Posts from — May 2007

(Male) This was a dream that had a whole world attached to it, all these things I just knew about this world which makes it rather hard to tell as a straight story.

The whole dream was set in the future, a time when it rained all the time and people seemed to live inside all the time under this really flat, gray light. The world was like a honeycomb of hallways, very institutional-feeling. Everybody wore these very drab gray jumpsuits that seemed to be very fragile, easily torn but then again very easily replaced. What’s coming to mind is that they must have been made out of recycled paper fibres but no one in the dream actually said that.

We were at war with this other society but what was strange was that both societies lived in the same hallways. The only way the different armies could be discerned was by their weapons. Get this: the weapons looked like water balloons but they had a tough enough skin that they could be stacked. There was one hallway that was stacked floor to ceiling with these water balloons. But the other army had their own water balloons, the only difference is that one army had balloons that were red while the other army had balloons that were blue. The weapons had the only bright colors in the whole place.

Since both societies basically looked like each other, we were suspicious of basically everyone all the time. The only way to really tell what side someone was on is if they were carrying a weapon. Through a passing conversation with a friend I knew and trusted, I learned that I had had some surgery as part of a very old military program, something that implanted a weapon inside me. I didn’t like the sound of that, though I thought it would be good to know once and for all which side I was on, which society I really belonged to. He mentioned an “address” which of course was a room number because no one went outside anymore.

I tried to get to the address. I didn’t know what to expect. Would the doctors remove the weapon? Would they program me to explode like a water balloon? Would I find the room empty and abandoned? While I was getting there, I must have made certain army officials suspicious of me. I had to run away from them, down the unfamiliar, indistinct corridors, turning here and there. Finally I got to the room and explained my situation to the doctors. They beat me up and kicked me when I collapsed on the floor. I tried to ask if they weren’t afraid that the weapon would detonate but all they said was “Ungrateful.”

Finally they dragged me over to an operating table. “We’ll take out the weapon. Then we’ll ship you off-world to a mining colony. How do you like that?”

The next thing I knew I was outside, running through the rain. It sizzled, stung a little, as it hit my skin. It was very dark. I ducked into an alley. There was another man there with a long black beard and a woman with snarled blond hair. They had had money once but had wasted it all and so now, they were escaping.

(Male) This isn’t so much a dream because I can’t remember the whole dream but just one image:

Everything was deep blue and grey, like a foggy day on the ocean. There were long swirls of kelp that were a dark blue-green. And swimming among the waves and the kelp was a mermaid, a half fish - half woman with long flowing black hair that glistened from the water. She pulled herself out of the water to rest for a moment. The Mermaid didn’t seem to know I was there or perhaps she didn’t care. I was so close I could reach out and touch her shoulder but I didn’t want to startle her so I called out to her gently. She turned her head and I could see that she had no face. Literally, everything between her chin and her forehead was gone, even the bone was missing. It looked like a shark or something had taken a bite out of the front of her head. The front of her teeth were missing, revealing a gaping throat; there were empty socket that might have been where her eyes were or perhaps they were the sinus cavities behind her eyes. The Mermaid wasn’t bleeding or in any obvious pain but I couldn’t imagine how she could still be alive after such trauma.

(Male) The dream took place in a cottage that friends of mine used to have when we were kids. But instead of being on a lake, the cottage was just in a normal, old neighborhood. One night, zombies attacked. Nothing too unique or special about the zombies, just old-fashioned, slow-moving, brain-eating zombies. They were more or less easy to keep out despite the long rows of windows at the front. We had retreated upstairs.

But we survived til dawn. For some reason these zombies couldn’t be out in daylight, which made things rather convenient for us. I went downstairs and found a friend of mine on the couch. I thought he was a zombie but he was just hung over. I went outside and talked with my neighbors who were all very angry. I learned that many people had tried to escape the city so there was a huge traffic jam and then when nightfall came, the zombies just ate people in their cars, one by one, like a buffet table.

Though our neighborhood had been attacked it didn’t look like anyone had been hurt. We knew we wouldn’t be so lucky tonight.

When night fell, the folks in our house retreated to the second story of the cottage, plugged in our gas generator — which we knew wouldn’t last forever — and then used the electricity to power our guitar amps. We played this really weird psychedelic music all night long. We had destroyed the staircase so we were sort of luring all the zombies to our first floor for some reason, like a big roach motel. We could hear them moving downstairs, moaning like they were singing along with the music.

When I woke up from this dream it was still dark and I was even scared to move.

(Male) This was an epic scale dream, one that felt like it went on for hours and hours and covered a huge amount of narrative. The dream took place on this cloud that was more or less solid. People had landed on this cloud and dug out huge passages and tunnels inside it. All the walls were translucent so sunlight made them all glowing white.

The cloud was some kind of secret military installation and I wasn’t supposed to be there. But I was there with my best friend and with an old friend I haven’t seen in probably 10 years.

It was scary because we had to avoid the military who were shooting at us. And also because the whole cloud was dissolving. The builders had carved too much into the cloud and so it had started to turn back into merely water vapor. Aircraft and vehicles were starting to sink through the floor and presumably then fall to earth. We were running around, trying not to be killed while trying to find some way off the cloud.

By the end of the dream we still hadn’t escaped. As we ran, our feet sank into the floor like it was melting underneath us. It became harder and harder to run.

I’ve been contemplating my own list of high brow, low budget horror films recently and I stumbled upon this list by “the pop culture addict” which I think is really quite good. He and I might have a friendly disagreement about some titles, like the Chaney Wolfman and I’d have a few more title to add I think, like… well, I’ll just save those for MY list.

http://www.popcultureaddict.com/movies/horror.htm

(Male, 30’s) I remember one nightmare I had as a kid. It was a fever dream and fever dreams are especially vivid and realistic so it almost feels like a memory. I had noticed a large paw print in the dust on top of my dresser — though this was of course impossible because I would have been so short at the time that I couldn’t even SEE the top of my dresser. Then I had the feeling I was being watched. I looked over at the window of my bedroom and there was this huge hairy creature looking in at me. I wouldn’t have known the word for it then but clearly it was Bigfoot! I didn’t want him to get me. So I ran out of my bedroom and into the hallway. There was window at the end of the hall that usually had a curtain in front of it but in the dream there was no curtain. This allowed Bigfoot to look right in at me again. Then I ran into my sister’s room. She was disturbed by my running around but she was disturbed even more by Bigfoot staring in her window too. Finally both of us ran and hid in the closet which was the only place it seemed like we’d be save. To this day, I think we did hide in the closet!