Month: January 2009

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare # 200 – Sewers

(Female, 30’s) This dream probably reveals too much about the things that disturb and scare ME!

In my dream, I was scrubbing a shiny white toilet with a cheap little brush, a flimsy stick with a blue and white ball of netting on the end. (A dream about cleaning a toilet– how totally WEIRD is that??) As I finished and tapped the brush on the edge of the bowl, I flushed at the same time– and then the cheap little brush came apart, and the cleaning part started to get sucked down the drain! I didn’t want the toilet to get clogged, but I didn’t really want to stick my hand in the water either.

I worried about deadly fumes– I didn’t smell anything but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous to my health.

Then I remembered that we had access to something like the water exit chamber (??) of the house, so I could get the broken brush ball out of there! I walked into a utility room where there was a small white door with a strong spring hinge that opened to a sort of chamber where all the drains in the house emptied. (I have no idea where this image came from! Completely imaginary view of plumbing!) The chamber was stark white, very clean and with a big cone-shaped impression in the bottom where all of the waste water drained. It was so clean and smooth and shiny in there. I could see the blue cleaning ball a little way inside, just out of reach. So I got a broom handle and tried to hold the spring door open with one hand while reaching for the ball with the stick with the other hand. I worried about deadly fumes– I didn’t smell anything but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous to my health.

As I leaned in further, I could see the edge of a storage box, just around a corner. How the heck did that get in here? Did someone accidentally flush that down the toilet? As I was reaching and looking, I was slowly climbing inside that chamber. I crawled in far enough to see around the corner, where I found a stack of 6 or 8 storage boxes. We must have put them in here; what had we been thinking? Were we that desperate for storage space?!? I was getting a little panicky at this point, but I looked up and noticed that the ceiling opened to the sky. I could stand up in one spot, and I could put my head and shoulders through the opening. It was sunny and bright outside, and I drew a deep breath of fresh air and felt an enormous relief. Then I started to worry about how I was going to get out of there!

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #199 – Deadly Eavesdropping

(Female, 80’s) I’ve been on some pretty serious medication recently. The injections just make me feel so light, like I’m floating. It takes a couple days until I come back to myself.

I tried to tell her I wasn’t dead

In this dream, I was laying in my recliner, rocking back and forth. Since I got sick I have been sleeping in my recliner because it’s easier for me to get up out of it than out of a bed. I gradually realized that I could hear voices. The voices were loud enough that I could make out what they were saying. I was very curious. One of the voices was one of the preachers from my church. She was talking about someone who had passed away. “She was just sitting there rocking away in her recliner.” I felt sorry for this person and then I realized that the preacher was talking about me. I tried to speak, tried to tell her I wasn’t dead but I wasn’t in my recliner anymore. I was floating up by the ceiling. There was nothing I could do. I felt so powerless.

Categories
Movies Poe

Movies – Trailer for “Poe”

Are we getting excited yet? The 200th anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe’s birth is coming up on the 19th. I suspect I’ll mark the occasion by relaxing with a nice Amantillado and perhaps page through some quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore. After of course I’ve entombed a love one or acquaintance beneath the floor boards.

Or I might track down the web premiere of this rather intriguing independent film “Poe: Last Days of the Raven.” Check out the trailer on Youtube:

Or check out the website for the film, Last Days of the Raven where they allege there will be a free web premiere of the film. Hope their servers can support the traffic.

Seriously, I really DO hope they pull this off because I really rather want to see this effort. The trailer looks nicely shot and for the most part tastefully assembled. Granted not all fan-produced features are as satisfying as their trailers… Ok no point being coy. I’ll come out and say it, the Call of Cthulu movie by the H.P.Lovecraft Historical Society was… well, rather embarrassing while the trailer was delightful. Sure the movie gets great credit for moxie and perseverance, heck even its art direction (those cultic statues are just SO COOL.) And probably it’s significant somehow in the history of low/no budget horror. But as a movie it’s only going to be intelligible let alone enjoyable to someone who’s already familiar with the story. It failed, I think, by being too reverent with the source material. Those nested flashbacks within flashbacks just did not work for me in the context of a relatively feature length movie. The trailer, however, remains a sparkling acheivement of mood and style. May their upcoming filmic projects better fulfill the promise of this little gem:

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #198 – Library Out of Time

(Male, 50’s) I don’t know if this qualifies as a nightmare but it was a deeply disturbing dream. I haven’t been in college in decades incidentally.

In the dream, I was in a college library. It was early Saturday morning and there were only a few students, the good students, the ones that were actually studying on the weekend and not sleeping in. I sat at one of the long wooden tables. I had a cloth backpack at my feet, just like the one I used to have many years ago and there were my class books on the table. I was looking through an art book, one of those huge coffee table volumes about some current artist. About this time, I fell asleep in the dream.

When I awoke, it was late in the weekend. It may have been Sunday but it didn’t feel like a Sunday. The students that were around me were the raucous type who’d probably been partying all weekend and now had to cram in some studying before classes started again. The books in front of me had been covered by newspapers like some one had been reading a Sunday paper. I looked for my books underneath them but they were all gone, the text books that I owned as well as the book I had been looking at. At my feet, my backpack had changed to a paper shopping bag filled with junk, literally scavenged junk. I was still disoriented from my nap.

“…At my feet, my backpack had changed to a paper shopping bag filled with junk, literally scavenged junk…”

I figured someone had just re-shelved the books since it appeared I wasn’t using them. I found the art book I was looking at but the name of the artist was actually the name of someone I know in real life, someone who IS an artist. I stumbled over to the line to check this book out. There were two very long lines of noisy students who looked at me oddly. A librarian gestured at me and said she’d open another window for me, even though I wasn’t the next person in line. At this point I realized that I had my daughter with me, though in the dream she was only 4 years old. She’s really grown up and living on her own. I followed the librarian. She went into an office that had a window facing the hallway but the window was about 2 feet off the ground. I had to sit down on the floor to be helped. I told her I wanted to check out that book and she looked at my card and said “This card expired in 1987.” I have no idea why that date would be significant, by the way. I didn’t understand. “Does that mean I can’t check out books?” “No you can’t” “How can I make it work again?” “You can’t” “Can I volunteer, perhaps tutor?” “No, you can’t” “But at least I can still come in the library and use the resources here, right?” “No, you can’t.” By this time the librarian was weeping, just sobbing so I didn’t continue my line of questioning though I still didn’t understand what had happened. I called for my daughter and we started making our way toward the exit. It was strange to be seeing the library for the last time. My daughter asked everyone we passed what time it was.

I awoke horribly disoriented. In fact, I HAD overslept.