january

1. i am back in high school.  i have a math class and forget to go for the whole first week of class.  i can’t catch up, when i finally go for the first time, and i fail horribly.  everyone else passes.

2. i have a wire connected to my right eye that goes down to my mouth, out of my ear, and into my stomach.  i walk around like this, and i can feel the wire at all times.  it’s very uncomfortable.  i’m not sure why i have it, maybe some medical reason?  it is filled with black stuff.

3. i’m on one of those old pirate ships, sailing through the sky instead of the sea.  everything is bright.  the air is clean and refreshing.  the sky is a bright blue.  it’s like a cartoon.  sea creatures are swimming by, touching clouds and going their own ways.  this was a good dream.

haven’t really had any that are worth it lately.  probably the stress from classes.

death and december

12/2/09.  i am in a chamber, like a prison, with four other people.  it is in the shape of a very very tall cylinder–like we are at the bottom of a well–except there is no opening at the top.  we are trapped, but there is a tunnel leading to another similar chamber.  this other chamber has an opening at the top but halfway up there are a bunch of bars and a locked door, continuing the prison motif.

the chamber begins to fill with water.  the other 3 people head into the next chamber and me and one other person stay, because there is a key at the top of our chamber that we think we can float up to, grab, and swim back down to the other room and unlock the door.  for some reason we need two people to do this.

me and this one other person wait until the water is at the top, then grab the key, take a deep breath, and dive down. there’s one problem: neither of us is very good at swimming and we need more air.  we can’t get it, the chamber has filled completely with water.  i am gasping for air and feel my lungs filling with water.  i see everyone else doing the same.  we are too late.  i feel myself slowly drowning.

i wake up panicked and out of breath.

12/10/09. i am back in high school, except it is not MY high school but a highschool archetype.  there are jocks, nerds, punks, preps, etc.  it’s like a badly written tv show for pre-teens.  i harbor superhuman abilities in secret.  when i get to school one day there are rumors of someone going missing.

days later another person goes missing.  then another.  then another.  there are rumors of a group of people kidnapping students and performing experiments on them.  me and my best friend “matt” (not anyone i know in real life) ignore the rumors for the most part, feigning interest when it comes up.

then one day matt disappears.  i decide i need to find out what’s up.  i track down some clues a la Scooby Doo, and i find out that there is a ranch out in the countryside on the outskirts of town that has mysterious sounds and flashing lights at night.

i go there one night and see a greenhouse with all these flashing lights and whirring noises, like a generator is inside.  i move in to get a closer look and there is a row of giant cocoons filled with the missing students lining the walls.  there are people walking around inside taking notes on the cocoons.  i somehow know that these people are aliens from another planet, harvesting the energy of humans they capture.  the students are all alive but in a weird sort of coma.

this whole dream plays out exactly like a television show.  there is a “to be continued” screen at the end when i see that Matt is in the latest cocoon and i make the decision to rescue everyone.

i wake up.

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this whole month i’ve been having dreams of dying.  they’ve mostly had to do with death via drowning.

here is what dream moods has to say about drowning:

“To dream that you are drowning, indicates that you are feeling overwhelmed by emotions or repressed issues that are coming back to haunt you. You may be proceeding too quickly in trying to discover your unconscious thoughts. You should proceed more cautiously and slowly. If you drown to death, then this refers to an emotional rebirth. If your survive the drowning, then a waking relationship or situation will ultimately survive the turmoil.

To see someone drowning in your dream, suggests that you are becoming too deeply involved in something that is beyond your control. Alternatively, it represents a sense of loss in your own identity. You are unable to differentiate who you are anymore.

To dream that you rescue someone from drowning, indicates that you have successfully acknowledged certain emotions and characteristics that is symbolized by the drowning victim.”

i’ve bolded the parts that make the most sense to me.  my recent ventures into the philosophies of mind, body, consciousness, and personal identity have brought up a lot of ideas in my head as to the nature of these things with regards to myself.  who am i?  who am “i”?  how can i reconcile my principals and morals when i know for a fact that had i been born somewhere else, or at some other time, they would be completely different and maybe even the exact opposite?  i’m having a hard time trying to answer these questions.

i feel as if maybe i have been trying to force myself into an emotional rebirth with these questions.  a reevaluation of my life is in store.  maybe my dreams of drowning are trying to tell me that i need to slow down and stop trying to force it, and just let it happen if it’s going to happen.

lately i have had this huge urge to rid myself of all material things. i feel like Rousseau was right when he said that we create these unnecessary “needs” in society that simply hinder our true strength of soul from showing.

if i can’t rid myself of all material links, which is pretty impractical given where i live and my status as a college student, i want to at least delete the “me” that exists on social networking profiles, websites, the internet in general.  i feel like these things provide mostly false connections between people.  instead of feeling more connected than ever, i feel less so.  am i the only one?

when i bring up this possibility of removing myself from the internet,  most peoples’ reactions are something like “but how will you get in contact with people?”

i can’t really answer that.  i feel like if someone wants to talk to me or know how i am doing they can just ask me.  call me.  write me a letter.  but i know in this age of web 2.0 that is too much to ask.  the human connection has been replaced with a comment, a tweet, a status, a blog entry (i see the irony, don’t worry).  but i can’t know what is going on in someone’s life by reading their facebook status.

the internet, for the most part, has always been about bragging about your social interactions.  this has only been amplified in the last few years, and it completely disgusts me on a fundamental level, and always has.  people lie.  people hide things about themselves.  practically none of it is real.  i am disgusted with it at this point more so than ever before.

anyway, that last part of the dream moods definition is interesting.  if i dream i rescue someone, it means i’ve successfully acknowledged certain emotions and characteristics symbolized by that person.  so what if my dreams are about how i have failed to save someone?  or even multiple someones?  i guess i could infer, from that dream moods definition, that my subconscious is telling me that i’m repressing emotions?  i don’t feel that this is true.  i think the other parts of the definition are much more relateable to my current situation.

well this was way longer than i thought it was going to be.  i’m going to try to give this blog a little more substance from now on.

catching up

few i’ve been saving:

- i was driving to las vegas when suddenly my car breaks down in the middle of the desert.  i’m stranded, hot, and my phone has no signal.  the ground opens up underneath me, swallows me and my car, and closes up as if nothing happened.  the world closes in around me and i’m suddenly back home, the whole drive was wasted.  in my dream i know this is what i am destined to do forever, my own sisyphean task.

- i have this feeling of infinity, in my dream i am not myself.  i am this Other Thing, and entity with no corporeal form.  i’m a mind without a body.  i wander the earth, exploring things and seeing things.  i can enter other peoples’ bodies and feel what they feel, see what they see.  it creeps me out though, and i don’t do it very often.  i live forever in this form, and i have limitless potential.

- alexander pope is reading to me, and it is torture.  for some reason every single one of his words rhymes with the last, and my brain can’t seem to handle it.  i’m writhing in pain and he just keeps reading.

on the screen, the city crumbled

dreams for the month of august

8/2/2009

i’m fighting against an evil force in wal-mart.  i’m a bear, a duck, a rabbit, a centipede, all at once and yet separate.  there’s a huge pillar of fire in the center of the store and i know that i need to douse it, but the water is gone, all of it.  earth is dry.  my thirst is unquenchable.  i feel every tiny tastebud on my tongue in impeccable detail.  the pillar of fire threatens to engulf me, us, everyone.  just when things look their worst, i wake up.

8/7/2009

i am having a nightmare but don’t know what it is.  i wake up.  when i get up to go to the restroom, i find that there is nothing, literally nothing, beyond my door.  i wake up again.  i look at the clock, it’s too early.  i go back to sleep, and i wake up again.  the clock is an hour behind what i saw before.  i get up and go to take a shower.  as i turn on the shower, i wake up again.  i’m still in bed.  i think by now i’ve false-awakened more than 3 times.  i’m worried that i’m still not awake.  i’m not.  i wake up again, with a paranoia that haunts me throughout the day.

8/8/2009

i’m megaman and i’m using my megablaster to destroy dr. wily once and for all.  that’s the whole dream.  it was a pretty epic scene.

8/13/2009

i have a nightmare that literally everything i do is automatically tweeted to my twitter and it leads to very embarassing events being tweeted.  i disconnect my internet and go out into the woods where there is no technology but in my dream i somehow switch views and see someone else looking at my twitter saying “hmm i wonder why caleb went into the woods where there is no technology.  also, he tripped on a rock?  haha.”  for some reason everyone i’ve ever met is following my twitter and they can all see my updates.  it is The Worst.

8/23/2009

i’m HELLBOY.  this was the coolest dream ever.  i was Hellboy and i shot zombies, excorcised things, etc.  i remember fighting a wendigo with my bare hands and crushing his leg with the Right Hand of Doom.  man that dream seriously owned.

8/30/2009

i’m a planet.  a giant planet orbiting a white star.  the star collapses and i’m sucked into the black hole that appears.  i come out the other end, reincarnated as a buffalo.  somehow i know that i’ve been reincarnated, and i’m okay with it.  buffalo aren’t so bad.  i realize that all of us are just reincarnated over and over, and planets and stars are living things too, and when planets die they simply come back as something else.  other souls are born into planets and stars.  stars are lucky, though.  when they die they get to come back as whatever they want.  you can only come back as a star if you’ve been alive a very, very long time though.  reincarnated countless times.  i know all this in my dream.

i woke up thirsty the day i died

7/30/2009
i was surfing with a friend when all of a sudden we find that we’ve gone out too far into the ocean. the sky is being suffocated by storm clouds. the water is starting to get really rough. i hear a whale’s cry and realize that me and my friend are stuck on our boards in the middle of a bunch of whales. they’re moving all around us and i know that if we get hit by one we’re basically dead. it’s terrifying. it starts to rain and the rough waves knock us off our boards. we’re helpless and flailing, unable to control which direction we’re swimming in because of the wake created by the hundreds of whales swimming around us. we’re screaming for each other, but we’re separated. i wake up soon after.

later that night:
i’m in a small downtown area. none of the buildings are more than 2 stories tall. a girl is dressed like a witch and in the middle of the road. she claims to be able to fly.
my friend (different than the last dream) is there. he says she is just going to fake it somehow.
she sits on her broom, and somehow she is flying up…but slowly. sam says she’s got her broom hooked up to a string. i see it there but the crowd that has drawn there doesn’t.
the girl is giggling wildly about fooling all these people, but suddenly the mechanism on her broom that is propelling her up the string it’s connected to fails. she slips and is suddenly hanging high in the air from her broom by both hands.
my friend runs up to the top of the nearest building. the girl is crying now, she can’t hang on for much longer. she falls. my friend gets to the top of the building just in time, lunges, and catches her moments before she hits the rooftop.

there was another but i accidently closed the word document i had with it. maybe i’ll remember it later.

fight city, fight fight city

6/24/2009

i was in some huge prison facility with a bunch of other people my age.  we were all there for some weird reason we couldn’t explain.  the prison facility was huge and complicated and we couldn’t leave this one part of it, ever.  then suddenly me and this one other person make a run for it.  we are oing to get the warden’s most valued possession: the most beautiful bird in the world, a blue parrot-type of thing.  as me and this other person go to the secret vault, we’re presented with a series of weird locks when we get there.  voice activation, cranks, etc.  we’re panicking because we hear her humming along with the bird, walking toward the vault.  we get to the last one but it’s a number code and we don’t know what it is so we run.  it doesn’t matter anyyway, she has the bird with her.   she finds my friend hiding under some stairs but the room is nothing but stairs, like that mc escher painting.  she puts down the bird to go after my friend and i sneak up behind it and grab it.   i tell her to let him go, or i’ll kill the bird.  she starts running toward me, grabbing a sledge hammer on the way.  she raises it over her head, and i crack the bird’s neck.  mid-swing, the hammer is right above her head, and she drops it from shock.  the hammer lands on her skull and shatters it.  she dies.  we’re free.

6/24/2009

another dream was it was thanksgiving and i was in the valley.  my family was popping fireworks but we weren’t supposed to be.  the fireworks suck anyway theyre all small.  i get pissed.  suddenly a cat walks by holding one in it’s paws and it’s one of those that explodes.  i run to it, grab the firework and throw it before it can get hurt.  at that point my family is laughing and shit and i’m like fuck you all and i walk into the house.  a few seconds later the police are there outside and everyone gets in trouble but me.  my mom confronts me about it later and i’m like “told you so.”

grasping w/ talons

whooopsssssss here are some i’ve been saving

6/30/2009

it’s raining outside.  the rain is going the wrong way.  up instead of down.  i think of a name for this upside-down rain: uıɐɹ.  i don’t remember how i pronounce it but it works.

7/2/2009

i’m holding a lighter to my face.  in my dream i feel the heat burning and it hurts a lot.  someone stops me and says “that doesn’t work anymore.  they fixed that.” and i’m like “oh.” and i stop.  when i wake up i remember how the burning felt.  it sucked.

7/6/2009

i’m on another planet.  i arrive by means of hurtling through space for an indeterminate amount of time and crashing face-first into a lake.  i leave a crater where the lake used to be.  i slowly crawl out of the crater and look up into the sky to see a million little lights slowly falling down.  smoldering pieces of earth from where i landed.  my bad, planet.

7/19/2009

i’m the CEO of a multi-billion shark operation.  i have so many sharks i don’t know what to do with them.  shark stock rockets.  i’ve got sharks coming out of my ears, i’m so sharkrich.  suddenly i’m a fucking shark.  swimming through the deepest blackest part of the ocean.  oh this isn’t the ocean this is space.  and i’m not swimming i’m just floating and flailing trying my hardest to get momentum in this zero-g environment.  i’m going no where and i know in my head that sharks die when if stop moving (but apparently needing water is not as bad as not moving).  my shark brain is thinking that this is the end.  then suddenly, it is.

i hear the electronic buzz of a tv turning on and then i wake up.

wwwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllpppppppppppppppppp

this have been a blur lately.  i forgot about this thing a little.  anyway.

6/23/2009

dreamt my teeth fell out

it’s easy to sleep when it wets my brain

5/31/2009

i’ve been having really unsettling nightmares lately.  namely, nightmares that have to do with me dying.  except, instead of waking up when i die in the dream, i enter this kind of ghost-state where i have to watch as one or more of my friends/family discovers my dead body.  the dream keeps going, sometimes spanning weeks or even years.

for example, i recently had a dream where i died in a car accident.  after dying, the dream skipped to my parents identifying my body.  then it skips to them crying and mourning.  then it shows all my friends, sometimes individually or sometimes in a group, and i have to see their reactions to my death.  then it skips to my funeral and i’m there, watching everyone who attends, being surprised at some of the people who attend and who doesn’t, etc.

then, sometimes it’ll skip years ahead and i’ll see people who keep remembering me for some reason.  like maybe they look at old facebook pictures and i’m there, and suddenly all the memories of me come flooding back to them.  or they’ll listen to a song by a band they know i loved and be reminded of me.  and i see their regrets and their sadness and i feel it too.  and then there’s some people who can’t even remember what my voice sounded like or what i looked like without aid of a picture.  eventually, they stop hurting.  they don’t remember well enough for it to hurt anymore.  but in these dreams i feel terrible the whole time.

these are all really shitty dreams and i’m not sure what the fuck is going on with my brain.