Bad-Neighborhood Dream, and Last Night's Dreams

Hello All,

The first dream I'm going to record is one I had about 4 and a half months ago. I also had two short dreams last night, but they're somewhat mediocre, so they'll come after the older dream.

In the older dream, I was about 12 years old and had moved with my Mom to a bad neighborhood somewhere in California. The dream seemed very real because in real life I moved to North Carolina when I was almost 11 years old, and had some of the same feelings in this dream. So, in the dream my Mom and I had moved to a one story house, with holes in the walls and floors, and no curtains. Even the switches and plumbing were either out-of-date, or somehow faulty. I remember my Mom gave me a little bag of penny candy (she used to do this in real life when I was little), and asked me if I liked the new place we lived in. I was worried about the new school I'd have to go to. The doctor had prescribed me methamphetamine for ADD, and I was afraid I'd get in trouble for having drugs, even though I was supposed to have them.
I heard a police report about the people who lived in the house before my Mom and I. Two sisters lived in the house, and got killed in a botched drug deal. The police were saying that one of the sisters had just pulled in the driveway, and that she would have survived if she had just hid next to her car, rather than go in the house. In my 12 year old mind I had decided I would hide outside the house (like the sister should have) if I got in trouble for my methamphetamine prescription at school.
I was particularly unable to get comfortable in the new house because it was in such bad shape. I remember trying to take a shower, but I could only get cold water to come out because I didn't realize till after the fact that the hot water was turned on by a little switch to the side of the faucet. When I got out of my cold shower and was drying myself off, I remembered there were no curtains, so I had to dry off in the one corner of the room not visible from the windows. That is when I noticed that my Mom had tried to hide the holes in the walls by stacking books and CDs in them.

In the first dream I remember from last night, a woman was painting her face with a paint brush. She was literally painting a face on her face, so not simply putting on make-up. I felt as though I recognized her from another dream, and said to myself, "Oh, that's who she is."

In the second dream I remember, I went to a small party, had a lot of fun and met some new friends. I was walking home one day, and one of the girls from the party offered to give me a ride home. Evidently, her friend (who was the hostess of the party) made a bracelet for me for my birthday. The girl wanted me to stop buy and get it. I felt awkward just showing up at the hostesses house to ask for the gift, but I did and the hostess was happy I came to retrieve it.

My new friends and I got together at a convenience store (I think to practice running it). The front of the shop was an actual store, but the back of the shop was a "practice" store, but it still had real products on the shelves, and I remember we could take anything we wanted, so I got some over-the-counter medications, and was happy to save money. Every one left the store and walked away in different directions. I ended up walking downtown.

I could tell I was near the sea though I couldn't see or hear it. My throat was dry, so I stopped in a convenience store to get some hard candy. When I was about to interact with the clerk, another customer mistook me as an employee there and rudely asked me to help him. I ignored him and proceeded with my transaction. The clerk became impatient as I was putting my purchases on the counter for him to ring-up, so he went to the back of the store. I could see a television in the back of the store.

Though I couldn't see the clerk, I could see someone was fast-forwarding the TV, so I assumed it was him. The image from the store security cameras came on the TV, and showed the clerk sitting on the couch watching the footage. I felt irritated and just left. I then came to a dessert store, but when I went in, all the desserts had ice cream in them, and I'm lactose intolerant. I left the store and continued my walk through downtown...and that was it.

Thanks for reading,

Marc

Tommy-Helps-Me-Dream and Some Fragments

Hello All,

Here's a picture of me in front of the computer, and a picture of Angie on the computer. I'm going to record a dream I had almost exactly five months ago, and then record some brief fragments I remember from last night and the night before. The older dream I had about a co-worker named Tommy. Tommy and I both descended into one of life's darker oubliettes at the same time. Our problems had different causes and expressions, but I think the fact we were both in a downward spiral caused a certain understanding between us. I'm no longer in contact with Tommy, and last I heard he was in a rehab in Canada.

In the dream, my mother had a house in a swamp. The house was so overcome by the swamp around it, that the back-end of it was sinking into the water. If you went into the rooms in the back of the house, their very edges were underwater, and most of the floorboards had moss and mold on them. I went to my mother's house to retrieve something from it, something sentimental. I brought friends with me because the trip was too dangerous for me to take myself. We retrieved some of my precious childhood belongings, and trekked back through the swamp. We had to swim across a deep reservoir to get back to the road. The depth of the water felt more threatening because night had fallen, and now the water and land around me were equally black.

When I got back to the road I realized I had left something very dear to my heart in my mother's swamp house, I'm pretty sure it was the very thing I had set out to get in the first place. I felt so upset! Out of all the people with me, only Tommy felt bad enough for me that he agreed to go back with me, even though it was a frightening trip. I really think this dream was reminding me of some warm-heartedness or understanding that I got from Tommy during my "crazy." Perhaps it's just a dream, but there is a lot I don't remember from that time. So, I feel the need to say, "Thank you Tommy."

The past two nights have been a bit restless, so I've only remembered some dream fragments. The night before last I had a dream I was in class with Michael May. I kept a telephone in my desk. I went home that night and drove back to class the next day, but when I was driving to class my car's engine just stopped. I managed to coast the car into a parking spot near the building I had to go to. I was very upset and hoped Michael would help me, but I wanted to try and get someone else's help first, so he wouldn't feel I was imposing on him.

I went to my desk, but someone had taken my phone. I said, "where's my phone?" and Michael told me he just put it in a cubby by the door. I went to the area, but didn't see it, and needed him to take the phone out for me. I felt stupid for needing his help anyway, just to get the phone to call someone for help with my car.

Last night, I completely forgot my dream even though I was aware I was dreaming. I thought very hard and was able to dredge up the last scene. A man and I were courting each other, but hadn't started dating yet. As a gift, my dad gave the man a large quilt. However, the quilt had been used as a death shroud before, and my suitor was too uncomfortable to use it. My dad was very angry he didn't use the gift, and I tried to explain to my dad it was an inappropriate gift. I hoped he would understand why the man wouldn't use it.

Thank you for reading,

Marc

Roaming-Dream

Hello All,

Today I'm going to record two dreams, but will post the newest dream first, so I don't forget any detail. I just woke up and had the dream about 15-20 minutes ago.

In the dream, I was moving out of a rental house where I shared a room upstairs with one of my house mates. I remember my bed had mustard yellow sheets. I moved out of this house into an apartment of my own. A friend asked me about my old house, but I had already almost forgot about it. I think it disturbed me that the place I just lived in should leave my memory so quickly. I guess it was a fear of separation from the past.

I left my apartment on foot, and went to find my sister. She lived in a town house, and the sun was setting. I knocked on her door, but no one answered. I had a small CD player with me, so I lay it on her doorstep and listened to "No Quarter" by Led Zeppelin. She was home after all and just wasn't answering the door. She only answered the door because the particular song irritated her. She ended up talking to me for a little bit anyway. It was still dusk when I left her apartment. I walked between the townhouses and through yards of apartments, and came out to a street that led to a sea-side carnival closed for the season. The wood of the stands was dried out and splintering from the salt in the air.

I came by one closed stand that had a wooden Christmas scene (the size of a moderate stage) laying on its back. I traced my fingers along a statue of a toy soldier. I continued walking and came to a mental hospital I had stayed at perhaps when I was a teenager in the dream. I decided to go in because they still had some of my personal effects I never collected, but when I went in they wouldn't let me go. I took it upon myself to just leave. I recognized the road which left the hospital and began to follow it to my apartment, but it started raining so hard that I couldn't move very fast, and before I knew it guards from the hospital tracked me down with scent dogs.

I was returned to the mental hospital, but a journalist came and walked me out, and we snuck to the side of the building. A guard confronted us, but the journalist began to argue with him. As they were arguing, a disgruntled employee from the hospital came around the side of the building and dropped a pile of files and letters on the ground and left. I went to the pile and found files providing proof of criminal malpractice in the mental hospital. I also found a manila envelope filled with my belongings from when I stayed there as a teenager, and the letters were ones I never received from various friends.

I found two Dexedrine pills among my personal effects, and thought "good, now I can get something done." A lot of the letters were from a girl named Audrey Pratt, who in real life was my best friend from the ages of 12-17 (this is why I presume I was in the mental hospital as a teenager). She sent me pictures of herself and little pieces of artwork. The journalist scared off the guard, picked up the files, and we left. She dropped me off at my parents' home, and my parents told me the mental hospital could call me back any time they wanted to, and I asked them if there was anything they could do, but they didn't answer. We got in the car (a white station wagon) and began to drive somewhere. I kept on asking if there was anything they could do, but they wouldn't answer.

We then turned into a different family, I was some teenage kid (and no, not even me when I was a teenager) with short light brown hair, and my parents were in their 30s and kind of looked like white-trash. As this kid, I was still asking them if there was anything they could do about the mental hospital having a permanent hold on me. The car broke down, and we all got out of the car. My parents started talking about if there was anything they could do, and I was glad they were finally thinking about it, but I soon realized they were talking about the car, not me.

I kept asking, but they weren't paying attention to me, and I began to feel faint and lay down on the ground next to the car. I then switched to the point of view of a woman walking down a snowy path (it was Trinity road as a gravel foot path). I remember her thinking, "I can see castles in the snow on the path, I can see castles in the falling snow, I can see castles in the snow that's blown by the wind, I can see castles in the clouds." Then I woke up.

I remember a short dream from the night before last. I was in Connecticut again, and playing in the undergrowth of a forest. I found various herbs and was excited about it. I was looking for a holly plant and finally found it, but it was missing leaves and sickly looking. I then heard a voice come out from the sky saying, "Marc, you're always disappointed by what you find." I left the forest and walked down the driveway of a small farm to the road, and the neighbor from across the street told me I could swim in his pool if I liked. I did and was happy because I love swimming.

Thank you for reading,

Marc

Another Fragment

Hello All,

Yesterday evening I told my Mom my method for remembering my dreams, and just that night I became aware I was dreaming twice, but nearly forgot both. I have a slight memory of one of the dreams.

When I'm not so faded and tired, I can look much more androgynous than I do now. For so long I've been meticulous about my appearance, but now that things have changed in my life, I'm too tired. Perhaps that will change some day, and perhaps that's why I had this dream.

I had a dream of being in school again. I abruptly left class because my sister was moving and I had to get some boxes. While getting boxes from a store, one of the employees mistook me as a co-worker, and rudely asked me where the plastic spoons and forks were. Glad to be unhelpful, I just answered, "I've never known where those are."

When I returned from class the teacher was mad at me for leaving. I was suprised because I left class to do something important, but it soon dawned on me that when you're in class it doesn't matter if your sister is moving. I returned to my apartment in a bit of a down trodden mood.

As I was making my way past an ill-tempered neighbor's door, he came out dressed very beautifully. I could hear the silk rubbing together, and smell his perfume. I thought to myself, I wish he knew I could look just as beautiful. In my mind I imagined introducing myself to him, after taking some time with my appearance.

Theatrics are theatrics, but presenting an image can be something to be missed.

Thank you for reading,

Marc

Worry-Dreams

Hello All,

This time I managed to take a picture of myself much earlier in the morning, closer to when I actually had the dream. I'm going to narrate two dreams I've had since I've been a bit slack about writing my dreams down. The first one I had about two nights ago, and the second dream I had this morning. The first one will be harder to describe because much of it had to do with how the place felt and how I felt, not really how things looked.

A big family gathering of a friend of mine was about to take place. I was evidently a friend of the family as well, and was invited to stay over the night during the reunion. It was a very big house with a large yard, and wide deck, elevated about 8 feet above ground level by wooden poles. The house was three stories high, but the first and second stories were actually split level, which is the reason the porch was so high above the ground.

I felt uncomfortable about staying over, but it was one of those situations where it would insult the family if I didn't stay. Nightfall came. I was sleeping in a chair in the family room, along with other guests my age, who were distant enough to the family that they weren't able to get a room in the house. Everyone in the family room were either sleeping in a chair, on a couch, or on the floor. We joked (with a grain of sincerity) that we were the orphans of the house, and we should stay up all night, while they stayed up all day.

It's odd to be a guest, so you feel the need to "make yourself at home," but at the same time feel too uncomfortable in the host's house to really accommodate your needs. I find this often to be the case when visiting someone other than a peer. This is how I felt in this dream. I woke up in the middle of the night, and all the other "orphans" were fast asleep. I had to go to the bathroom, and decided to go to one on the bottom floor because no one was there and I'd be less likely to disturb someone. However, when I got down there, I felt if someone in the house heard me rummaging down there, they might think it was a burglar. Of course, the bathroom didn't have a lock, so I was afraid that if they did think it was a burglar, they might bust in the bathroom while I was using it.

Upon deciding this, I felt it was better to go to the bathroom in the main hall, on the second story (the same story as the family room). I went in the door, and realized it was a kind of mini-kitchen (perhaps for a mother-in-law suite etc). It was messier than the rest of the house and had someones personal effects all over the place. I even saw a pair of eyeglasses on the counter. I felt maybe I wasn't supposed to be there, but then rationalized the hosts knew they had a lot of guests, so should expect to have people using whatever bathroom, and then I woke up. The dream highlights my discomfort with being a guest (I've never been the kind of kid to go to slumber parties, and when I did I always regretted it).

Here is the dream I had this morning: The dream started with me searching a discussion board for answers about how to relieve my anxiety around other people. I typed in my particular inquiries thinking I was typing in a search engine box, but instead I was actually starting a thread, so everyone could see what I wrote and reply to it. I remember going back to the website and seeing that someone replied to my post, but since I didn't intend for it to be public, I didn't read the reply and continued my search.

I actually forgot what happened between that scene and the next one I'm going to describe, but I know not a lot of action intervened between the two. I was hiking in a forest with my friend Michael May, trying to divert myself from my worries. We had done the hike and I was still very anxious, so Michael pulled out two CDs and we both put them in our walkmans in our backpacks and continued to hike. The CD was of a man leading us through a path in the woods. The object was to follow the directions the man gave on the CD, and we were supposed to do everything at once and not pause, so we rushed through the forest paths following the recorded voice's instructions.

We came to a small canyon (so perhaps I should call it a ravine with a creek running through it). The creek at the bottom was only about 20 feet down the sheer walls of the ravine. It was very clear and shallow, but quick running over its bed of smooth rocks. There were three boulders that rose to just 4 feet or so below the cliff-top our path led us to. The CD told us to cross the ravine using the boulders as stepping stones, and said we could take no longer than 30 seconds to do this. In my head I pictured a man stepping off the cliff-side, falling forward with his foot landing on the first boulder, he then stepped-out with his next foot and fell forward. Perhaps because of the angle of the drop, he was able to bypass the middle boulder and fall with that foot planted down on the third boulder, he then leaped up to the cliff-side on the other side of the creek. Basically, the man I pictured in my mind (a mental manifestation of the directions I was being given by the CD) was crossing this ravine (about 20 feet wide) with only two steps and one leap.

It seemed very dangerous to me, if not impossible. Michael told me it was just an optical illusion, and that it was actually not that far from the first boulder to the third, and that the middle boulder was shorter than the other two, so you could just step past it. Our 30 seconds was nearly up, so I decided it was too dangerous, and quickly took an alternate path that led down to the ravine floor, across the creek, and up the other side. Michael decided to use the boulders as stepping stones like the CD instructed. He made it fine until he came to the leap off the third boulder to get on the other side of the ravine. He lost his footing and fell backwards, and landed on his backpack at the edge of the creek.

Since the boulder was already below the cliff-side, I figured there was a good chance he wasn't hurt too badly. I went down the path to the ravine floor and came to Michael. He seemed dazed and I went to help him up. That's when I noticed his CD player and his CD were shattered, which made me think he had a good chance of having a substantial injury. I helped him and we left to go to the parking lot of his work place (my former work place) to send him home or to a doctor. Michael was silent the whole time, and I began to feel something was wrong with him. As I walked him to his car, shards of the broken CD started to fall on the gravel parking lot . I tried to gather them up so no one would step on them.

As I was gathering the shards, I came upon very thin sharp pieces of glass, which I assumed came from Michael's backpack too, but as I collected them they started to break off and melt in my hands. I noticed there was ice, sleet, and snow all over the parking lot now. I got Michael to his car, and returned to the woods to go back out the path to where ever I came from, but I was stopped by employees of the store I knew from when I worked there. The snow was very deep now, and they were all drinking in the parking lot. I joined them, and started to feel very drunk, so I said to one of my friends there that I was going to stop drinking. He encouraged me to have some more, and I drank more. I then realized he was already smashed and was just trying to get me on the same level as him.

We went into the workplace because the people I was drinking with hadn't clocked-out yet, and wanted me to wait for them there. I stopped to say hello to my old boss, she looked very tired and work-weary. We went into the back of the store and I sat around while my ex-co-workers were tying the loose ends up to get out of work. Their supervisor was irritated with them because he said, "If you clock-out now your just going to have to wait till everyone else is ready anyway." I felt relieved to not be working there anymore.

Everyone was finished and we went back to the parking lot, that was now buried in high drifts of snow. I helped the friend with me get to his car because the snow was almost over our heads. He was parked at the edge of the lot, in front of a restaurant with people eating outside under an awning. The snow was so deep I had to turn around and do a sort of somersault to launch myself forward and get a little higher on the snow. The proprietress of the restaurant said, "He looks like he's trying to get away from something." I then reached my car, and the dream ended.

Thank you for reading,

Marc

Pact-Dream

Hello All,

My dream last night was slightly out of character for me like my last dream post. It reminded me so much of playing a video game that it took me a second to realize I was dreaming.

I had a dream where people lived in protected conclaves with force-fields around them, so only members of that conclave could exit or enter it. Marcus and I (Marcus was my best friend when I was a teenager and I haven't seen him in years) lived in one conclave, but we had another group of friends we secretly contacted (people from one conclave were not supposed to communicate with people from a different conclave) over some time. This group of friends consisted of two girls and one guy.

Marcus and I, and this other group decided upon a suicide pact, which we were going to carry out separately in our own areas. Marcus had got a very sharp sword that we agreed I would kill him with, and then I'd kill myself. When we got down to doing it, I realized I didn't want to kill myself, and that if I killed Marcus like he wanted me to, I'd just get charged with murder. I told Marcus what I felt, and he decided he didn't want to kill himself either. We hatched a plan to falsify our identity, so we could sneak into our friends' conclave. We wanted to try and stop them from committing suicide.

When we left our conclave, we were in some sort of flying vehicle. Outside, there were a lot of unmanned flying machines equipped with weapons. We had to keep a certain distance to keep them from detecting us. I remember feeling nervous as we flew over one in particular, I was just hoping our vehicle could fly high enough. We got to our friends' conclave where we contacted someone we knew there who was a maintenance worker on the force-field. He managed it so we would seem like members of that area. We snuck in and found our friends.

The man and one of the girls had already killed the other girl. When we told them we had decided not to kill ourselves, they also agreed. I remember feeling sad for the girl who already got killed. I went to the bed where she was killed, there was blood all over the place. I looked at a photograph of her with one of her friends. I was surprised to recognized them as acquaintances in my real life (of course in the dream I was just surprised to recognize the friend, but when I woke up I realized they were people I knew in real life). I looked on a shelf next to the bed, where the girl had been playing with a few small figurines while contemplating her death.

The remaining of us realized we now had a murder scene to clean up. We quickly cleaned up the bedroom and washed any clothes and bedding with blood on it. If I remember correctly, the dream ended with us leaving that conclave and sneaking back to the one Marcus and I came from, so the man and woman could start a new life with us, and not be penalized for the other girl's death.

Thank you for reading,

Marc

Typical Nightmare

Hello All,

Last night I had a nightmare. It must of been produced by some increased anxiety I've been feeling because it otherwise seems to have little to do with my day to day life. Luckily, I had a sense of disassociation from the dream when I was having it, so it's not as if it was actually a scary dream. Unlike the dream I had in my last post, this dream just didn't feel like it was really happening.

The dream started with a lot of people gathered in a large outdoor parking lot, so something like where a state fair would be held. People sat on the hoods of their cars (etc) and talked with each other. On the road going by these fairgrounds, I saw rows of people walking by -- these were some type of alien. It didn't seem like any of the people knew for sure if the aliens were a threat, but my family, friends, and I already decided to leave the area. We rushed into our cars and drove to a large underground chamber, it looked like a sandstone rock quarry, but was completely underground. That's were we stayed, closing an enormous door behind us.

My perspective then shifted back to the fairgrounds/parking lot area. A couple of young men approached the aliens and began to talk to them. The aliens had a sense of decay about their otherwise human features, and when they spoke their intentions materialized upon the humans they were talking to, like illusions. As one alien spoke to one of the humans, it appeared the young man's throat was slit, and that the alien had flesh between its teeth. As soon as the young men stopped talking to the aliens and left, the illusion of a slit throat disappeared from the young man, and the aliens looked like normal people again.

My point of view then shifted to a number of other people around that particular town getting ready to hide underground from the aliens. I remember one was of a boy alone in his house, taking his pets down to the basement. I also remember a scene of people trying to get out of a mall through it's back entrances, but most of them were being caught and eaten. Oddly enough, one female alien was trying to catch up to a human child, to try and help him escape. However, in the child's fear he ran too far ahead of this female alien, and the scene ended with her looking through the back corridors of the mall, looking at the victims being eaten by the other aliens, in fear this boy was one of their victims.

I then appeared back in the dream with another man. We were trying to escape together. We entered something that seemed like a very large drainage system, or sewer, but it was large enough to have concrete and glass office stations lit by florescent lights through out its levels. Other people were trying to get into this underground area too, but they were being overcome by the aliens. For some reason the aliens didn't seem to notice we were human, and kept passing us by. I remember in one instance a nerdy looking alien was tricking humans into thinking he was a human, and an evacuation official. He would direct the humans into a corridor as if it was a path deeper into the underground area, but it was in fact a trap (where the humans would then get eaten).

A lot of people tried to get back out the doors of this corridor once they saw it led to a dead end, but more aliens would come to the entrance and keep them from escaping. Again, the man and I were overlooked and escaped after also falling for the nerdy alien's trap. We realized their was nothing safe about this underground area, so as soon as we came to an entrance that led back outside, we ran out. There was a creek leading into the woods from the tunnel we escaped through. We followed the creek into the woods, and this is how we escaped.

The dream then switched to a scene of two girls who had been killed by the aliens. After realizing they were dead, they jumped down a shaft in the underground area, down into "heaven." In heaven all the creatures were cartoons, but the girls soon realized these cartoons were also aliens that wanted to eat them (again). However, the two girls determined that since they were in heaven, they were the monarchs of all the cartoon aliens. The girls then shouted for the alien cartoons to leave them alone, and the cartoons fled in a big crowd. That's when I woke up.

Thank you for reading,

Marc