Dream: Job Hunting

Last night I dreamed I was filling out an online application for a job. The form asked a lot of odd questions you wouldn't normally see on an an application, such as, "Have you ever ridden a giraffe?" But some of the questions were instructions, like a scavenger hunt. For example, at one point it asked me to drive to the grocery store and buy a gallon of milk, then come back home and go to the next question.

I got the job, which involved explaining to ghosts that they were dead. They gave me a deck of cards with words like YES and NO as well as a bunch of common nouns and verbs. I would spread the cards out on the table and the ghosts would point to them, since they couldn't talk. My first ghost client looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger. He'd died a few days earlier, but had been wandering around the house and going about his normal routine, unaware he'd died.

I know that social services aspect sounds a lot like Beetlejuice, but the vibe was more bureaucratic, like Dead Like Me. There was nothing Tim Burtony about the dream. I sat down with Arnold and started talking to him, unsure exactly how to break it to him. Then I started choking on a piece of gum and woke up.

Anyway, I'm probably just nervous because I have a job interview Monday morning. Wish me luck.

Nightmares

I had bad dreams all night. KJ was in all of them. In some she was alive, and we interacted and did fun things, but there was a weird vibe in the air, like everything we were doing was Not Meant To Be. In some of the other dreams, I knew she had recently passed away, but I couldn't reach her.

For example, in one dream she went on an overnight trip to a casino, and I knew which one, and somehow I knew she had passed away in her hotel room. I think she actually called me and told me. So I drove the two hours to wherever the casino was, but the hotel staff wouldn't believe me, wouldn't let me in her room, and wouldn't send anyone into the room to check on her.

In another dream we were just sitting in a park, talking. I don't remember the conversation, but it was definitely a sad one. It was like she knew she had to leave, and was saying goodbye. I'm tearing up as I type this, so I'm going to stop now.

Dream: Space 'n' Vader

Last night I dreamed that I got a new job, working as a valet on the Death Star. I'm not exactly sure how one drives to the Death Star, but hey, I just park the cars, I don't ask questions. A couple of Autobots (specifically Springer and Kup from the 80's movie) worked in the parking garage, repairing cars. Sometimes they would convert people's ordinary cars into Transformers while they were parked.

While I was working, an ambassador came to visit. She was an evil witch queen, and she actually went by the name "Evil Witch Queen." She wore a red dress and her face was painted white, like an evil version of Queen Amidala. She floated through the halls with little crackles of electricity sparking around her, and she gave orders to the Stormtroopers like she was their boss. But the Stormtroopers just stood around looking confused, unsure if they should follow her orders.

At one point she went too far with her demands, and Darth Vader came out to see what was causing the commotion. Vader was in his normal outfit, but also wearing bunny slippers and carrying a coffee mug and a newspaper, like he'd just woken up. Barely giving the Evil Witch Queen more than a thought, he pointed at her and used the Force to slam her into the walls a few times, then turned around and left.

Looking a bit like Loki after his run-in with the Hulk, the Evil Witch Queen groaned and asked for her car keys. I handed them back, worried about what she'd do when she found out her car was now a Transformer. That's all I remember.

Dream: The Bed

I dreamed I saw a movie that was a bit like Misery with touches of Gerald’s Game. The main character spent most of the story tied to a bed. His kidnapper was a woman, and she spent the movie taking care of him, feeding him, and so on. The woman was really bubbly and doting, and talked to him as if he was there by choice. (Despite the theme, it was not a sex dream.)

The woman kept him docile by drugging him, and the drugs gave him hallucinations. He kept seeing the woman as different women he’d known throughout his life. Different actresses played the woman every few minutes, but they all had the same mannerisms and crazed personality, since their appearance was just a hallucination.

The man believed that he was being punished for something, so the movie kept showing flashbacks, memories of women he'd wronged. Each time the woman had a new face, he'd remember the worst thing he'd ever done to that woman.

In the end, the hallucinations wore off, and he saw the woman for who she really was. She was a stranger to him. He'd seen her a couple of times in a crowd, but he'd never interacted with her. The woman, however, was obsessed with him, and had been stalking him for a while.

He did manage to escape in the end.

Dreams: Robocop 4

I dreamed they had just released Robocop 4 in the theaters. (Is there already a Robocop 4? I have no idea.) R4 had a different tone than the rest of the series. His partner this time was played by Sarah Michelle Gellar (my wife and I are currently rewatching Buffy), and it had a comedic "buddy cop" feel like the Lethal Weapon movies.

However, Dan O'Herlihy, who played the CEO in the original Robocop, was angry that he hadn't been cast in R4. (Note, in real life, this actor died in 2005.) O'Herlihy started killing off the rest of the cast.

I was Gellar in the dream, though I was probably closer to Buffy, and I was investigating the murders. I explored a movie theater where Robocop 4 was playing. The theater complex had a river running through it, and customers had to take gondolas to reach the different theaters. 

O'Herlihy, which is difficult to type, fled the scene of the crime in a gondola. He had the rest of the board members from Robocop in a gondola with him. I tried to follow by walking in the waist-deep water, but then he poured something in the water that made it acidic. So I had to climb up to a short ledge that lined the flooded hallways.

I still managed to keep up for a while, but there were gaps in the ledge which slowed me down. Then one of the board members (played by Ralph Bellamy in the dream, though he wasn't in Robocop IRL) betrayed O'Herlihy and somehow helped me get a boat of my own. The details get a little blurry at that point, but Bellamy and I did manage to capture O'Herlihy and bring him to justice.

Dream: McDonaldism

I dreamed that, in order to prevent the spread of anti-capitalism, McDonald's started sending philosophers to college campuses. They indoctrinated students into something called "McDonaldism." You could tell the converts because they wore bright red and yellow outfits.

Dream: Robin Williams D&D

I'm blogging less lately because I'm working on a novel, which takes up most of my writing energy. But last night's dream was a doozy, so I wanted to jot it down. It was somewhat inspired by the Time Traveler's wife. If you haven't seen the HBO series, you really should. It's much better than the theatrical version, and I'm sorry to hear they canceled it before the second season. I really hope it gets saved by a letter writing campaign or something, just so they can wrap up the story.

In the dream, Robin Williams was in my D&D group. He had already passed away in the dream, but apparently he had been able to time travel when he was alive. Unlike the Time Traveler's wife, he could control when and where he went, though he couldn't change world events. When he got his diagnosis, he wanted to see how our campaign ended before his disease got worse. So he jumped into the future a bunch times, and played through the rest of the sessions as a marathon.

Based on some things he said in our gaming sessions, I also suspect he had jumped far enough in into the future to see all the crap coming up - COVID, Trump, etc - and didn't want to have to live through all of that.

From our point of view, he was in our group, he died, we mourned, and then he just kept showing up to sessions. We asked him questions, but he refused to answer very many of them. But he did make the DM promise not to artificially extend the campaign just to get more sessions with Williams. At the end of one session, the DM announced that all we had left to do was fight the final boss, so the next session would probably be our last.

When the day of the final session arrived, my car wouldn't start, and I didn't want to miss our final day playing with Williams. So naturally, I borrowed my neighbor's riding lawnmower and drove it to the game. We were playing at some sort of rec center. We knew it was going to be the last time we saw Williams, so the players had brought cake and put up some party decorations. When we heard that Williams had arrived, we all went out to the parking lot to greet him.

He showed up wearing a sequined outfit that would have made Elton John look drab. For some reason, Lady Gaga was with him (I don't think she was in our D&D group). She was dressed to match. They performed a musical number together right there in the parking lot. Unfortunately I woke up halfway through the song.

Dream: Gators and Beholders

Sometimes my dreams have a semi-lucid, fourth wall quality to them. I'll feel like I'm acting out the dream as if I'm making a movie, and all the characters are just actors. This means that I know I can't really be harmed, so I'm not scared no matter how intense things get. On some level I know every monster is just a guy in a suit, like the ending of Altered Beast.

Last night I was in a swamp, holding an alligator on a leash. The dream's "script" said that the gator was supposed to help me, to lead me to some bad guys like a police dog. But the gator kept biting me instead. Gator's gonna gate, I guess. The bites didn't hurt; it felt like he had Nerf teeth. But it was still annoying, and I kept yelling "No!" at it.

Then the gator ran off, and attacked a small child. It didn't hurt the kid either, but I still had to stop it. I jumped on the gator's head (oddly enough, I had played a bit of "Pitfall!" last night before bed) and it released the child. But then I was so angry that I started pounding on the gator like Ralphie fighting the bully in "A Christmas Story". 

That woke me up, but I fell right back asleep. 

The next dream had sort of a "Snakes on a Plane" plot, but the tone felt more like Alien. I was on a cruise ship, and a bunch of Beholders were loose, attacking the passengers. (If you're not a D&D player, a Beholder looks like a floating head with a single large eye, a gaping mouth, and a bunch of smaller eye stalks that can fire different kinds of magical beams).

But these weren't your typical D&D Beholders. One looked like a giant hand, with eyes on the end of each finger. Another looked like a beach ball, with smaller beach balls on its eye stalks. It could fire more beach balls out of its eyes, which would bounce around before exploding. That scene had a "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" vibe to it, with circus music in the background.

Another Beholder looked 8-bit, reminding me of the movie Pixels. It could summon Atari characters to fight for it, like the helicopter from Chopper Command. (Okay, I played more than just Pitfall last night). The helicopter attacked not by firing weapons, but by landing on groups of passengers. Another Beholder had a very human-looking face, giving it an uncanny valley appearance.

I didn't actually see any of these monsters defeated. I mostly spent the dream running around from room to room, running into different Beholders and watching them attack groups of passengers. The dream still had a movie quality to it - I never really felt like I was in danger, I just ran because it was "in the script". 

Even with all that going on, I still had time to stop and casually visit the ship's gift shop. 

Dreams: Darkness and Free Guy

Nothing big here, but last night I had a dream that was dialogue only.  I can't remember ever having a dream like that.  All I remember is that I was driving a car, and having a conversation with the passenger.  But the dream had no "video" whatsoever.  It wasn't like I was driving at night, it was just a pitch black dream.  The characters in the dream seemed to be able to see just fine; I never acted like I couldn't see where I was driving.  

I think I know what caused it - It was early morning, and I had already woken up once because of the light coming around the sides of the window shade.  I fell back asleep telling myself to keep my eyes shut, so I think that somehow triggered the dark dream.  Anyway, I thought it was interesting.

A few nights ago I dreamed I went to see "Free Guy", except the plot was different.  It took place in the real world, and Ryan Reynolds played a gamer who discovered cheat codes that work in real life.  For example, at one point he was at the ATM, but his account balance was only about $10.  Then he pushed some bricks in a specific pattern on the wall behind the ATM, and suddenly he had another $1000 in his account.

Dream: McDonald's Invaders

A quick and simple one.  Last night I dreamed that instead of those ordering screens in the lobby, McDonalds had video game machines that also let you order food.  You would play a level of a 3D Space Invaders style game, but with flying food instead of aliens.  You would attempt to only shoot the items you wanted to order.  If you successfully got through the level unscathed, you could submit the order and get 10% off the ticket.

This kept the line down at the counter, since most people wanted to play the game and get the discount.  Unfortunately, the line to the video game machines was pretty long, so people who were in a hurry still ordered at the counter.

Also, I slept in a barn, and discovered kittens under my bed.  Oh, and I went grocery shopping with Disney's animated Hercules.  But I don't remember much about that.

Dream: The Soulless

Some dreams are so good that I dream them more than once, with some variations.  Last night I went to see a Disney/Pixar movie that I had already seen in a previous dream.

It was basically a kid-safe zombie movie, though it was still very scary.  People were being turned into what they called "The Soulless" - bald, pale-skinned, mindless zombies who reminded me of the Darkseekers in 2007's "I Am Legend".  

The Soulless didn't eat people, they just grabbed them and turned them into more Soulless.  The Soulless were afraid of the light.  I don't think it actually damaged them, just caused them pain.  Or maybe light was just too bright, since they could see in the dark.  They would wander around aimlessly in the dark, until they detected a human, then they would converge on them.  

I say the movie was kid-friendly because it was animated, bloodless, and because nobody gets killed.  It ended with someone finding a cure, and everyone changing back to normal.  That said, it was still a very frightening movie due to how it was directed.  Plenty of suspense, lots of jump scares.  The animation reminded me of Onward or Frozen - CGI, and everyone has big, friendly eyes.  Even the Soulless were a little reminiscent of Casper, which dulled some of the scariness.

The theater I saw it in was interesting.  First off, it was absolutely freaking huge, like the kind of auditorium where you'd see a rock concert, with a monstrous IMAX-style screen.  Secondly, while the seating section closest to the screen was fairly standard, the back rows were on an incredibly steep incline, so that it was practically a vertical wall of seats.  No danger of anyone's head being in your way, ever.  

Oh, and the seats were extra wide, like loveseats.  Some people even brought blankets so they could stretch out and relax.  I'll tell you, I'd even be willing to watch Wayne's World 2 again if it was at a theater like this.

Anyway, dreams being what they are, sometimes I was in the movie, and other times I was just watching it.  Or a little of both - I was in the theater watching the movie, but the Soulless were attacking the theater itself.  I didn't get to see much of the movie itself this time, so I'm glad I'd already seen it in a previous dream.

Dream Journal 10/19/2020

Screw it, I don't post enough blogs as it is.  I might as well use it as a dream journal as well.

Scot Adams, creator of Dilbert, has often said that there's nothing less interesting than listening to someone's dream.  But he's also a Trump supporter, so what does he know.  I can promise you this, that some of the dreams I post here will be boring.  But writing is a muscle, and I need to do it more often, even if I don't have a proper subject.  If you don't like them, skip those blog entries.

Last night I dreamed that I revisited my childhood home.  I still have lots of dreams where I live there, but this was different.  In this dream, I was the same age I am now, living where I do now.  But I found out that my parents' old house was now abandoned, and had been willed to me.

I arrived at the house, and everything was dark.  From the outside it looked pretty normal, except that all the windows had been boarded up.  But when I went inside, it looked much older.  Inside the house, everything was made of unfinished wood, like an old barn.  The floorboards weren't even tightly fitted, and you could see through some of the slats.  But other than that, the downstairs still had the same floorplan as the actual house.

But then I went upstairs.  The second floor was impossibly big.  It had the layout of a shopping mall - one huge hallway, and lots of store-sized side rooms.  But it was still completely wood.  I was there with a group of people I don't know in real life, and we all had camping gear, preparing to stay overnight.

An old woman approached us, and she told us she'd been living there for decades.  She said she was over 100 years old, and she was glad to finally have some guests.  I think she was based on Mother Abigail from Stephen King's "The Stand".  She said I could have ownership of the property, as long as I allowed her to continue to live there as well.  

Another odd thing, while most of the mall level was wood, there was one exception.  We discovered that there was one actual store in the otherwise empty mall.  It had a normal looking store front, made of plexiglass and neon.  It appeared to be a video/music store like FYE or Media Play.  The logo looked like Blockbuster Video's, but had a different name where the logo would be.  It looked so out of place, all lit up and modern, surrounded by old wood.

The old woman told us that was where she kept her record collection.  And that's all I remember.

COVID Dreams

I haven't had a lot of dreams that take place in the current pandemic.  I think one time dreamed that I went to the mall and realized I'd forgotten my mask.  It was very similar to a "in public in your underwear" kind of dream.  But other than that, I don't remember any dreams directly referencing COVID-19.

But I have been having more zombie dreams than usual.  Now, my zombie dreams usually aren't particularly scary, because they tend to trigger lucid dreaming for me.  I think that the existence of zombies breaks my suspension of disbelief just enough to where I know it isn't really happening.

When I have lucid dreams, I don't walk around saying, "This is my dream, I can do whatever I want" a la Nightmare on Elm Street 3.  It's more like I see myself in two places at once - the dream participant, and the writer narrating the story.  So if a zombie bites me, I'm like, "No, let's not have it happen that way, rewind and dodge this time."

I want to say that more of my dreams have been taking place indoors lately, but I think I've always had mostly had indoor dreams.  I really can't think of a lot of dreams that took place outdoors.  But lately, when I look out the window in my dreams, it looks like a nuclear winter.  It might be a warm day, but either snow or ash is falling from the sky, and the sky itself is an odd color.  Also, the streets are usually empty, unless it's a zombie dream.

I never live in the house I currently live in.  In fact, I don't remember ever dreaming about this house.  Sometimes I live in a shopping mall.  Last night I had one such dream.  My "home" was a converted movie theater inside a mall.  The lobby was our living room, and each of the theaters had its own purpose.  We had a lot of guests over, all sleeping in one of the theaters, where we had put a bunch of beds.  The guests were all people I knew from high school, most of whom I don't really like any more, but I kept my tongue and remained polite.  

I don't really have a point here, I just thought it was interesting.  I wonder how long the pandemic would have to continue before my subconscious mind recognizes it as the new normal.  

Another Dream

Last night I dreamed I was at a movie theater, which was in the same building as an aquatic research lab.  Sir Patrick Stewart was in the theater, sitting in a wheeled office chair he had stolen from the theater's manager.  As long as he was sitting in the chair, he was allowed to go theater hopping, which he did gleefully.  So as soon as one movie ended, he would roll the office chair to another theater, pushing himself backwards and looking pretty silly.  He offered to sneak me into some movies.

I saw two movies.  The first was a new MCU Spider-Man movie.  I don't remember much, except that the Green Goblin was the main villain.  The future of MCU Spidey was in question, so they killed off Peter Parker in a vague way.  At the end of the movie, after Spidey defeated Goblin, a cleanup crew starting picking up debris.  Spidey saw a sanitation worker in the distance, picking up one of Goblin's discarded bombs.

A light on the bomb started flashing repeatedly, but the worker just stared at it, confused.  Spidey shot a web to pull the bomb out of the worker's hand, bringing it to himself.  But he didn't have time to throw it before it exploded, and Spidey was apparently disintegrated by the explosion.  It ended with everyone looking on in horror.  

But then there was a post credits scene, where somebody was analyzing a video of the explosion.  Slowing it down frame by frame, they saw Spidey disappear right before the explosion engulfed him, like he was being pulled into another dimension.  This set up all sorts of possibilities for whichever studio made the next Spider-Man movie.  Maybe it would be a live action Spider-Verse film, or maybe Miles Morales and/or Gwen Stacey would take over the mantle in this universe. 

After that movie ended, I watched a new Hotel Transylvania sequel.  I wasn't really interested, but hey, it was free.  This one focused on the child (Dracula's grandson).  He was a couple of years older now, and being bullied for being the only monster in a human elementary school.  

I didn't get to see much of it because my cat Kara was there.  She kept sneaking in to the aqua lab next door, and bringing me exotic fish.  I kept having to get up, sneak into the lab myself, and throw the fish back into the tank.  I wanted to complain to the marine biologists about not having proper security, but I couldn't tell anyone without getting myself in trouble.  Finally Kara brought me a cyclopian-eyed goblin shark, and it was so disturbing looking that I woke up.

Another Video Game Dream

I had another video game dream last night.  Okay, I dream about video games a lot, but they’re usually either based on real games, or just generic zombie games. 

The game I dreamed about last night was like a cross between Final Fight and Tapper.  The game was probably inspired by the recently released “River City Girls” game, because the main characters were teenage girls in school uniforms.  Like most of my video game dreams, my point of view would switch back and forth, from being a character in the game, to playing the game on a TV with a controller.

In this game, you walk through the streets, getting in fist fights with gang members.  So far, that describes half the games Capcom made in the 90s.  However, you’re also pushing a food cart.  It’s about the size of a hot dog cart, but full of cupcakes.  Your character parks the cart by the sidewalk, and customers start lining up.  You have to serve each customer, occasionally putting cakes in the cart’s little built-in oven.

Meanwhile, gang members walk up and start harassing your customers, so you have to beat them up (the gang members, not the customers).  If you ignore the gang members, they harass and scare off the customers.  But if you spend too much time beating up the gang members, your customers starting leaving because they had to wait too long.  If you forget to put more cakes in the oven now and then, you run out of cakes and more customers leave.  If the oven timer goes off, you only have a certain amount of time to get the cupcakes out of the oven before they burn.

Like any Final Fight style game, once you beat up a certain number of gang members (or in this case maybe sell a certain number of cakes), an arrow flashes “GO” for a few seconds, your character pushes the cart down the street to the next stopping point, and the whole process starts over.  When I played with two players, there was still only one cart, but there were twice as many customers and gang members.  But I think there was also a competitive mode where you each had your own cart.

Some customers would stand at the cart for a few seconds making up their mind.  I don’t remember the exact “serving” controls, but I think it was pretty simple.  Just make sure you’re standing at the counter when a customer is ready to order, and press a button to serve them.  The serving and paying animations took a couple of seconds, so you really had to manage your time between serving, fighting, and baking.

I also vaguely remember a bonus level that involved decorating the cakes, which reminded me a little of Overcooked.

Video Game Dream

Last night I dreamed I was playing a video game.  The graphics reminded me of “No More Heroes”, and the gameplay consisted of a variety of mini-games with different controls and rules.  The overall theme was very Japanese, the kind of game that rarely gets exported to the states.  I don’t remember the title.

At the beginning of the game, your best friend is murdered by the CEO of a major corporation.  The opening has your character visiting your friend’s grave, then performing some sort of mystic ritual to guarantee the friend gets his revenge.  Then, believing yourself to be the instrument of your friend’s revenge, you enter the CEO’s downtown skyscraper and try to make your way to the top.  Your intention is to confront the CEO and challenge him to a duel.

Your character is tall and thin, wears a business suit, and carries a sword.  However, you never use the sword until the very end of the game.  The building has 100 floors.  You have to complete one encounter on each floor.  After each encounter, your character runs up a flight of stairs to the next floor.  Apparently there are no elevators, or maybe they require keycards. 

Your character doesn’t want to hurt anyone but the CEO, so the encounters don’t involve combat.  Instead, each floor is its own minigame, with a bizarre and eclectic mix of puzzles and stealth.  On one level, you might avoid employees by hiding behind potted plants and support columns.  On another, you might have to talk your way past a security guard by picking the right dialogue choices, or by doing a short fetch quest for them.  Some of the levels were really bizarre, like having you compete in a Parappa-style rap battle with a security guard. 

It was one of those games where weird things happen for weird reasons, like “Feel the Magic: XX/XY” or “Incredible Crisis”.  Some of the mini-games would repeat themselves, with harder versions occurring at higher floors.  You never had to go back down a floor; everything you need to complete a floor was found on the floor itself.

When you finally reach level 100, the CEO accepts your challenge and you fight.  It doesn’t control like a fighting game, instead being more of a drawn out quicktime event.  However, it is impossible to win regardless of how well you perform.  If you do poorly, he kills you.  If you gain the advantage, he cheats by having a henchman grab you, and then he kills you.

You are buried next to your best friend.  The ending shows the CEO standing over your grave, making a villain speech about how he always wins.  Then, thanks to the ritual you performed at the beginning of the game, your friend’s animated corpse bursts out of his grave and drags the CEO underground.  So you were the instrument of revenge after all – your death was the only reason the CEO ended up standing so close to your friend’s grave.