except the normal, imperceptible amounts of whatever it is that pores get in them. There's just something about getting crap out of my face that's extremely satisfying. So: I dreamed I had a largish pre-pimple on my cheek, so I worked on it, and what came out was... something like a small stemless mushroom, about as big around as a nickel. I spent awhile just being fascinated by it, inspecting it closely, and feeling kind of triumphant and creeped out at the same time.
THEN
I took my brother to visit the town I went to college in. We didn't find much to do, and we were just about to go home when one of the buildings we passed on campus had a sign out front advertising a Star Wars convention or something. When I saw it I remembered getting an announcement of some kind for it in the mail, when I had actually lived there (IRL it's been much too long since then for that), but had assumed I wouldn't be around to go to it. We went in to check it out and have an awesome time. But we found out it was near the end of the last day, and while we weren't in danger of being closed upon and thrown out, hardly anybody was there, and all the good stuff had already been bought or packed up, and all that was left was cheap, gaudy, slightly to wildly inaccurate props and costumes and the vendors who loved them. We did play with the stuff we could find, and spent a fair amount of time there as I recall... but it just wasn't the same.
THEN
I was in some antique and/or metaphysical shop by myself, poking around... I came to a little glass case with a few unpackaged tarot decks, spread out a little rather than neatly stacked so you could see more of the artwork. The one that interested me most used entirely different symbols, but it was at least clearly a divinatory system of some kind. It was done on paper, turned colors in places from age, with simple black ink drawings and elegant cursive titles, in French. The only one I remember read 'La f________," some 2-syllable word. I might know it if I saw it, if it's even real French. I decided not to ask about it; I suspected it was really old and valuable and should be preserved better than I was likely to do. I wouldn't know what to do with it anyway... I was content to have seen it.
THEN
I ran into a woman I thought I recognized as a psychic (or whatever she is) I went to in real life a while back, this time at her day job, or at the store, or some form of Clark Kent mode; I forget what. She looked just slightly different so I wasn't sure it was her-- I tried her name, and it was. She remembered me, and asked how I was doing, but other than that the conversation really didn't take off. She seemed to have other things to do.
THEN
It was the day before, or the day of, my math final. Pre-calculus, maybe. At least, that's what I thought. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if I had the date right or not. Was it later? Or worst of all-- had I missed it? I went through all my papers from class, looking for the syllabus with the schedule. Page after page of notes and tables and diagrams-- and it was nowhere. I found the booklet we were supposed to do all our work in, with the middle two pages left blank, saved till the end to do the final on (something about using those two was supposed to help prevent cheating). I tried to use that piece of knowledge about the test to bring back more, but none of the things I came up with were what I needed. I decided to leave my room, having exhausted all my options there, and see if I could find more information, or someone to ask. I ended up just getting on with my day, worrying all the while. I went to other classes. I did other things. Eventually I gave up. 'Even if I haven't already missed it,' I thought, 'I'm still screwed. I don't know this stuff. I'll just not show up and never look back.' 'That's a terrible attitude,' said my mature side. It was not remotely effective.
THEN
Possibly in an attempt to distract myself from the problem of the test, I went outside to a little sunny, grassy area-- a treeless, landscape-planned rectangle, but pleasant. A group of other students was already there talking about whatever and having a good time. I looked down and saw a little white thing in the grass nearby, so I went and picked it up. It was a carved figure of a monkey, sitting and curled up a little so that it was essentially round. It had a flat base so it could stand, or be a large gamepiece, or something. I thought it was neat, so I kept it. As I made my way around, I found more of them-- identical at first, then some that were crude people or dancing pairs of people. I wondered if they might belong to the other people who were there, but nobody stopped or even seemed to notice me, so I scooped them all up and left with a neat collection.
THEN
A part that was more like a movie. Out in the desert, there was a wave of warriors, all on dark horses, wearing robe-uniforms and bright red headwraps like turbans, but simpler. They charged over and down a huge dune of golden sand, maintaining their even lines and rows as they rode, even with the mild avalanche they were causing going on underneath them. Then, unexpectedly, one of their horses lost its footing and fell, and it and its rider were almost instantly buried by the rushing sand. At the same moment (it really was like a movie, set to music and perfectly synched with the dramatic finale) the charge ended, and they stood in formation before an unseen speaker, someone who greatly outranked them, and from whom they were there to hear a pre-battle speech. 'We have lost Moses,' they murmured-- but very quietly, not even raising their bowed heads to look at where he fell, afraid to be seen abandoning their discipline. The speech he gave was long and mostly in praise of their leader, who I'm going to have to refer to as Prince Longname (third of the line of such and such, whose bravery and glory, etc.). To everyone's complete shock, when the speaker finished, one of the warriors stepped out to the front on foot and began to correct him. His coming forward at all was preamble enough-- he launched right into what he had to say. '[Prince Longname] is not the third; he is the thirteenth. Furthermore...' Beginning with details like that, he quickly moved onto larger points, such as the origin of the conflict and finally the justifications for the current strike and the war in general. There was silence. Miraculously, the speaker seemed amused or even admiring of his boldness, and called him to come with him to his palace... or wing of the palace... or whatever.
Here I started to participate in the dream. I waited in a larger room, with minimal decoration and made entirely of very dark wood, just outside where the two of them were meeting. I didn't try to listen to them. On a pedestal I saw a chess set that matched the room, but it only had the black pieces. I thought of my white figurines I had collected earlier and wondered if they were supposed to be the other half of the set. Not that they looked like they went together at all-- more in a 'meaningful', maybe-this-is-why-I'm-here way. Then I was in the role of the warrior, but as myself. The speaker emerged and showed me another pedestal with a bowl full of tiny coins and a hollow wooden sphere. The sphere was incomplete, cut into pieces of different shapes that would fit together tightly like a jigsaw puzzle, and would only hold together if they were all in place-- otherwise nothing supported them and it easily fell apart. He told me to try finishing it. I picked it up, turned it a little to look at it-- and it fell apart, more coins spilling out of it into the bowl. I made a whimpery 'ehhn!' noise in protest, like 'Well, how am I supposed to do this, then?' He said nothing but implied I should keep working on it. I picked it up again, and mostly just looked at it, not sure what to do. Soon I was separate from the warrior again. The two of them went into a different room to talk some more, and I was told to clean the walls.
So I did. I got water all on them and started scrubbing. The wood was a much lighter color-- I don't know if it was because the scene shifted to a different place, or my brain just couldn't keep track of what everything was supposed to look like, but I don't think it was because of me cleaning them.
THEN
It really did shift scenes, because I was working alongside an old(er) lady doing the same job on the stall doors of a large public restroom. She was quiet and slow and seemed to feel insulted but resigned to doing it. There was a TV in there, which I watched because she wouldn't talk to me. I saw a commercial with a series of beautiful women talking about the product through reverse sexual innuendo. 'I love it in the morning!' -- 'I don't do it very well.' -- and several more. Turns out they were talking about... making waffles! Try our delicious, easy-to-make waffles! With fruit! What a weird commercial, I thought. I couldn't really stop thinking about it. I just kept saying to myself-- I can't believe what a weird commercial that was.
THEN
I was hanging out with some people who I guess were my friends, but no one I've ever actually met. It was a pretty small house, and we were in the living room sitting on couches and the arms of couches and things like that. It was very relaxed and a little silly-- and then for some reason some famous sci-fi author was at the door, and they decided to pretend he was dangerous and try to keep him out, just as a game, even though they knew who he was and were fans, I guess. And he played along, acting ominous and trying to get in, and pretty soon everybody was shrieking and giggling and going 'NOOOOOO' and basically turning into endorphin zombies.
THEN
At my house, my mom was taking a large poster out of the closet to show me. She said, sort of laughingly, it supposedly contained some terrible dread secrets, and more Lovecraftian descriptive language followed, and I was like 'Not for the uninitiate?' and she was like 'Exactly.' And we laughed and rolled it out on the bed. It was one of those Magic Eye posters with the 3D picture. The 2D part was made of enlarged color print-dot patterns in bright colors, with some of the darker colors forming big concentric circles and a very basic human outline. I stood on the bed over it to try and see the 3D image that would reveal the mind-crushing horror, but I couldn't get it to line up and lock into place properly. She asked me what it was and I said I didn't have it yet because I wasn't used to standing so far away from them. But then I woke up.