Mind tricks.
May. 20th, 2009 07:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crowsAnd nothing below us to break the fall...
Alright, alright. I told myself I was going to do this. There was one of these I wanted to get away from a little, that part of me would rather ignore because of its context but... here we go. This is what I remember.
The dream begins with myself and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vayleen. We are in San Francisco; that dream San Francisco that doesn't actually correlate to any of my experience in the city, which I've spent time in twice in recent memory. We are milling around some kind of very fancy makeup or fashion exposition which is in the setup process, with the intention of crashing the real thing, which is supposed to be a very exclusive and celebrity-ridden party that evening. When I told her about the dream over breakfast the next morning, I observed that this didn't sound like something she and I would actually plan on doing, but might do impulsively, if presented with the opportunity. So, our general theory is to be around as all this hubbub is happening getting ready for this show. These are very busy, very famous people (it should be noted that no real celebrities showed up in this dream; all the people involved with the exceptions of those specifically noted were conjured up by my brain), so we figure if we can be around when we're only sort of not supposed to be there (as opposed to when we're definitely not allowed, later), and sort of... implant our faces on the short-term memories of these people, we can later act like we ARE supposed to be there and since we look slightly familiar people will assume they're supposed to recognize us. This is a fun game.
Later, we depart, and she and I split ways for a while. I meet up with the same certain company I was in in the last dream that happened to take place in Dream-Francisco. The light is late and fading, approaching sunset and altogether the evening is very pleasant. We wander around looking at buildings and talking; most everything in this part of the city is closed, either on merit of it being evening or for the giant show (which is taking place in and outside). This part of the dream is a little indistinct; I remember talking but not about what (the conversation felt natural to much of the conversation I've actually had with this individual); his arm around me casually; he sings to me. I think there's a part here maybe about getting lost, or being evasive? in a parking garage, the sort underneath a building. It's all very hazy.
Still together, we round this immense hulk of a building. It's huge, tall in various towers; I am aware of the building as being a very large, very modern shopping mall that also contains a substantial library. Two or three stories up, several stories are open to contain an absurdly massive aquarium that houses whales (no shit). You can see them from the street, and as we're watching I feel a little sad for the whale, like I do when I see fish that I know are in aquariums too small for them. We watch and wander along the sidewalk, eventually back into another crowd of people where we meet up with Vay and my mother, who is there with her usual travel gear and proceeds to talk to us lightly about the sightseeing she did in the city today.
This is where the dream turns ugly. We're all standing about, I think this crowd of people may be related to hopefuls about the party about a block down the street (that's our proximity to the makeup thing that Vay and I were going to insert ourselves into covert-like). I happen to look up at one of the spires of this library-mall structure and see a young woman on the roof, standing close to the edge. She's very far up, this building is ridiculous, and it is only because of charmingly enhanced dream-perception that I can tell she is a young woman, or what she looks like. She has fair skin, shiny medium-brown hair in a ponytail and longish, side-swept bangs; she's wearing something blue and white or maybe turquoise, like athletic pants and a t-shirt. An absolutely awful sensation comes over me very suddenly and I go straight to the ground with my hands over my ears. I'm almost too instantly hysterical to even start crying because of the acute awareness that she is going to jump from the edge and there is nothing I can possibly do to avert her suicide.
She jumps and falls for a long time before hitting the ground; this isn't close to where we are, really, but more in some kind of courtyard largely surrounded by the building. I mostly avoid hearing her hit the ground, mostly, but general dream-omniscience keeps me pretty appraised of the situation (I have no awareness throughout the entire thing that I am dreaming). The people around us are astounded, but largely non-reactive (this is a trend in my dreams; not so much like the people around me are oblivious but like the whole universe is unable to act like it should and remains somewhat flat at critical moments). He is quiet with his hands on my shoulders; Vay stands close by, looking around, but nothing really seems to be happening beyond that. Nobody made me get off the ground; I'm very, very distraught, and the sensation that overwhelmed me right before the girl went over is still thick on the air. Like, I can feel it pressing into my skin. I look upward again; there is a man in jeans and a white t-shirt standing on the rooftop of another tower. It happens again.
People are starting to stir, now, and I think police are arriving. There are flashes, in my memory of the dream, of things happening in other places... cops talking to witnesses, that sort of thing, but all just sort of... gleaned from the non-linear consciousness rather than what my dream-self was experiencing in the actual moment. No fewer than five people jumped off various rooftops of that high building. In my mind's eye, I saw one of them hit, and for the remainder of the dream had the blot of his blood on the concrete burned like an after-image of light on my retinas. I lost count after that. There may have been more. My panicked mind kept trying to grasp at where they were coming from, how they were getting up there after hours, and other sort of 'what the fuck is going on here?' questions.
At this point, Vay and I decide we're getting the fuck out of Dodge. Also, at this point, the police are cornering the crowd and not letting anybody leave. There are people talking elsewhere about needing to keep us for statements, or counciling, or something. Vay and I will have none of it; we make a break for it, heading straight for the afore-mentioned absurdly-swanky party which by now is in full swing and equal unawareness to the events down the street. We inject ourselves hastily into that other crowd, feeling very pursued. The dream primarily dissolves at this point; we do our best to play the parts we came up with in order to avoid detection, not to stay where we're at but not to have to go back to where we were. We ride elevators, end up talking to someone we successfully introduced ourselves to earlier. He's a director or something.
I woke up, remarkably not upset, despite the nightmare proportions of the dream. It was a bad dream, and I woke up feeling like I'd had a nightmare, but it wasn't the visceral fighting-tears waking that I've had after the last few nightmares. I don't know where all this death has come from.
The other dream I remember less of. I was a guest in a home where I felt unwelcome, in a very strange place in the middle of a dark forest. There was a girl my age there who disliked me (hence the unwelcome feeling) but I was there for a reason and had to, like everyone else, basically just deal. Things weren't... violent or scary or evil, but the whole dream had this very dark, very dour face to it. Shit was damn sinister, really. I don't recall much but traveling urgently from place to place, trying to find something or get to some other house to deliver news. In my running around on foot through this forest, I come upon another small town or village a little ways off that is completely and totally abandoned. It's a ghost town that you can tell was vacated abruptly, on the top of a hill. The houses are dominantly brick-red with steep gabled roofs, some of them have a lot of black around the windows as though there was a fire.
Not sure what to make of all that business.
Alright, alright. I told myself I was going to do this. There was one of these I wanted to get away from a little, that part of me would rather ignore because of its context but... here we go. This is what I remember.
The dream begins with myself and
vayleen. We are in San Francisco; that dream San Francisco that doesn't actually correlate to any of my experience in the city, which I've spent time in twice in recent memory. We are milling around some kind of very fancy makeup or fashion exposition which is in the setup process, with the intention of crashing the real thing, which is supposed to be a very exclusive and celebrity-ridden party that evening. When I told her about the dream over breakfast the next morning, I observed that this didn't sound like something she and I would actually plan on doing, but might do impulsively, if presented with the opportunity. So, our general theory is to be around as all this hubbub is happening getting ready for this show. These are very busy, very famous people (it should be noted that no real celebrities showed up in this dream; all the people involved with the exceptions of those specifically noted were conjured up by my brain), so we figure if we can be around when we're only sort of not supposed to be there (as opposed to when we're definitely not allowed, later), and sort of... implant our faces on the short-term memories of these people, we can later act like we ARE supposed to be there and since we look slightly familiar people will assume they're supposed to recognize us. This is a fun game.Later, we depart, and she and I split ways for a while. I meet up with the same certain company I was in in the last dream that happened to take place in Dream-Francisco. The light is late and fading, approaching sunset and altogether the evening is very pleasant. We wander around looking at buildings and talking; most everything in this part of the city is closed, either on merit of it being evening or for the giant show (which is taking place in and outside). This part of the dream is a little indistinct; I remember talking but not about what (the conversation felt natural to much of the conversation I've actually had with this individual); his arm around me casually; he sings to me. I think there's a part here maybe about getting lost, or being evasive? in a parking garage, the sort underneath a building. It's all very hazy.
Still together, we round this immense hulk of a building. It's huge, tall in various towers; I am aware of the building as being a very large, very modern shopping mall that also contains a substantial library. Two or three stories up, several stories are open to contain an absurdly massive aquarium that houses whales (no shit). You can see them from the street, and as we're watching I feel a little sad for the whale, like I do when I see fish that I know are in aquariums too small for them. We watch and wander along the sidewalk, eventually back into another crowd of people where we meet up with Vay and my mother, who is there with her usual travel gear and proceeds to talk to us lightly about the sightseeing she did in the city today.
This is where the dream turns ugly. We're all standing about, I think this crowd of people may be related to hopefuls about the party about a block down the street (that's our proximity to the makeup thing that Vay and I were going to insert ourselves into covert-like). I happen to look up at one of the spires of this library-mall structure and see a young woman on the roof, standing close to the edge. She's very far up, this building is ridiculous, and it is only because of charmingly enhanced dream-perception that I can tell she is a young woman, or what she looks like. She has fair skin, shiny medium-brown hair in a ponytail and longish, side-swept bangs; she's wearing something blue and white or maybe turquoise, like athletic pants and a t-shirt. An absolutely awful sensation comes over me very suddenly and I go straight to the ground with my hands over my ears. I'm almost too instantly hysterical to even start crying because of the acute awareness that she is going to jump from the edge and there is nothing I can possibly do to avert her suicide.
She jumps and falls for a long time before hitting the ground; this isn't close to where we are, really, but more in some kind of courtyard largely surrounded by the building. I mostly avoid hearing her hit the ground, mostly, but general dream-omniscience keeps me pretty appraised of the situation (I have no awareness throughout the entire thing that I am dreaming). The people around us are astounded, but largely non-reactive (this is a trend in my dreams; not so much like the people around me are oblivious but like the whole universe is unable to act like it should and remains somewhat flat at critical moments). He is quiet with his hands on my shoulders; Vay stands close by, looking around, but nothing really seems to be happening beyond that. Nobody made me get off the ground; I'm very, very distraught, and the sensation that overwhelmed me right before the girl went over is still thick on the air. Like, I can feel it pressing into my skin. I look upward again; there is a man in jeans and a white t-shirt standing on the rooftop of another tower. It happens again.
People are starting to stir, now, and I think police are arriving. There are flashes, in my memory of the dream, of things happening in other places... cops talking to witnesses, that sort of thing, but all just sort of... gleaned from the non-linear consciousness rather than what my dream-self was experiencing in the actual moment. No fewer than five people jumped off various rooftops of that high building. In my mind's eye, I saw one of them hit, and for the remainder of the dream had the blot of his blood on the concrete burned like an after-image of light on my retinas. I lost count after that. There may have been more. My panicked mind kept trying to grasp at where they were coming from, how they were getting up there after hours, and other sort of 'what the fuck is going on here?' questions.
At this point, Vay and I decide we're getting the fuck out of Dodge. Also, at this point, the police are cornering the crowd and not letting anybody leave. There are people talking elsewhere about needing to keep us for statements, or counciling, or something. Vay and I will have none of it; we make a break for it, heading straight for the afore-mentioned absurdly-swanky party which by now is in full swing and equal unawareness to the events down the street. We inject ourselves hastily into that other crowd, feeling very pursued. The dream primarily dissolves at this point; we do our best to play the parts we came up with in order to avoid detection, not to stay where we're at but not to have to go back to where we were. We ride elevators, end up talking to someone we successfully introduced ourselves to earlier. He's a director or something.
I woke up, remarkably not upset, despite the nightmare proportions of the dream. It was a bad dream, and I woke up feeling like I'd had a nightmare, but it wasn't the visceral fighting-tears waking that I've had after the last few nightmares. I don't know where all this death has come from.
The other dream I remember less of. I was a guest in a home where I felt unwelcome, in a very strange place in the middle of a dark forest. There was a girl my age there who disliked me (hence the unwelcome feeling) but I was there for a reason and had to, like everyone else, basically just deal. Things weren't... violent or scary or evil, but the whole dream had this very dark, very dour face to it. Shit was damn sinister, really. I don't recall much but traveling urgently from place to place, trying to find something or get to some other house to deliver news. In my running around on foot through this forest, I come upon another small town or village a little ways off that is completely and totally abandoned. It's a ghost town that you can tell was vacated abruptly, on the top of a hill. The houses are dominantly brick-red with steep gabled roofs, some of them have a lot of black around the windows as though there was a fire.
Not sure what to make of all that business.