Dream Journal vol. 3

You know what's more boring than vacation photos? Someone telling you about their dreams. Luckily, my blog has both of these features. I figure it must be like a double-negative making a positive because my blog is the most interesting blog ever.
Nothing new from the past couple of days: I've just been hella-stressed trying to tie up all the loose ends before I leave in a couple of weeks and still enjoy myself. Did you know that I have to write 3 essays over Christmas break? Gag me. One of them is going to be about Great Expectations. I'm expecting it to be greatly boring.
I also have a test in Old English next Wednesday. I just finished cramming some of the grammar and I'm feeling a little bit more confident. I'm at least confident that I'm not a dumbass, because, in cramming I've realized that one of my main stumbling blocks was the sheer amount of grammatical cases we have to memorize. How am I supposed to remember the 16 different case-types the word "they" can take? It's ridiculous!
It's all studying from now on, though. I've just finished translating The Dream of the Rood, an Old English poem about a guy who dreams Jesus' cross comes flying into his room and talks to him. The cross tells him how horrible it was to be the cross that Christ was killed on and how sad it made him. At no point does the dreamer question the authenticity of the flying, talking, sentient, 1000-year-old cross. I guess if you're willing to accept such a thing's existence, it's not a stretch to believe what it has to tell you (especially if what it has to tell you is the same old boring crucifixion story: "They nailed Jesus to me and I was sad! Wah!" - you're a cross!)

My dreams over the last month haven't been about flying religious curios. Than what? Read on...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I dreamed I was traveling with the cast of Futurama in a black, death-metal mini-bus from Africa to a famine-ravaged Poland. We had been told to leave Africa, where the hyenas were plentiful - a common source of food - by a deceitful, giant snake. At least the leader of our crew somehow obtained one of the snake's serrated fangs. While I was showing it to the crew members at the back of the mini-bus I put it in my mouth and sucked on it, forgetting that it was venomous. Upon remembering this, I spit it onto the row of seats in front of me and determinedly fought off sleep and inevitable death.

The bus wound up at the entrance of my private high school, running over a sign advertising the Eminem concert set to take place that night. Because of this violation, Irish cops in yellow reflective jumpers stopped our bus and we couldn't go any further.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I dreamed I was a regular at a gambling parlor with Max Bussman. I didn't have the requisite entrance fee so Max spotted me enough pounds to get in, but I had to hold the pile of clothes he was carrying while he did so and I lost one of his socks.
I told him he could have one of mine once we made our way up to his bedroom and I'd scattered the pile of clothes on the floor. I convinced him my socks were clean, but it took some time.

Later, I was using the bathroom in his house when his mom came home to give a piano lesson. I held the curtain over the window that was unfortunately set at eye-level to those sitting on the toilet, giving a direct view out into the driveway. While I was attempting some modesty, his dad came through the hallway where the door was open and noticed his Buddy Holly Greatest Hits CD at my feet and he asked me if I owned it. I told him that no, I had a different greatest hits collection.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Last night in the Dublin hostel I dreamed that the hostel owners took our bags from our room while they were serving us breakfast and there was nothing we could do about it. I also dreamed that I, or a friend, had a flying machine that manuevered the swampy green fields right outside the hostel window.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I dreamed I woke up in a Washington, DC apartment I was temporarily staying in with Raphaela and a different friend while some sort of festival was in full swing. On adjacent buildings and all through the street people were committing all sorts of naked Mardi Gras-style debauchery. The apartment was even full of people no one knew, most of them drugged up on the floor or patiently sitting on the couch. None of them remembered how they got in.

My friend was gone and all that remained familiar was Raphaela's hungry pet ferret that I finally cornered in a room for it's own safety. I blocked the door with boxes so it couldn't get out. Ferrets can't climb.

I left the people in the apartment and walked down the street wearing a nice sport coat and hoping I'd run into Bill Clinton. After I struck a leisurely pose on a concrete city planter, Bill came by and welcomed me to join him and Hilary in the Capital building. We were on a first name basis.

They had me wait in a little kitchen filled with terrible, rowdy kids and an overwrought babysitter. I tried to give her advice - "Don't back down; stay consistent" - but it didn't help anything. The kids were so out of control I barely constrained myself from slapping on of them or boxing their ears, despite their age. Finally Hilary came to collect me and gave me a VIP All-Access badge to the Capital building: a white heart sticker with cherries inside of it. We then left together to have lunch in George Washington's old office, which had been kept just as he left it. Marveling at the room, Hilary and I ran our hands over all the first president's possessions, especially his lovely mahogany desk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I dreamed my mom read my dad an article in the newspaper about Chinese overpopulation and expressed the view that this made her scared I would become the next Charles Manson. I told her that assumption offended me, but I couldn't make her understand why. I said, "As long as I grow up right, I'll be fine."
My dad's solution to growing up right: "Wheat. Oats. Cookies."

~~~~~

Ok Junior Freuds out there: what does it all mean?