dreams

The ghosts of jobs past -or- Stupid brain!

Recently I recounted how I had dreamed that I was thrust back into working at the Locarno Beach concession, something I last did 12 years ago. My brain or more specifically, the subconscious part of it, has apparently decided to use sleep time to revisit all of my previous jobs in chronological order.

Last night I found my dream-self back at the store I used to work at. At one point I asked about the schedule, to which the assistant manager of the computer department gave a coy, non-commital answer I did not care for. I had visions of barely getting enough hours to make ends meet. And Ramen noodles. I suddenly found myself outside, in a gravel parking lot, looking toward the ocean, except blocking the view was the Locarno Beach concession, with the stand opened up facing toward the road and not the beach as one would expect. It was clear that I was still working there, too. The joy of 11 hour days covered in grease and the happiness of working a low-paying retail job, together at last!

I woke up shortly afterward. If things keep on track my next dream job will take me back to my days of telephone technical support. I can’t wait!*

* yes, in fact, I can wait. More to the point, I would like sexy dreams of daring adventure and not the dregs of my past jobs. Dear Brain, please comply. Thanks.

This is still not the May weather I ordered

I knew something was up when Environment Canada issued its national spring forecast that called for warmer and drier conditions across the entirety of the country this spring. You know how those things go. They forecast sun, it rains. They predict overcast skies, it rains. They predict rain and it rains.

This is the forecast for the remainder of the month:


Allow me to translate:

Friday: rain
Saturday: rain
Sunday: rain
Monday: going out on a limb here — rain!

When I worked at Locarno Beach back in 1996-98 I was understandably obsessed with the weather. Even now I occasionally recall the days of yore when I prayed for sun so I could open the concession and earn a few meager dollars, even as I loathed opening the concession and actually having to be there.

The other night I dreamed I was back at Locarno, arriving rather suddenly, it seemed, and the scene was one of barely-contained chaos. A guy at the counter laughed at me while explaining he was the one who always had some difficult order. It seemed to be whatever it was he wanted — one of those energy bars or something like that — was in one of many boxes in the back. I tried to explain that I didn’t know any of this because I wasn’t there the previous year (or ten). A line-up started to form and I went to the till. An order was rung in for something but I didn’t know what. There was a $20 bill on the counter. I asked the guy if it was his, so I could make change. There was also another separate pile of money on the counter, a bunch of 20s and 10s. Things were cooking. My staff was running about, except they weren’t my staff, they were a bunch of strangers, presumably the staff that had worked there the previous summer. All that was missing was for me to look down and see I was only dressed in my underwear. Just before the dream ended I remember thinking to myself, “At least I’m making some money!”

It was awful. Yech. Dear Brain: No more Locarno dreams. Thanks!

A pair of dream snippets

I am trying to remember my dreams again and have been doing a decent job of recollection when waking up. What I haven’t been doing such a decent job of is writing the dreams down after waking up. 😛

Here are a pair of recent snippets. They’re not very interesting but perhaps putting them down will help me to remember more.

Dream #1 featured Robert Reed, best known as Mr. Brady from The Brady Bunch. The dream seemed to be set back in the 70s and Mr. Reed was being a bit of a jerk (as himself, not Mr. Brady). I have no idea what exactly he was doing, why he was being a jerk and what kind of presence, if any, I had in the dream. I also have no clue why I’d dream about Robert freakin’ Reed. The guy is about as far off my radar as possible. Or so I thought!

Dream #2 took place in a small town and at one point I remember nimbly dodging a set of road construction equipment on my trip to…somewhere. The other part I remember from the same dream was being assembled as part of a group in a large auditorium that was serving as a makeshift movie theater. We were there to watch something I vaguely recall as educational but the stage area had no screen so the film was projected on a small section high up on the back wall of the auditorium, forcing everyone to twist in their seats to look backward in order to watch. No one seemed to mind, though. The one image I remember from the film was of a submersible of some sort. I believe this was triggered by the R.E.M. song “Sing for the Submarine”, which I’ve heard several times recently.

That’s all for my two most recent dreams. More subconscious nonsense to come!

Heath Ledger dies…again

Another dream from last night:

I am on what appears to be a movie set but they are not shooting at the moment. Or perhaps it’s just a ranch because there are horses. And a Spanish galleon. It makes sense, because it’s a dream.

I am on the galleon with someone who is showing off a little swordsmanship. He recites a line from the script that I can’t precisely recall but it was a taunt something along the lines of, “Do you want to brown your pants?” Colorful, as they say. The part was being played by Brian Doyle and while there are a number of Brian Doyles on the Internet Movie Database, I don’t think this guy was any of them. No idea where the name came from.

After the swordfighting demonstration, I then look over to another man, this one holding the reins of a horse. In retrospect I think it was supposed to be Johnny Depp and this was the set for the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie but instead it was Heath Ledger, my first dead dream celebrity.

Heath was going to show off something or other but the horse’s reins got tangled up and it began freaking out and thrashing violently. Heath was standing beside it and could not extricate himself from the reins. By the time he was freed he was laying prone on the ground and making unpleasant facial expressions, a waving hand indicated possible back injuries. When next I looked he was propped up against a nearby fence with two girls looking over him. One was about ten, the other in her teens.

I distinctly recall one of them saying to him, “Please don’t bleed like that” at which point blood started oozing from his nose and mouth. This, understandably, upset the girls and they began wailing as Heath Ledger expired. Again.

Acrophobia on an alternate world Davie Street

I’ve been remembering a lot of my dreams lately for whatever reason, enough so that I may actually do some research to retain them even more than I do now.

Last night I was in a typical alternate world dreamscape, this time at a huge outdoor theater improbably constructed near the intersection of Denman and Davie Street. The theater was open but did have a roof to provide shelter from the elements. The featured show was a bunch of old men singing in front of an artificial waterfall. Where this bit came from I have no idea. At the end of the performance — which actually felt more like a rehearsal, I moved out of my seat and headed down toward the stage. The seats were a weird kind of jumble that only makes sense in dreams and I found myself inadvertantly blocking the way. This woman standing opposite me seemed to offer a solution, for lo! We were both actually standing on a lift that she could operate.

She did so and we rose up and above the crowd. I was perhaps inclined to offer my thanks when she continued to raise the lift higher than necessary. I am not especially keen on high places so I noted this fact to her in the hope that she would stop. She did not. I then raised my voice to a level one might call “screaming”. My words to her were as such: “Lady, I’m afraid of heights! Let me down!” I continued this plaintive request at maximum volume but she gave no reaction, as if she was utterly deaf or cruelly indifferent.

I should further illustrate the scene by noting the platform that I was on was barely big enough to contain me and it lacked anything to hold onto save for a railing along the front which I flung my arms over, hoping to not plunge onto a singing old man some hundred feet below. When the lift finally reached its maximum height — and that height was impressive indeed — the woman’s hearing seemed to suddenly return to normal and she brought the lift back down.

I was not amused.

The dream broke apart at this point, the crisis ended. The loss of control is a typical theme in dreams. Perhaps I can conquer this one by standing on my tippy-toes at the edge of the Grand Canyon one day.

My dream (directed by Roland Emmerich)

There have been two recurring themes in dreams I’ve had since I was a wee one. The first was being chased by something — mummies, vampires, mean robots but most often vehicles and in true Killdozer style, the vehicles would always be driver-free. Two I recall vividly were a muscle car from the late 60s/early 70s that chased me down a neighbor’s driveway (I escaped by leaping onto the branch of a tree that hung over the end of the driveway), the other a giant-sized dump truck with the front bumper missing, which made it much scarier.

The chase dreams pretty much ended as an adult.

The other theme has been ferry disasters, which I’ve talked about before. Last night I had one of these dreams and as with most of them, it wasn’t really scary, just weird. I don’t recall who I was with but we were on the ferry and as usual, something goes wrong. This time it seemed like some kind of stability issue, which we noticed when the ferry began lurching to the side so severely as to nearly touch water to the passenger deck. Then, while still motoring along, the ship does not one but two complete barrel rolls. Yes, it capsizes twice. But it manages to right itself and we were apparently wearing our capsizing boots and were none the worse for the spinning. But now it was clear the ferry had to get to the terminal and dock ASAP.

The ferry starts racing along through the water and is kind of wobbly, pitching a bit from side to side. At some point I move to the front lounge for a better view ahead and we are entering a winding river-like area that doesn’t actually exist. Perhaps because of the ferry’s excessive speed, instead of attempting to navigate the serpentine path, the captain has the crew shovel more coal into the boiler and guns it toward a giant pile of smoothly-shaped rocks. Maybe it was a hill covered with rocks. Whatever it was, it was clear we were going to jump it.

The ferry hits the hill and scoots up it and out of the water, then flies off the top and soars like a wingless bird. For a few moments as the ship flies through the air we ponder what the landing will be like. But not to worry — the ferry lands upright and everyone’s okay. But not! Because the terminal is dead ahead and the ship is going way too fast! The engines are put into full reverse and the water churns furiously as we speed toward the dock. The ship slows, slows some more and then finally eases into the dock as if this was the end of a perfectly normal trip. Roll credits.

When dreams go meta

Last night I had a long, involved dream that played out like a movie. There were even “shots” where the camera seemed to be tracking. From what I can recall, the story was set in some unnamed present day country that was apparently in the midst of a revolution (possible source: the coup in Honduras this past summer). Much of the city that the dream took place in was abandoned or in ruins but there did seem to be some semblance of life. I remember one part where a blind alley or tunnel opened into a plaza and there were a few men with weapons waiting for people to come through to shoot them. The people being shot were civilians, as far as I could tell.

I have an image of a woman and some children running along a street and being brought down by automatic weapon fire. Since I wasn’t in the dream I had no reaction to this, the events just kept playing out. The final part of the dream featured several men who may have been part of a resistance group. They were moving through an abandoned building that looked like it was once a hospital. It was bare of all furnishings and was dark, save for a pale blue light that washed through every room. This seemed to key in to an earlier part of the dream and I understood they were sneaking their way through to avoid being seen or captured. They went down some stairs and finally came to windows that were brightly lit by the sun. They exited onto a small street that was somehow cut off from the oppressive forces and the people here were relaxed, even happy.

The meta part of this dream came in an unrelated dream afterward. I was with friends and one was apparently using some kind of “hair solution” to grow back the hair on his head and was a bit embarrassed by the discussion, though he did in fact have a pretty good head of hair. I suddenly remembered the previous dream while in this dream and started telling my friends about it, just as I have written it out here. They weren’t particularly interested, so I stopped. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. It was odd.