2/8/2024 –
First some odd vignettes:
My dad and I meet up for dinner in this fancy hotel lobby type situation that almost feels like an otherworldly surrealist train station. There are a couple of options right off the lobby area but we choose the Chinese joint. I barely remember this lengthy meal or conversation but what I do remember is that when we meet up again, my stepmom is now joining us. She’s not super sold on the Chinese place but that’s what my dad wants. Then when we walk in and get a table she’s immediately rude to the staff. Very true to life in regards to how my stepmom treats waitstaff unfortunately.
I wouldn’t even call this next one a vignette because it goes on for quite a while honestly, it’s just boring. Same shit where I’m back in my basement apartment again. This time though, a girl I dated briefly in college is living there and it’s like she wants to set up some sort of late night meeting with my wife? I don’t get it but I just keep ending up back in this damn apartment. The main thing I actually remember is that I have to pee, so I go into the bathroom to do so and this makes me go lucid. I know something’s off here because I’ve ran into it so many times. The lucidity causes me to force myself to wake up and you know, actually pee.
Now a vision where Tom Cruise is rolling into a ridiculously exaggerated city on this bridge. The place feels like an alternate reality San Francisco, although it doesn’t necessarily look like it. That’s just the vibe I got. Anyway, there’s an intuitive transmission that comes along with this vision which is:
“Tom Cruise is still making action movies in his 60’s and doing most of his own stunts. You can pull off the same sort of shit.”
Got it, and on another note, I had completely forgotten that the new Mission Impossible movie just dropped on Paramount + which my wife currently subscribes to. I did not have anything planned to watch tonight so why not? Those are always dumb fun.
Next a vision where I’m holding a roll of Neco Wafers in my hand. The WTF factor there is so off the charts. I cannot remember the last time I’ve ever eaten or even contemplated the existence of Neco Wafers because you know, honestly they’re kind of gross. Do Neco Wafers even still exist? Well, they were discontinued in 2017 but were re-upped in 2020 when another company bought them. At one point there were the oldest continually operating candy company in the US, if Google is to be believed.
Ok, well, none of that’s super interesting and in truth, I was actually contemplating how mundane my dreams have been this week but almost as if responding to this, now I jump into the deep end. I don’t recall entirely what caused this, but suddenly I’ve gone totally lucid. I’m in an outdoor nature scene and I start to fly but I do in fact realize: Wait a minute. I’m not supposed to be flying. There are a couple other things I’m supposed to try, including internally willing myself to the plot of the dream’s end game and opening portals to other astral worlds.
I decide to go with the willing myself to the plot’s endgame option. When I do this a yellow almost old-timey package materializes in mid-air, slightly above but right in front of me. When I say old-timey, it’s the prototypical small box with the large box top and string around it. I fly up to the thing and eagerly open it, but I’m confused. There’s a dead angel fish inside, which then morphs into animal crackers. I have no idea why but for some reason I decide to crush the animal crackers in my hands, then spread them into the earth as if I was spreading the ashes of the dead.
Then I start flying around and notice that I’m quite definitively in a classic southwestern desert environment with the large protruding painted rocks and everything. When was the last time I’ve been in a desert like this? 25 years at least.
Now I’m in a classroom and I’m bored. I’m around all the other kids, wondering why they don’t think I’m too old to be in this class. Honestly though, they don’t look any younger than me really. What’s significant is that I once again remember that I’m dreaming and start flying around the classroom. All the other students are rather amazed by this and don’t know what to make of it so I eventually just fly out the window.
I keep flying around these various astral landscapes and eventually I find this semi-fancy looking office/conference facility that I infiltrate by phasing through the closed windows. When I get inside this feels sort of like a library to me as there’s this upstairs area with offices and conference rooms and this large atrium in the middle, surrounded by books. Does it have choice wooden paneling like I constantly run into in my dreams? Of course it does.
I fly from the upper area into the lower main library room and run into this very non-descript looking white woman. She’s thin with shoulder length thick brown hair and not stunningly attractive or unattractive. She’s also dressed very conservatively for the most part in a blue/gray pantsuit type getup. The best way I’d describe her is unassuming but suddenly it occurs to me. Hey wait, I haven’t tried to have a conversation with a lucid dream character in quite a while. So I accost her:
“Hey you, I’m dreaming and I know I’m dreaming. Can you explain what I’m supposed to be doing here?”
To which she replies that I’m a:
“Guardian of dreams”
To which I’m like.
“A dream guardian. Hmm, that’s kind of catchy.”
She then sits me down on the floor and this almost like children’s reading circle develops with all these other very non-descript looking people. Again, just people that don’t really stand out in the way they look in any discernable way, just like the initial woman I approached. Then we start having a chat about my existence as a dream guardian, which I largely don’t remember. What I do remember that this thin balding I’d say mid-50’s looking black guy wearing a maroon sweater sitting next to me tells me that he loves to listen to me on his commute home. They also all seem amused that I love the term dream guardian.
Eventually our children’s reading circle thing wraps up and I’m left there, still very much aware that I’m dreaming. There is nothing but blackness looming outside the window of the astral library place and for whatever reason I decide to fly into the black void, which is an incredibly odd experience as I’m just floating around in this black nothingness.
After a while of drifting in this void of nothingness a spectral woman who I can’t see grabs onto me. She’s now sort of guiding me and another desert landscape starts to form in the background. I’m told that I have a new opponent emerging that I’m going to have to deal with to which I answer:
“Uhhh, sure. What can you tell me about this new opponent?”
To which she responds that if I focus I’ll be able to tune into a breaking radio transmission on the topic, which I attempt and wouldn’t you know, I start to feel this odd crackling radio station faintly beaming into my spirit. It’s talking about how a man in Mexico ate some sort of tainted fish taco which caused an unspecified chain reaction to which I’m like:
“Oh Jesus, another goddamn pandemic.”
To which she tells me:
“Yeah, basically.”
Ahhh, the dead fish in the gift box. I wake up shortly thereafter.
2/9/2024 –
I’m in one of those situations that I’ve never been in while awake where there’s a bunch of people playing different video games in the same large room. There are multiple TV’s and systems set up and I’m only playing one of them and I’m playing this retro-futuristic basketball game. It’s clearly newer but it’s got the intentionally pixelated graphics to give off 90’s vibes. It’s amazing how common this is in gaming these days honestly.
This one does look pretty fucking cool and the way the individual pixelated players are fairly huge on the screen is sort of excellent. After playing it for a while though, something odd happens and when I say something odd, I mean that the normal basketball part of the game keeps getting interrupted by this utterly insane and bleakly dark animation. The plot seems to involve this adult black man and his young son but this bizarre black energy Claymation entity with sparkling flourishes of galactic colorways splashing through it keeps taking over the scene. It’s like a lump of cosmic black oil with a mouth. Impossible to describe and beyond out there. Like a retro basketball video game meshed with the Remedy-verse.
In fact, on about the second time the game is interrupted by this deluge of surrealist madness I’m realizing that quite a few people are now watching me play this game, including a ton of kids. They’re all loving it but I’m like:
“Wow, I’m sorry. I really don’t think this is for kids, you know? Seemed like an innocent retro futuristic basketball game when I started but these animated shorts seem very adult oriented.”
I can’t convince them to stop their kids from watching though and they themselves are entranced. These metaphors are not difficult to understand. Sports culture is toxic as fuck.
In the next scenario I’m on vacation and I’m attending a Lakers game with my family, even though it feels like we’re in Detroit. In fact, after a while of watching this Lakers game, I’m now realizing we’re just watching it on television. We’re in the upper decks of this stadium and I’m slowly starting to understand that there’s a game going on beneath us that we can’t see at all because the upper decks are cutoff. Then I learn it’s not even the same Lakers game we’re watching on TV. Now we’re marveling at the greed. They’re not even opening the upper decks to the actual game but they’re still selling seats here anyway. The place is packed.
You know? This is the second time this exact metaphor has presented itself and it’s not tough to understand. There’s the rich people who run the world show, and then the rest of us. Most of us never even get to see what’s going on with that pretentious nonsense, even though it’s being largely publicly funded. Living in Seattle in 2024 be like that.
One more vision about a new Daily Show type thing with hosted by a trendy looking Gen Z woman and bro. That is a much better idea that a Jon Stewart reboot I must confess.
2/10/2024 –
I’m playing this video game that’s an overhead view old school excursion with a Justice League theme. Again with the retro-games. You’re basically just seeing to top of the character’s heads as you’re wandering around this city kicking ass and I’m not sure if I’ve played a game like this since Gauntlet or some shit. At one point I switch off characters in this kind of tradeoff sequence and I’ve distinctly switched to Green Arrow. Now I’m wandering around shooting up fools with these golden energy arrow bursts. This goes on for quite a while until at one point, even I’m like:
“Okay, that power explosion sequence was absolutely ridiculous for a dude who’s supposedly just shooting fancy arrows.”
This leads me to realize that wait a minute, what the fuck is going on here? I’m not playing a video game, I’m in a deep meditative trance. Upon this realization I do manage to play the game telepathically for another several minutes until my perspective shifts into this Mass Effect sci fi game scenario. This is incredibly detailed and the graphics are amazing. This one frame of me in the Starship’s cabin conversing with my alien crew starts embedding detailed exposition of this spontaneously created fictional universe into me before I’m once again like:
“Whoa, dude!”
Whoa indeed.
The only other thing I remember on this night is a scenario where I’m chatting with an unknown blonde woman, seemingly at a bar. She’s watching a story on TV about a thief who stole something of great value from a couple’s house and she’s all:
“My god, I would want that fucker dead!”
To which I respond:
“You know, the real way to cut down on crime is to actually do something to reduce poverty.”
Then I wake up. Fair point. If we did that we wouldn’t even need weirdo super cop fantasies like the Justice League, would we?
Also, while you're here, do you like psychedelic industrial noise rock? Of course you do!
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