What a lame birthday joke. A real missed opportunity to ironically invoke Rule 34. For shame!

I do not even know what Rule 34 is.

I mean, I’m sure I could Google it.

Make sure your obscenity filter is off, then.

“Rule 34: There is porn of it – no exceptions.”

Obscenity filters are for amateurs.

Oh I have many. Many.

I often dream of flying, only it’s more like bouncing from one spot to another with floating great distances between each bounce. One time, though, I dreamed I was flying through a forest of giant playing cards while enormous animals plodded around below.

I once dreamed I was at a ritzy party wearing an evening gown, and someone in he party upset me, and I hightailed it down the front steps to the fountain in the plaza. I sat on the edge of the fountain, looked over at the swans swimming around in it, and noticed one swan was completely missing the back of its head and the inside of its skull was hollow.

I could go on. But you get the idea.

Bahaha.

So, uh, dreams. The most recent dreams I remember having lately were about being kidnapped by a gang and talking my way out of being killed, Zevran and being in grade 6 again. (The last two were parts of the same dream but I can’t for the life of me tell you how they were supposed to be related. I think I was telling him something about France, which led to me looking at a map of the world, and when I turned away I was in school and he was gone and I didn’t care. Dream logic and all that.) Nothing all that exciting.

I had a screwed up dream last night, but I can’t remember it.

I remember very vividly as a kid have a dream that I was being chased through that house by the Critters. That one was recurring.

Like, from the movie, The Critters?

Just for you, and because I too hail from the land of Crazy Dreams That Make Normal People Look At Me Funny, here’s something I dreamed a year or so ago:

I was conducting a one-woman raid on the palace of the Queen of Hearts. After escaping rising (and poisonous) floodlevels by jumping from rooftop to rooftop, I gained access to the upper gallery, where an ordinary broom, bristles dipped in a convenient puddle, became a weapon powerful enough to disintegrate the flesh of whomever it touched. My secret ingredient was ordinary water – while safe to me, the Cardfolk and their minions (variously giant attack dogs, Jabba-esque slugs and zombies) found it deadly. Which is odd, because, in the course of my adventures, I kept on finding glasses and bottles of the stuff in every room, ready for me to fling in the face of my next adversary.

After my first attempts were thwarted by zombie-staff, I discovered a secret passageway leading into a labryinth of winter passages, unleashing five benevolent ice-sprites in the process. Thus aided, I continued into the royal chambers, melting two dogs, a Jabba-creature, the King and, finally, the Queen herself, like the Wicked Witch of the West. By the time I reached the Chamber of the Bishop-Knave, I was running out of water. Old, feeble and bed-bound, my final quarry shouldn’t have presented much of a problem, except that he tried to beg for mercy, to be left alive – crippled as he was, what harm could he do? Following some dream-logic, I explained this wasn’t possible; that in order for the curse to be broken, he had to die as well. At that, he leapt up and attacked me, dodging whatever water I threw at him until, finally, he tripped and fell, allowing me to splash a final glassful in his eyes and run.

Outside, I headed uphill through a maze of dark and narrow streets, which, instinctively, I recognised as belonging to Old London. A light snow was falling, and although I knew where I was supposed to go, the way proved to be a dead end. Then the ground began to shake, and a giant stone horse, ridden by a giant stone rider – a stentorian version of a statue in Trafalgar Square, silhouetted against an overlarge and misplaced Nelson’s Column – came to life. It had been sitting between two narrow, black Victorian townhouses, and as they strode past where I was hiding (I had to move, twice, to avoid the hooves) I saw a staircase revealed behind their former resting place.

Running over, I climbed the stairs, baulking at a passing zombie – unnecessarily, as he apparently couldn’t see me. The stairs became a ladder: one half of a sheer, almost vertical wooden watchtower straddling a river on either side, with a tiny, unsheltered platform at the top. It was here I waited and, looking west, saw a kind of ever-present sunrise/sunset on the horizon. A single ray of light fell back down where Old London had been, illuminating instead a field, a wood and a save-sphere (mentally stolen from Final Fantasy X). Relieved and tired, I climbed back town, dodged a final zombie-traveller, and saved my progress by a wooden noticeboard covered with multi-coloured sheets of paper. I kept one eye firm on the menu which had popped up across my right-hand vision, until it finally informed me that my data had, indeed, been saved beyond corruption.

Then I woke up.

Holy crap, @Foz. There’s a book in there somewhere.

I have the most boring dreams imaginable. They’re all, like, “Hmm, maybe I should buy apples at the grocery store. I think we’re out.” and “Wait, is tomorrow recycling day, or did I miss it?”

Also: Your search phrases crack me up. Me, I get a lot of “princess peach with boobs” kind of searches, and I… I kinda don’t want to encourage those people…

Thanks for the link. ^_^

@Andrea:

It amazes me both the things people search for and how it brings them here.

– c.

Oh, and: OMG Happy Birthday! ^_^

Oh, I could regale you with stories of my dreams most phantasmagorical, but I never remember them. Honest to God. I’m aware I’m having a strange dream while I’m having it–many of them are lucid dreams–but it fades as soon as I open my eyes, and only images of the feelings it evoked will remain. Even if i struggle to remember, the particulars of the dream are dissove like wisps of vapor through the clutching fingers of my mind.

Or some shit like that.

yeah, the movie Critters… I can look back now and see how cheesy it is, but that movie scared the crap out of me as a kid.

Now that I’m done writing (if I get distracted it’s game over) and have had time to think about it, here is one of the weirdest, most vivid dreams I’ve ever had. About half my dreams are “Oh no, late for class”, the other half are “Wait, I’m in a dreamworld and even I think this is fucked.” This one was more “just plain awesome.”

The world as we knew it was in a basin (it looked like a pedestal sink), balancing between the branches of the World Tree Yggdrasil. Thanks to people being polluting dicks, most of the land in the world was unusable; however, as the Tree replenished itself, so did the world, too. A new leaf was growing on a branch our little world existed on, which was manifesting, for those of us on the surface, as an island.

Now, people were going to war over this new, virgin island, naturally. However, they had to be very careful how they waged war, given how the planet got fucked in the first place. If someone set off a nuke and it hit the island, we were all goners. So the war was very subtle; lots of assassins, guerilla tactics, general ungentlemanly combat that kept big, destructive explosions and such out of the way, and no fighting took place on the island.

I don’t remember what I was doing in the dream. I think I was a refugee from one of the war-torn countries, floating on a raft on the ocean. I think I remember a helicopter coming up on us at one point. This was a few years ago.

It was especially cool, because I’d been having trouble with how I wanted to tell a story about a subtle, magical war before that, and that dream gave me the answer. Of course I would change it so it wasn’t YOU ARE KILLING THE PLANET WITH STYROFOAM soapboxing, maybe replacing pollution with “wanton use of magic”. I never did write the story, though I’ve never stopped thinking about it.

I had a zombie apocalypse dream once.

The only thing I clearly remember is pointing out to someone that I didn’t have to worry about running out of ammunition, since I had one of my katanas strapped to my back.

Katanas are just better, right Chuck?

The katana is the KING OF SWORDS.

… I mean, it is if you’re a Dude of Legend.

– c.

@Danielle:

I command you to write that story.

Can I get away with that? Commanding you to do things?

No. Probably not.

But I can still try.

Also, somebody? Make me an egg sandwich!

I command!

– c.

Chuck, you are now an egg sandwich. Wish granted.

My dreams tend to fall somewhere between “naked in high school” and “zombipocalypse.” Sometimes, it combines the two. I’ll be at work, pressed by my boss for status on a project I’ve never heard of, and the project involves saving the world from monsters, and because I slacked off on my project I now have to run through a mall from the monsters and get to the clothing store and steal a trenchcoat like Reese in Terminator because I’m suddenly naked and then I see the news on and hear about an unrelated news story about a fire on the other side of town and then I’m at the fire and somebody I know died in the fire and I’m naked again but no one notices.

I have a surprising number of dreams where I’m naked but no one notices. I’m not sure what that says about my self image. I also frequently fret that I will one day get distracted and forget my clothes in real life.

I am frightened by the soap feet. But I am intrigued by the USB-enabled beard. I’d add Bluetooth, but I’d be scared that my beard would start calling people on my phone without telling me. It already has a disturbing tendency to press the mute button while I’m talking.

The last dream I remember started with being confused as to how to get home from the new Twins ballpark. Which was kind of real because when I left the game Wednesday night, left by a different gate than where I entered and I was not completely certain where I was.

So in my dream I found my car and was driving around the mysterious, convoluted streets of downtown Minneapolis. I kept circling the stadium, thinking I’d found my way out of the maze only to end up back where I started. I finally found what looked like the way out but when I turned onto that street, I bumped into the car in front of me. The other car drove off, apparently unscathed, and I continued my search for escape. Soon, it became apparent that something was wrong with the car.

I pulled over to examine things and discovered that the front of my car was completely fucked up and both tires on the driver’s side was flat. One flat I could deal with, but two! I would have to call AAA, but when I went to get the card from wallet, it wasn’t there! So I called a friend to come pick me up and she laughed at my predicament, but said she’d come.

I waited a long time and my friend didn’t show, so I decided to take the train to Chicago as a way of getting home. I got on the train and went a few stops, but it became apparent that this wasn’t going to work, so I got off and got on a return train. My friend called me and was pissed because she was at my car and I wasn’t. I hurried back, and she took me home but remained angry despite my fawning apologies.

(No beetle larvae, penguins, temples or anything.)

Also, re: egg sandwich, see: http://xkcd.com/149/

Man, you people have some awesome dreams. *jealous*

Maybe this means I should sleep more?

No kidding.

I find that if I eat pizza or drink coffee very close to bedtime I will have totally wacky dreams.

Joe Lansdale calls his “popcorn dreams,” if I recall, because he gets them when he eats popcorn.

– c.

I often have apocalypse-style dreams, but I’m pretty sure that has to do with the fact that I live in a dwelling that is one step above “fallout shelter.”

You know, since it only has one window, and that’s the one in the front door.

Well, at least you’re protected from, y’know, bombs. And nuclear mutants!

In fact, I’d cement that window right up.

– c.

Due to apnea, I only skip off of the surface of REM sleep. It’s like one of those jet boats, but imagine if it hit the shoreline and started banging across the parking lot. That’s my nightly sleep pattern. Pills don’t solve the issue either, as they’re mostly designed to knock you out, not give you healthy REM sleep. This means that if I remember a dream, it’s usually a once-a-year event and a knock out one at that (http://hollow-01.livejournal.com/50091.html).

It’s not a good thing, but due to the apnea and my draining work schedule, I actually have more experience with hypnagogia than normal dreams. Here’s a few accounts that I’ve bothered to record > http://hollow-01.livejournal.com/tag/hypnopompic%20paralysis

Brrr. Hypnagogia is terrifying. Will check out your accounts.

Do you use a CPAP machine or anything?

– c.

Shit, man, welcome to the club. The Club Of People Who Have Weird Dreams That Don’t Make A Lick Of Sense. Here’s your orientation pack.

The wird thing about my dreams is that I dream about myself only half the time.

Like, some years ago I had a dream about a Jungle Girl, who lived in, surprisingly, a jungle, which was filled with various freaky animals and freaky animal spirits. Now, the jungle was ruled by an Evil Jungle Empress, who controlled everything from her Skull Rock Castle Palace. That’s act 1. My dreams can be fitted into movie script acts. Shitty movie script acts, but hey, the writer’s asleep at the wheel. After EJE killed some of JG friends, JG started a resistance group. Now, the key to destroying EJE’s powers was to destroy the castle, which is why JG sets out to find the Giant White Skull Gorilla, which is a giant white gorilla with a skull instead of a head. That’s Act 2. In Act 3, JG returns with GWSG and mounts an attack on SRCP, destroying it and finally killing EJE. QED.

Or something. QED is scriptwriter speak for “The End”, right?

Anyway, when I do dream about myself, I’m usually starring in my very own shitty sci-fi horror/detective story. I usually die somewhere in the middle of Act 3.

I dream weirdly, and vividly. So vividly in fact that occasionally I won’t be certain of what the actual reality is.

I had a dream once that my grandmother had died, but she was able to speak to me from beyond the grave through the speakerphone in my Mom’s kitchen. It was so really real that I actually had to ask my mother if my grandmother was still alive over breakfast.

No CPAP machine for me. It’s related to allergies and assisted breathing devices (other than air cleaners) wouldn’t be a comfortable solution.

One day, I’ll live in a cat free home, and then I’ll sleep the sleep of the righteous!

Until then… Zzzzzz…