I love The Library of Congress.
the sheer randomness of my imagination never ceases to impress me.
I have never been to miami. I am pretty sure miami doesn’t look anything like this. I am also fairly certain a cruiseship doesn’t look like this. a large ocean-going ferry might have a deck you can just step onto but a cruiseship is boarded high-up from the side through a gangway or glass pier, at least if I am to believe “love boat.” yet here I am, on a cruiseship that has decided to leave miami, a cruiseship I have wandered onto after pulling up in some car. I don’t even know why I am so certain this is supposed to be miami.
not a soul is to be found. that part at least is familiar. I try to find a way off. two smaller boats tied to the side of my vessel depart before I can reach them. I make my way forward. I finally get to the bow only to find us slowly gliding out of some kind of fjord. an endless sea of tiny monopoly-looking houses is littering the coat on both sides, all of them white with brown angled roofs. I am pretty sure miami does not look like this. somehow I have gotten high up to a position from where I am looking at the coast from something of a god-like perspective. I am captive but for a nightmare this sure is quite a scenic experience.
I never make it off the boat. it gets dark as I keep frantically searching for a way off. I don’t even know why I want to leave this place. there could be a casino upstairs but as usual I know exactly what I want. it must be the sunlight that awakes me. leaving those blinds up has proven a decent idea.
silliness rating: 3
torture rating: 4 - utterly random
approximate length: 3 hours
nightmare is a popular word. ask google and it will throw seventy-two million results at you. news sources, too are filled to the brim with references to the term.
“Tech nightmare - electron beam to destroy Earth (well, it could …)
Tom Brady MRI Nightmare – Is He Out for the Season?
Egypt’s Shantytowns Nightmare
Petit Exposes Barça Nightmare
Nightmare wait over for Nathan
Great White Settles Lawsuit For Pyrotechnic Nightmare
Whale sight-seeing trip turns into a nightmare
Hearts’ Aguiar set to end 17-month nightmare on the sidelines
Bus driver’s nightmare trip - punched at wheel by drunk woman
The mortgage nightmare”
but not a single of these articles is actually talking about nightmares. they all merely used the term as a metaphor. I get the feeling that actual nightmares are a bit like unicorns - we all know what they are but have very limited actual experiences dealing with them. or perhaps we just don’t talk about them.
there could be some truth to calling nightmares a social taboo. discussing your bad dreams is to a certain degree admitting vulnerability and fear.
or is it?
there is no particular nightmare for me to report today.
odds are I did experience one last night but I don’t remember anything at all. I am surprised to admit this bothered me upon awakening; I had hoped to tell you about it.
I find it ironic that what I dream about while awake are nothing but admirations of theoretical situations while dreams I experience with my eyes closed are the precise opposite. it is as if something in me felt obliged to maintain the balance between pleasurable and atrocious.
I know what I will dream about before closing my eyes tonight. the fantasy has been the same for a long time. what I don’t know is what will compliment it after I take my hands off the wheel.
I love jullen’s work on Flickr.
I am standing on a train station platform.
six tracks are ahead of me, all of which disappear behind curves to my left and right. I am on the inside of this curve, unable to see more than a few yards down the tracks. tiled walls and a flat roof suggest this is a smaller station.
for some reason I decide to make my way across the tracks. I negotiate track after track, climb into railway cars on one side and leave them to the other, but I never seem to reach the other side of the station. sometimes I have to track back to allow approaching trains to pass. that’s all there is to this nightmare. no injury, no death. just track after track, obstacle after obstacle, some hairy, others repetitive and boring.
there are no people in the train station. it is a reasonably light and well maintained surrounding, a bit like a new york city subway station. the only reason I don’t outright call it that is the absence of any rats. I can’t spot any life at all. this, like so many other things, only bothers me during breakfast.
I never actually see myself in my nightmares. you always get to see yourself as the day progresses, be it a reflection in a mirror or shop window or your visage projected onto an old tv in a corner deli. not so in this parallel universe. I have seen my arms waving around in nightmares. I think I have seen my feet. I have never seen my own face. I am a tireless nobody in my nightmares.
a fire alarm goes off somewhere behind a wall. I get out of an oversized bed and wonder for a moment what city I am in. those are the real moments of terror in my life.
silliness rating: 1
torture rating: 3 - bothersome
approximate length: 1 hour
I love desiretofire’s work on Flickr.
I’m inside a supermarket.
apparently I have brought my full-size fridge and I am happily piling food into it. there are numerous diet coke packs. I drink about two cans per day, so these would most likely last me through the next world war. doesn’t matter. diet coke goes into the bottom of the freezer, diet coke goes into the oversized shopping cart next to it. what am I doing with a freezer in a supermarket? what am I doing with my freezer in a supermarket? I have grown to accept that my nightmares follow their own logic but I’m still not comfortable with it. I frequently remind myself in the morning that I am really smarter than my dreams might make me out to be. at least I hope that to be the case.
I end up throwing more stuff into my cart but somehow items I didn’t select end up in there as well. perhaps other folks have been throwing stuff in for good measure. is money not a concern in this universe? no, money is always a concern, no matter the universe. I’m beginning to get worried someone may think I’m a shoplifter. I am stashing goods I haven’t paid for in a giant freezer, you know.
the nightmarish part begins at the register. my card gets declined. the little display shows me some message indicating I didn’t enter my pin quickly enough. people start groaning. the sales clerk doesn’t want to rescan all my items. I’m not sure what she wants me to do. leave it all here? get out of the way and wait until it’s my turn again? we argue. I try convincing her. she calls a manager, loudly proclaiming me to be a deadbeat.
the manager turns out to be a thin middle-aged stiff in a cheap suit. he is exceptionally rude. nobody asks me about my freezer. it and the fear of being mistaken for a shoplifter have yielded the stage to the endless frustration of not being able to finish my purchase. somehow I find myself reloading all my items onto the conveyor belt next to the cash register. did they suddenly drop back into my cart or freezer? I am beginning to worry about getting all this stuff home. do I have a vehicle? am I going to carry this all home? how heavy is the freezer? I am clueless, I am helpless and thanks to my freezer I can’t just get up and walk away.
I don’t know what wakes me up.
the clock reads something close to six a.m. and it’s getting light outside. I make a few notes and lay back down on my back, glad to have escaped from this frustrating nightmare. it takes me about an hour to fall asleep again and thankfully the dream doesn’t pick up where it left off. I spend my morning thinking about the many plot holes in this dream as the details slowly fade away from my recollection.
silliness rating: 7
torture rating: 4 - chinese water torture
approximate length: 2-3 hours
I love Dirty Day’s work on Flickr.
about a year ago I started having nightmares.
I’m haunted by them.
every.
single.
night.
people always tell me they are unique, special, not like the rest. practically every other profile on myspace celebrates the perceived difference from the dreaded average. I don’t think I’m very different from you. I deal with stressful situations and so do you. I lead a hectic lifestyle and so do you. I’m generally fairly happy and so are you. zoom out far enough and we’re not really all that different from each other. we all have to deal with a little bit of drama from time to time.
I don’t dread going to bed. I don’t wake up soaking wet. I usually don’t dream of scary things like monsters or metermaids, thought exceptions have been known to happen. what I do dream about is what I am going to write about here. let’s see how this goes.
hello, I am
c.
