New Year's Dreams

[ellyssian]

Dream I: Post-Apocalyptic Apoplexy

General Scenario: The war in Iraq comes home to play, thanks GWB!

Scene 1: Guided Missiles

Setting: Kind of sort of but not really the area around the house I grew up. The waves of the newly awakened ocean lapped at cliffs that ended just beyond the house, where Common Street tipped downward. A large tower was built about 500 yards away from the house, further along the cliff edge. The Enemy has taken control (barely), but the fighting is elsewhere.
Plot: Avoid going up in a ball of flame, like several others in the area apparently have.

So I'm standing out in the yard, and I've offended the powers-that-now-be somehow. I know this, without a shadow of a doubt, because after another guy near me goes up in a ball of flame, I see similar guided missiles arcing towards me.

I jump, run, and dive - which almost always works in your average video game, and it seems to work here. They have more ammo than I have energy, and the missiles get closer and closer. I make a few discoveries - like the missiles only explode when the toy-like projection in the nose cone is depressed. The next missile that comes for me is led on a merry chase that ends with it stuck in the wrought iron railing across the street.

A short reprieve - because the thing has stages, and the nose cone pops off and starts catching up... then three more hit me.

Now, blown to smithereens, I'm really ticked off. I, apparently, have a strong dislike to being explodarated. I shoot a burst of energy - which is, basically, me, myself, and I - aimed right at the tower. Missile launcher(s), tower, et al, explodes, pieces flying everywhere, including the group of kids who thought it would be fun to scare the local populace by blowing them up with explosives-laden model rockets.

Scene 2: Save the Children

Setting: A cavernous opening, from the bottom up, with scaffolding and balconies at the edge. It goes from post-apocalyptic mall at the bottom to a Burtonesque graveyard at the top. Once you're out at the top, you're in the Real World, where the soldiers are attempting to fight off the Enemy, despite being badly equipped, badly reinforced, badly organized, badly led, and - of course - losing badly.
Plot: Stop some curious kids from going up and out and getting themselves killed.

I recall very little about this scene, but it was very long and detailed. A few of the vagrants curled up in the darkness on the way to the top, I can still see clearly. A few kids intercepted and sent back down to safety. One kid left, almost out - and then the last vagrant issues the warning. The soldiers have snapped. They're killing everyone but other soldiers. And they've almost discovered how to get in...

Scene 3: Snipers

Setting: Same as scene 2, from the top down this time.
Plot: Stop the soldiers from attacking the non-combatants

As I grab the last kid, a soldier breaks into the tomb that is the door between the safe zone below and the battlefield above. The kid, now convinced it might not be a cool idea to go explore outside, runs ahead and down the staircases as I follow.

As we go down and a soldier on another balcony takes aim I call out "Special Forces", which apparently I was a former member. Ever since I was obliterated in scene 1, I wasn't really me so much as a not-me-Snake-Plissken type. Anyway, I don't get shot, or even shot. The soldiers pull back at the last moment and don't shoot.

However, by the time I get down below into the mall area itself, where scattered civilians are running and screaming, and, quite obviously, not in the military. So. They start dying, as the soldiers pick them off easily.

This pisses me off.

I pull out a fairly large semi-automatic BFG, and, from the hip, I put one shot in each of the soldiers lining the balcony above, and each one falls. At first they are replaced by other shooters, but after three or four rounds of the circular area, they are pleading for mercy, and I stop shooting. Peace is achieved, but the body count is absurdly high on both sides.

Scene 4: The Mission

Setting: The post-apocalyptic mall and its back office.
Plot: Some downtime and a new goal

Throughout the "mall" people have set up stalls, trying to get things back to normal as best they can. Food and clean water are in the rarest supply and get the highest price. I'm amazed when one vendor offers me a tiny complimentary cup of ice to go with the flavor packets I bought. A bit extravagant, and I tip a little extra. No one knows how long US currency will be good, but everyone pretends it has retained its value.

After a bit of strolling - and I don't recall all the details well enough to relate them, but it was a highly intricate scene.

I head out for through the back door to enjoy my feast, and stroll through the mall office area, where they're trying to make things seem normal despite the disarray. I suppose that's what happens when the mall is suddenly shifted a few hundred feet underground by way of bombs, missiles, and other nastiness.

The Big Guy - who looks an awful lot like Edward Herrmann or Donald Trump, depending on the angle - was overly wealthy to begin with, and still seems to be on top of the heap, even though the "heap" is to be taken much more literally now. He gives me a mission, asks me to form a squad and take out some key Enemy. Something's fishy, so I don't say no and I don't say yes. Instead, I head outside to eat.

Scene 5: Gathering the Crew

Setting: The post-apocalyptic parking lot

This scene also had a ton of detail, and a brazillion extras lolling about, trying to find work, trying to do something.

Somehow I wind up comparing sock sizes with a Kobe Bryant look-alike. His are smaller than my toddler's socks. The whole thing breaks down here, but this is where I wake up, so that's kind of to be expected. But it was surprisingly consistent, realistic (if horrifying), and so forth up to this time.



Dream II: Snakes and Piranhas

Scene 1: Porcupine Eating Snake

After all that, I'm going to try to keep this simpler. Basically, it also starts out at the house I grew up, or, more accurately, at my neighbor's house across the street.

A large blue and red snake has a porcupine stuck in it, and is hanging from the gutter of Leo's house. They're on vacation, so I'm up on a ladder trying to get the snake down, and show it to the kids at the same time.

The snake drops, letting go of the gutter, and it curls up into a tangle before hitting the blacktop. It bounces, apparently its standard mode of long-distance travel. Unfortunately, I'm on the ladder, and it bounces into me, and down, and back, stuck.

I try to grab it to help it out, but it freaks out, uncoils and slithers off into the rhododendrons and mountain laurel in front of our house.

Scene 2: Snakes Everywhere

The blue and red snake meets a yellow and orange snake and they don't get along. Next thing you know, the whole yard is slithering with snakes painted (although not drawn) by Dr. Seuss.

We try to follow them, to calm them down or something. Finally, they bump into yet another snake - and it looks an awful lot like a coral snake.

Scene 3: Chase the Rake Snake

The coral snake is getting away, and it goes through the fence in the neighbor's yard, getting tangled with a rake and some other stuff. Unfortunately, we suspect that something it tangled with is actually expensive and important, and we have to recover it.

The chase is on.

Scene 4: School Bus AWD

A dirt road runs off to the right, and the snake turns down it. School buses are everywhere, with their blinking lights. I'm barefoot, so running on the dirt road - with golf-ball sized chunks of sharp rocks that rove in packs - is not very comfortable. We worry about the snake biting kids getting on the bus, but Justin and I want to catch the snake and free it from the rake and other junk it's dragging.

We finally find the snake, or at least the leading half. Apparently one of the school buses attacked it. Luckily it really isn't a coral snake, because Justin doesn't avoid it as I advise, and I have to yank its teeth out of him. It takes us a few minutes to toss the ticked off, chopped-in-half, snake far enough away that it can't bite us.

Scene 5: Goth Piranhas

After ditching the snake (literally), we investigate the rake and junk, and discover it is just a rusty rake and, well, junk. We ignore it and look at the really cool looking gothic mansion and it's low fence.

There's a sign that reads "The fish are real, but the depth is an illusion. Walk on it, and I will flip a lever and you will be in over your head."

The yard is a shallow aquarium, filled with a moving (physically, not emotionally) display of an underwater cityscape straight out of Nightmare Before Christmas. The fish are piranha (sort of). They look a bit more prehistoric. Big chunky teeth that look like monuments. Some of the fish are wearing black top hats. Weird.

Then the phone rings and Deb wakes me up. A 15 month old is starting to crank - and extra measures have to be taken, as between these two dreams, Rachel had a profoundly upset stomach.

Comments

Dream I

[wolfette]

Yeah, I get those dreams too. Once they went on so long (repeating every single night for several months) that I ran away from home. I was in my 30s.

[opakele.livejournal.com]

Good dreams. If I remember them, I always try to figure them out.

I'm picking up anxiety...understandably so. There is also chaos, which is also understandable. Your subconscious is chewing on some big issues.

[patrixa.livejournal.com]

I was thinking, at first, whatever did you eat or see? Then I read Opakele's comments and feel she has it right.

Would meditation on the past year's illnesses/problems and how you have no power over them be easeful? They were scary when first recognized but also have scary repercussions over which we have no power.