A dream competition?

The past few weeks have been relatively dream-heavy and that’s a good thing, in my humble opinion. Unfortunately, most of them failed to pass through my self-imposed filter regarding what I will post here, so mention of them never appeared in this dream journal. Last night’s, however, was certainly okay to share.

In my dream…

…I’d just finished a short, rather bizarre dream that I felt good about because I thought it a good entry for a “dream competition” in which I was involved.

The details of this competition weren’t explained in the dream. I have no idea who was sponsoring it, nor why. But I did have the sense that the dreams of the competitors were being directly monitored by the governing body.

And I don’t remember any details about the short, rather bizarre dream that I thought would be a good entry. Some sketchy memories of it remained while my head was still on the pillow, but they’ve escaped me now.

A strange football assignment

This major episode of insomnia through which I’m currently moving (no sleep for the past 32 hours… and counting) is starting to provide some vivid lucid dreams. The one which passed a few minutes ago was… entertaining.

In my dream…

…which occurred as I was resting in bed, fully aware of my surrounding and situation, I was in a football locker room, being issued my gear by the equipment manager for the upcoming Summer pre-season workouts.

With my arms full of the pads, pants, jerseys, cleats, and helmet, I found my way over to my assigned locker. Before loading the gear into my locker, I set the stuff down on a bench. Picking up my helmet first, it being on top of the stack, I noticed right away the number 24 in decals stuck to the helmet’s backside. 24? 24?! WTF? That’s a halfback’s number! And I’m an interior lineman! My number has always been 64!

Surely the coaches weren’t expecting me to play halfback this season! Were they?! Maybe the equipment manager goofed.

Before I could investigate this mystery, the lucid dream faded.

Portending bonsai?

Recent days have found me in an interesting sleep pattern. There’ll be one major sleep segment, usually anywhere from five to seven hours in length, followed by extensive catnapping throughout the rest of the day.

These catnaps have been bringing some interesting dreams. Like the naps themselves, these dreams are little things; often no more than a single image, or burst of short images. The one most recently experienced has me thinking.

In my dream…

…I was whittling away, or carefully pruning, a little branch of a small tree with a very sharp knife.

While in the dream I wasn’t thinking about bonsai particularly. But upon waking, with the dream image still fresh in my mind, I began wondering bout the possibility of exploring that hobby.

Now, I’ve never done bonsai before, but… I’m tempted to look into it. Was that dream a foretelling of some future hobby? Hmm……

I won… a new refrigerator?

Sunday’s second sleep segment brought an unusual dream.

In my dream…

…I was enjoying a quiet afternoon in my apartment when I was surprised by a crew of workers delivering a big, fancy new refrigerator. This was to replace the short, compact refrigerator I now have.

When I asked the guys why they were doing this, they explained,”This is your prize! Didn’t you know? You won this!”

Well, I didn’t remember entering any contest, but I sure wasn’t about to turn down this incredible upgrade to my kitchen. And I woke before the guys had a chance to realize they’d delivered the new refrigerator to the wrong person.

How DID they fit together?

Today’s sleep came in two segments: a first segment that was five and a half hours long, from which I was roused by noise out in my hallway; and a second nap that was only an hour long, which was ended by a mailman knocking at my door. It was the first sleep that brought me a strange dream.

In my dream…

…there were three main elements that seemed to fit together seamlessly in the dream itself but which, upon remembering them after I woke, don’t connect with each other in any logical way I can imagine. But then, dreams aren’t necessarily logical, are they?

Those three elements, all of which were intimately connected to each other, were:

1. my trying to solve a crossword puzzle (I don’t do crossword puzzles at all. I have no idea where this came from!),
2. an action sequence of a scifi/anime combat situation in which I was an active character, and
3. the sensation of eating mashed potatoes covered with a delicious, spiced, creamy, chipped beef gravy.

While I was in the dream it all seemed to make perfect sense, but now… I haven’t a clue how that could be.

The Space Vulture’s Dreams

Last night brought me a solid eight hours of sleep, something for which I’m always grateful. And it brought me a very detailed, rather pleasant dream. Unfortunately that dream involved people and activities that prevent it from moving through my self-imposed filter, so I’m unable to write about it in any kind of meaningful detail.

Fortunately, my reading before sleep included an interesting dream related passage. What follows is from Space Vulture, the Science Fiction novel coauthored by Gary Wolf and Archbishop John Myers:

Space Vulture used his sleep not just for work, but for entertainment. For him, going to sleep was like entering his own private movie screening room. Dreams that he himself had scripted flickered on in one part of his sleeping mind. His entertainment dreams were wondrous, fully-formed adventure stories set in exotic locales. In these dreams Space Vulture overcame all obstacles, vanquished all foes, charmed and delighted all women. These dreamy adventures always left him happy and refreshed when he awoke.

Ever since he altered himself, made himself physically and mentally perfect, Space Vulture had never had a nightmare.

Until now.

Space Vulture’s mind transported him to a place so hot that even metal smoldered. He was being pursued by demonic phantoms. He tried to evade them, but he failed. They caught him. They overwhelmed him. He was powerless against them. They threw him to the ground. They plucked out his eyes, tore out his tongue, ripped off his flesh and gnawed on his bones. The pain was unbearable. He was terrified. He tried to shriek. No sound came out of his mouth.

And with that delightful bit of imagery, I’ll wish you all good night and… sweet dreams.

Do you hear what I hear?

Probably not.

Today’s good sleep, the first solid, 8-hour sleep I’ve had in awhile, brought me two auditory dreams.

In my first dream…

…I once again heard the very clear knocking at my front door, a knocking that happened only in my head, not in the real world. The cloak of sleep was finally starting to wrap itself around me at approximately 6:00 AM, or maybe just a few minutes after that, when my eyes popped open at what I heard. Or at what I thought I’d heard. Three sharp, loud knocks at my front door.

Now, if someone had really wanted to rouse me at such an unGodly hour, they’d have repeated the knocks when I failed to respond. They’d have jostled my door knob, or something. But there were no further knocks. There was nothing after the three knocks that woke me, only silence.

Those three knocks were an auditory dream, nothing more.

In my second dream…

…I was “gifted” with an ear-worm. I woke with Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman” in my mind’s ear. Now, I liked Glen Campbell years ago, but it’s been one heck of a long time since I’ve listened to any of his music. And there were no sounds in my real world, waking up life that might have planted that song in my head.

Where did it come from? Heck, I don’t know. Where do any dreams come from? Who knows? But there it was. A profound auditory dream.

“She’s actually tougher than she looks.”

June’s first dream is a short but quircky one. I woke with the sense that the dream itself had been longer, but the final scene was the one stuck in my memory.

In my dream…

…I was taking a martial arts class and had been assigned Elly May Clampett, from The Beverly Hillbillies TV Show as my sparring partner. We’d been through a few sessions of the class and Elly May had proved to be quite the challenging opponent. She’d beat on me pretty good and had thrown me quite hard a number of times.

The dream’s final scene found our class ready to begin a session and Elly May was late, she hadn’t arrived yet.

Noticing her absence, our instructor made a derogatory remark about her, calling her a “silly Bimbo” and saying that she was just wasting her time in the class anyway.

Speaking in her defense, I quickly replied, “Oh, I’m not so sure about that. She’s actually tougher than she looks.”

Then I woke.