Interpret My Dreams

Last night I dreamed of a man who found a portal to another world. But the portal was in a book, and he couldn't fit through. So he starved himself until he was skin and bones, and stepped into the pages.

Stuff happened on the other side, but I don't remember it.

Last night I dreamed I was watching Remington Steele.

I don't remember there actually being any episodes with bears in them, but still, it's nice to have a calm and mundane dream once in a while.

Last night I dreamed I was involved in a murder somehow. I don't remember how because in the dream I couldn't remember exactly what I did, or if I had really been involved, beyond the fact that there was a body buried in the backyard of the house I grew up in, so I was worried about the police asking me questions.

Thankfully, I had an interview with the most low-budget, most inept police department ever, who charged me per minute for the interview and rushed through so fast that they forgot to ask me if I was at the scene of the crime or anything. I was surprised and nervous and asked if they had forgotten any questions. They said no, of course not, did I have anything to tell them? Uh... nope.

Then my sister got a bunch of Christmas presents, one of which was a historical play about France, at which point the dream switched to a lesson on French history told by animated map. I know nothing about French history so my brain had to make it all up and it made absolutely no sense, but good on you, brain, for trying.

I hate it when a dream has what seems like a coherent plot while it's going, but as soon as you wake up it's all bits and pieces that probably never made sense. So in lieu of an explanation of plot, here's a list of things that were in last night's dream:

• Lobster fishing off a dock (can you even do that?).
• A priest helping out even though he was complaining that lobster fishing was bad, and going on about how the giant crabs we kept catching in our traps were awesome because they were saving the lobsters.
• Catching a girl in a one-man submarine.
• Finding out she lived in a house hidden in a tree up the hill. (Or maybe the house was hidden until you pushed a button on the tree? A bit fuzzy on that point.)
• Going to visit the house and suddenly life-size toy soldiers start marching through the halls. She made sure we stayed in a room where it was safe. Apparently this happens all the time.
• A comic convention with lots of free coffee.
• Finding an old comic with a damaged CD inside that said something about happy birthday, and was apparently a bonus thing for one of the characters in said comic. Having an extended discussion with someone over how it must not be the real "Happy Birthday" song because that's copyrighted and they tried to school the girl scouts for that and such.
• AU Angel comics.

Last night I dreamed an incredibly detailed conspiracy theory about how the descendants of Martin Luther King, Jr. are actually members of the British Royal Family. This was all told to me by Montague Summers in the form of movies as we tried to cross a busy street.

Last night I dreamed something with a rather involved plot about filming different things to see what showed up on camera and reading Wikipedia articles on television programs. When I woke up, the only part I could remember in detail was a boy swimming in a lake at night and getting chased by a baby alligator. I only wish I could remember why.

I took a nap and dreamed I was in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. First I was with some mad scientist who had invented a shrink ray and was sure it was the best way to beat the zombies. You'd think he'd use it to shrink the zombies, but no, he wanted to shrink us so we were small enough to hide in the walls or something. What.

Then I was running away and found some guy who had been successfully hiding by dressing like a scarecrow and standing in a field.

I decided to try and head further inland to see if the zombies hadn't spread that far, although my reasoning in the dream also included the fact that my bag was in my house further inland, but then the next time I thought about it the bag was right in my hand. Dream logic.

But then we came across a police roadblock. They were rounding up people and bringing them inside a dark building. Everyone seemed stoned and no one would talk. Finally we realized they were leading everyone to a furnace so no one exposed to the zombie virus could get through. So I ran away, and I guess I was somehow on the top floor of the building, because I remember running down flights after flight of stairs starting with the 73rd floor.

It's a good thing I woke up then, because the most realistic ending to any story of me in a zombie apocalypse is me dying immediately because my bad knee makes it impossible for me to run, let alone run down stairs.

It's also a good thing this was one of the most plot-coherent dreams I've ever had, because it made it easy to remember even though I fell back asleep in the middle of trying to remember it and ended up dreaming of updating this blog. Then I dreamed an episode of The Walking Dead as if it was filmed in a hotel on a budget of $12 per episode. Seriously, there was a scene of walking past zombies who were so busy eating dead bodies set up like flower gardens that they completely ignored us, and then there was a scene of squabbling over who was supposed to talk to the front desk about the Internet connection.

Last night, I dreamed that my friend's mother asked her to edit a website for her. My friend did so, but her mother complained that my friend hadn't edited to specifications she was never actually told about, yelled at her and grounded her. My friend responded but writing a long and ranty complaint post on LiveJournal.

I have concluded from this that I have read too much Clients from Hell.

I woke up, fell back asleep, and dreamed that I was the pregnant wife of one of the characters from CSI who was being chased down an alley by some kind of petty criminals. I escaped by climbing up a trash pile and climbing down the other side, which had somehow become a mountain. I don't think this was an actual episode of CSI, but I could be wrong, considering how silly the show's gotten in recent years.

Last night, I dreamed I was investigating the deaths of women who were turning into skeletons. Then I got turned into a skeleton, but I didn't die; I was just a walking, talking skeleton. I woke up before I figured out the mystery.

Also I moved from place to place as if I were in Snailiad. That's a good game and you should go play it, but it's kind of weird when things like that integrate into your dreams and you don't even realize it's bizarre until you wake up.

Last night, I had an excessively detailed dream that was some kind of bizarre underwater crossover between every series of Star Trek. When I woke up and tried to remember it, I realized I couldn't put the description into words because I didn't know enough about Star Trek to know exactly what I was describing. So I guess the lesson is that my dreaming, subconscious mind knows more about Star Trek than I do.

Last night I dreamed I was doing work and balancing my budget. Obviously not interesting enough for my mind to remember details.

There was a bit at the end about two children having a horseback swordfight and two Japanese men discussing the merits of colonization at a cafeteria table, but it was clearly too little, too late.

Last night, I dreamed that I was preparing for a camping trip with people whom I presume were my family. I was trying to pick what comic books to bring with me to read, but everyone kept arguing over it. Then I finally picked out the comics and warmed them up on an electric griddle before I read them.

Then the dream changed to me preparing to compete in an episode of Chopped, which was (in the dream) some kind of local cooking competition filmed in a church. I had competed several times before, apparently, although I couldn’t remember it. I was holding a jug of iced tea and some kind of mixed drink stored in a box like they keep boxed wine in. I gave the alcohol to my friend whom I found in the audience and he hid it under his seat, because I was afraid I’d get caught with it and get in trouble. I returned to find my iced tea stolen.

Then we started the competition. One competitor went off to wash her hands and never returned. There were some weird random nude scenes that apparently didn’t even fit in the dream world, because the audience got confused and offended. After a few minutes of competing, I sat down at a computer and watched the rest of the show on Hulu, where it was airing live.