Dreams

[Asila]

6/22/04

I had an interesting dream a couple of nights ago. I'm writing it down now so that I won't forget. This was one of those dreams where I'm not the main character. At the beginning of the dream I'm observing, but by the end I had become the character I was watching.

There were two people in this dream. One was a young man who shape-shifted into Bambi (don't ask. Disney World is rubbing off on me.) The other was an angel by the name of Dynasty. (Cool name, isn't it? I can't believe I came up with it in my sleep.)

When the dream starts, I'm sitting in the outskirts of a picturesque forest clearing watching Bambi frolic with his forest friends. Beside me, the angel Dynasty says quietly, and more to himself than anything, "Isn't he beautiful?"

Sorry, I can't remember the next bit clearly, but I do remember this. The angel knew that Bambi was actually a human and he was in love with him. (If you're a homophobe, I apologize. Not.) Anyway, Bambi, whose name is non-existent while in his human form, has a problem of some sort. ((this is speculation, but I think he might have been cursed, like the six swans in the Grimm faerie tale)) Dynasty helps him solve it. But the young man knows that Dynasty loves him and he becomes edgy.

Either way, when Dynasty helps him and disappears into a lake (which was as beautiful and surreal as the forest itself), Alec, as I am going to name the young man, presses his lips to the surface of the rippling water where the angel had disappeared and says, "I thank you, the angel Dynasty, for helping me." He had begun to regret letting the angel go.

As soon as these words were spoken, Dynasty swarms out of the lake and embraces Alec. Alec, startled, struggles out of his grasp. This mildly upsets Dynasty, but he let's Alec go and allows him to escape to his room.(My dream shifted settings here.) A couple of hours later, Alec edges out of his room to get something. When he sees Dynasty watching him from a bench just outside, he sighs, surrendering to his desire to be with the angel instead of continuing to fight it.

And that was the moment in which I ceased becoming the mere observer and actually became Alec. So for the last few moments of the dream, I was the one interacting with Dynasty even though my form was no longer my own.

Dynasty smiled at me as I sat down beside him and puts his arm around me. "It's all right," He says as though he can read my mind and recognize my doubts. But he gladly accepts the sign of affection, however reserved.

The dream begins to warp after this, making less and less sense until my sister wakes up. So that is all there is to tell.

[Seven]

And then they had wild angel-beastilaty sex.

Just kidding.

I sounded like such a pretty dream though! Especially the part where Dynasty becomes part of the lake and Alec has to go apologize!

[Asila]

*grins* You know, I thought you would like it. I has a fairy tale feel to it.

And I'm glad you caught the tone of the lake scene. I was having trouble explaining it since I couldn't remember that part of the dream as clearly. I hate how hazy dreams can be. Especially the long ones.

[Asila]

I'm bringing my dream thread back. Because if the overwhelming amount of stress I've been struggling with lately has begun to twist my thoughts and perceptions while I'm awake, it's doing even stranger things with my subconscious. It's especially interesting and telling since these three linked dreams all occurred after my falling out with Jamie took place this past summer.

I would like to say that my dreams try very hard to be nightmares. They usually fail, since I find it fun to be scared by fantastic beings that could never exist on my plane of reality. But my subconscious is filled with fears it needs to express, and it's getting them across to me with increasing success.

Before I get to the dream that could have very well triggered my descent into a complete nervous breakdown today ((sorry, Seven!)), I would like to briefly explain the ones leading up to it.

What I find most strange in this new trend of dreams is the fact that some of my friends are in them. Which is highly unusual for me, because I almost always dream of people I've never met. Each of the three dreams has one friend in it with me, and the dreams confront me with something I fear most about them. So if you're my friend and you're not in my dreams, it's a very, very good thing.

The first friend-themed dream I had focused on my old friend Matt, my romantic fling last summer. I can't remember this dream very clearly. All I remember is going to his house and trying to get him to help me. But he wouldn't come down from the second-level window he was speaking to me from. Eventually I leave, feeling hurt. Then the dream turns into a zombie apocalypse scenario, which loses some of it's seriousness. The dream held far more weight when I was speaking to Matt. It felt more real. It's strange, how accurate this dream was. Nearly two months later, when I end things with Matt, it is because he goes out of his way not to help me. Because he things that if I can't defend myself, then I'm not worth defending. He went out of his way to choose opposite sides in debates just to draw out the argument (because it always wound up feeling like an argument to me. And I especially hated this tendency of his because after a while I felt like I didn't even know what he truly thought of anything.) and on the one occasion where I could have gotten into a physical fight with someone, he did nothing. Literally nothing. Not even a few concerned words. He did nothing to help me, just like in my dream. I guess my subconscious recognized this weeks before I began to consciously acknowledge it.

Speaking of the fight I may have gotten into, there was never any danger because my potential opponent was Michael. Michael and I play fight on occasion. I find this incredibly fun for some reason. I was always kind of disappointed that Matt wouldn't play fight with me, too. But there was one night where Matt had a friend over, as did Michael, and all three of them thought Michael went to far when we were mock fighting that night. I think it was because, at one point, Michael stood at his full height and stalked toward me, as though he were furious. And Michael does look pretty intense. I see friendliness in his eyes, but a lot of people don't. At first, when he moves toward me with such intensity, I shrink back, falling into a crouch. His intensity out-matched mine, and I backed down. But as soon as I realize what I'm doing I rise to my full height, pushing him back and stalking toward him the way he stalked toward me and this time he falls back.

I thought this was great fun. I guess I can't really have a blast unless there is some element of danger involved. But when Michael startled me enough that I instinctively backed down and cowered for a second, Jared was the only one to object. Matt did nothing, even though he actually believes that Michael is going to kill someone someday because he has serious anger management problems.

Yet Michael and I have a pretty good relationship. The only problem is that we are a lot alike in our psychological problems. The primary difference is that Michael is explosive. When he gets upset, he starts breaking things. While I'm implosive, and when I snap I just shake, cry and pace. Because I try to hold all of my anger and despair in, where it seems to turn against me since I won't let it out. So I feel a strange sort of bond with him, because we are alike in our frustration and despair, but I have to watch how much time I spend with him because we are very bad for each other. It's not a good idea to put one depressed, halfway crazed person with another for extended lengths of time. Still, Michael has been a good friend to me. He has been there for me when I needed someone. But he has asked me to kill him on a couple of occasions, with such a dark and intense expression. So, needless to say, I worry about him.

And so I had this dream. And in it, I was housed in a strange sort of apartment complex, where everything was white and devoid of expression. Where I and everyone else there with me was waiting until the battle began. (I was reading The Hunger Games trilogy at the time. It influenced this part of the dream. A lot.) Eventually, we are all led to this race track. We are to be ranked by how physically fit we are, which is part of what determines who is going to win this massive fight to the death that will take place among all of us. The other girls and I are all lead to a wide starting gate, which is four times wider than your average door but still not wide enough for all of us to stand side by side. When the gate opens, I am at the back of the pack, but I am fast and I manage to get third place.

Then it is time for the captive guys to race. The gate opens, and Michael is one of their number. Except he isn't trying at all. He's just jogging at a leisurely pace and makes no attempt at all to win. The audience is screaming at him, insulting him, booing. This makes me angry, so I cheer him on as loudly as I can, screaming as well to be heard.

This makes me enemies. And later, when I find myself in a small grocery store on the premises so I can buy something to eat, I am ambushed by three male candidates. Who were angry that I was cheering for the loser while they struggled to win, I guess. *shrugs* Anyway, they get on my case about cheering for Michael, I tell them to fuck off and try to shove my way past, and then a huge fight breaks out between us. I lose, they leave. I begin to limp back to my room, knowing my face is bruised and really hating the fact I've been marked so that everyone knows I lost. I walk past Michael. He stops me and demands to know what happened. Eventually, I tell him, and then he insists that we go back and reap some vengeance on those assholes.

So, we do just that. We take them on together and win. (In reality, I'm sure Michael would have left my wounded-ass self behind and tried to take them on on his own, but this was my dream and I wanted to help, damn it.) After that, the dream shifts a bit. Michael and I must have made it through that tournament, because we are alive and well when we are standing with Jordan and Andrea, watching whatever it is they are watching on the computer and having a good time. Or so I think. Michael announces that he is going to go outside and have a smoke and leaves. Time passes, and after a while I notice he's been gone for a long time. This realization fills me with such an intense wave of fear and dread that I find myself sprinting wildly out the door, down the stairs, and through the front door. I stop abruptly. Michael is in his car, motionless, his body slumped on the seat. I stare in horror, and suddenly my legs can no longer hold me and I sit back hard on one of the porch steps. I can't make a sound, or even cry silently. I just sit their, engulfed in horror, and I can't do anything. One of the worst feelings of my life.

I couldn't handle this reality (for it seemed very real in that moment) so my dream took mercy on me and brought him back. He tries to comfort me, tell me it wasn't real, but I knew it was. I wake up.

And the dream I had this morning. I can't remember that much of it, but I felt the worst in this one. Jamie and Eric are in this dream. It starts with a huge fight between Eric and I, which leaves me so angry I feel as though I can never face him again. But Jamie is so on his side and so against mine that she is furious with me for fighting with Eric. She is so accusing, so cold and full of hate for what I've done that I feel confused and betrayed all over again, just like I did right after our initial falling out last summer. It was like going through it all over again. For in my dream I do not think I've done anything wrong, anything to deserve such treatment. I am so upset that I start sobbing uncontrollably. I try to make her understand why I did what I did, that I was only doing what I felt was right, but I couldn't get through to her. She turned away from me and left, leaving me no other option but to wake up before some other horrible thing happens.

I guess I don't trust her still, not after our falling out. When someone hurts me that deeply, I struggle to recover. I don't think I ever really do. Other than Jamie, my mother was the only person to make me feel so abandoned and alone and I certainly haven't forgiven her yet, as hard as I've tried. Lately, I've been keeping an eye out for the little signs I should have noticed before that falling out, so that I'll know when something bad is about to happen and hopefully be able to prevent it next time. But as well meaning as my intentions are, what this really means is that I just don't trust her anymore. And always trying to watch for signs of disaster is really, really unhealthy.

I should have known I was going to snap after I woke up from that dream. When I tried to eat the casserole seemed cold and tasteless in my mouth. I felt like I was burning up and I started sweating. Then all it took was a difficult tablet to trigger a melt-down. It always happens to me like that. My grandpa thinks I can't handle the smallest problems because when I snap, it's almost always something trivial that triggers it.

And this has become half psychoanalysis and half dream record. Time to end it. I've been analyzing myself all day and have covered a lot of unpleasant bases.

[Asila]

I am hijacking my own thread, because I thought I would post a picture of what I look like with my new purple hair. And what my ferret looks like while I'm holding him with my new purple hair, for that matter. I just didn't want to make a new thread for that purpose.

So, yeah. Check it out. i52.tinypic.com/r9he85.jpg

And so I can justify this hijacking and not completely disrupt the thread, I might as well record this strange thing my subconscious did on new years day. Since dreams are also products of the subconscious mind and it's antics, I think this incident will fit the theme.

So on New Year's day, I went to my Uncle Ricky's tavern, where my father's side of the family was having a fish fry. My grandpa fishes a lot, so this has become a new year's day ritual of sorts to disperse all of the fish fillets that wind up accumulating as a result. Anyway, I'm always a little bit uneasy about gatherings like this one, because everyone seems to know who I am, but I only know a small handful of names and I don't even know exactly how I'm related to half of those people.

This is because my mother with held my sister and I from family gatherings on my father's side when we were growing up, because she hated him. And now that I have essentially become my father's parents child, I feel as though I should belong to that side of the family but I just don't know what's going on with them. Beyond the fact that I know things are complicated because everyone on my father's side is much more loyal and tolerant than the people on my mother's, hence a more extensive network, I really don't have much down.

So basically, I was nervous. When I went to the neighboring building to see how my Aunt was doing with the fish she was frying up, I re-met a friend of the family who didn't recognize me, because she hadn't seen me since I was half the height I stand at now. So she asked me who's kid I was, and as a result, I was overwhelmed by confusion. I couldn't remember whose kid I was, or what I was supposed to say in these situations. So I just stood there, and mumbled fragments like "Well...I....Uh..." And so on, until my Aunt came to my rescue and said I was her brother's.

I just felt awful. I tried to defend myself by saying that I was sorry, but I always want to say that I'm my grandparents kid these days when someone asks me, but I can't do that, because that's not correct. But they let it go, because I was obviously confused and embarrassed at my own lapse, and it really wasn't a big deal. My Aunt, who would have been the one to feel disgusted with me if anyone did, didn't take offense at all because she knows me well enough to know that I'm a little strange and unbalanced. And I think she understands that, since I didn't really know my father even when he was alive, it just isn't instinctual for me to say that I'm his child. It's always something that I've hesitated to say when asked in the past. But what I find interesting is that usually my mother's name is on the tip of my tongue when I'm confronted with this question, and this time it wasn't there at all. Instead, my mind recalled my grandparents as the ones who'd raised me.

I was confused about this for a while. To almost anyone else, that seems like a terrible thing. I have now essentially lost both my parents. My father's been dead for almost a decade now, and my mother is no longer my mother as far as even my stubborn subconscious is concerned. There is no place in my heart for either one of them. But while the void they should have filled had been gradually gaping wider as the years passed before, it is now entirely filled by my grandparents, who have completely taken that place.

So while I was initially baffled, I now think this is a wonderful turn of events. Now the love that everyone wants to feel for their parents has trustworthy individuals to focus on, people who truly want what's best for me even if they don't understand my weird antics. And this is so much better for my state of mind than trying to waste that love on a mother who I despised was. That is one internal conflict that I am finally free of, and I am glad. I don't care if that sounds awful. It's just the truth.

So that's that. No more agonized rants about how conflicted I feel about my mother, or how I'm struggling and failing to forgive her, or about how what she'd done to my sister and I was so despicably selfish and cruel that I shouldn't even try to forgive her, even though that is exactly what I kept trying to do. That saga is over. Life moves on, and mine keeps getting better.