A Dustland Fairytale

Once upon a time...

...there was a beautiful princess named Amanda. She loved pretty dresses and sunglasses and ponies and punk rock. But she had a secret. Every night when the sun set, Amanda turned into a toothy and terrifying AMANDASAURUS REX! Miss Rex's blog is much more interesting and frequently updated than this one, so I advise you to proceed there... IF YOU DARE.

Taz tried to warn me there was pot in the eggplant parm at lunch.


Hooooo boy. It's been a while since I had one of these dreams, and this one was the absolute worst I've ever had. First let me say that I was thinking I must be in a pretty good place considering I had a flying dream last night. I used to have those a lot as a kid but they sort of petered out as I grew up, as I think they do for most people. I don't remember much about that dream, just that I bought some new shoes from Wal*Mart (why the eff would they be from Wal*Mart?) and what's more, I apparently spent a whole lot of money on these shoes that I bought at Wal*Mart. Meanwhile, I was searching for a friend to go to a Cobra show with, and I had Steph on the phone, trying to convince her to go. She finally said she'd be able to, and I remember flying all around that grassy space out in front of Lane, telling everyone I was going to see Cobra. If I could fly for real, that is TOTALLY something I would do.

I had Sociology and Astronomy today. I can already tell Soc is gonna be one of those classes where, if you show up and turn in the assignments and even remotely care about them, it'll be a piece of cake to get a good grade. Heck, the prof even lets you choose your grading scale: you can make the papers worth more, or the tests worth more. Astronomy is only intimidating because I realized that I don't remember algebra. My sister asked me for help this break and I was like, "uhhh... I don't remember learning this... oh snap." The prof's a total nerd and showed us this ridiculous video about powers of ten, made like 30 years ago before soundtracks weren't garbage. I think it's gonna be a good class though. One of the projects I could choose to do is go out and study the constellations with the TA and then have him test me on it. Well, that's why I'm in the class. I'm down. Oh, and chapel was hilarious because I sat near the usual suspects - Jess, Taz, Bryceface, Piercey, Mrs. Piercey, Josh and Kay - and I hadn't seen most of them in ages. I forgot how nice it was to have chapel as an opportunity to see people like that since I sort of stopped going. Anyway, the praise band played "Indescribable," and Piercey HATES that song because it says God is indescribable and then goes on to describe him for the rest of the song. So he mocked it by singing really, really loud. I couldn't stop laughing.

But yeah, after Astronomy, I came back to Ferrin to take a nap because my head was killing me for some mysterious reason. It's been uncomfortable on and off this week, but I didn't really notice it until today. So I was just innocently taking this nap when I had one of those demon dreams again. Basically what happens in these recurrent dreams is, I think I'm awake. It interrupts whatever dream I was in the middle of, and I'm lying in the bed where I fell asleep. Everything is in its proper place, the lighting is appropriate for how long I was asleep - and then I try to move. But I can't. The harder I struggle, the more I realize that I am quite paralyzed, unable to move or speak or do anything other than think no matter how hard I push my muscles. And even though I know I've dreamed this before, every time it feels so real. I hope and hope my roommate or my mom will come in and rescue me, that I can fight hard enough to at least draw someone else's attention. I just want to make a sound, any sound, just so someone will hear me.

I especially hate it when it happens in powers of ten like that movie. Like, I'll think that I've successfully woken up, and then I'll realize I'm still trapped. Sometimes that happens three, four, five times. A dream within a dream within a dream within a dream, etc. Today it was five. I think my record is seven.

But the reason this one was so bad was because I could see the, for lack of a better word, demons, and that's never happened before. If you've ever experienced an aura with a migraine, it looked a little something like that; or think about Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke after he falls off the roof, when he's walking through the village and bends the guy's spear and stops San and Lady Eboshi from killing each other - what his demon looked like then, but clear. Basically it was just sort of a colorless disturbance in the air, and I could see it writhing and wrapping around me. Horrifying, right? In my head (because I couldn't speak), I kept shouting for Jesus to help me.

Well, of course I finally woke up, covered in a cold sweat and way too freaked out to fall asleep again. I made a couple cups of tea (the first one was garbage. I'm throwing away the rest of those tea bags, ugh) and munched on that puffed corn stuff, which made me feel better. Except, since this has been a recurrent nightmare, I know it's got to mean something. Any ideas? I wish I had something a little more concrete to go on. Or maybe the answer is right in front of my face. Maybe I've got some demons to wrestle in my life. I don't know what they are. I thought I wrestled one of my biggest issues with that mega-post last night and I thought I came out victorious.

I should pray.

4 comments:

Brijenieve said...

I love flying dreams. I still have them sometimes - but like you said, they're rare.

Astronomy with Pleticha (sp?)? I had fun in that class, though there was a lot more math than I had bargained for. I was aiming for a 'name the planets' situation and he teaches more of a 'how far away is that speck of light' thing. Which is great, I learned a lot.

I've not had a demon dream like that... that's intense and scary! Especially once you're dealing with the dream-within-a-dream type thing. Do you have a way you can wake yourself up? Or is it too real to know that you're dreaming? Or, like you were saying, maybe there's something more to these dreams. I really don't know. Sometimes a dream isn't symbolic, but just plain true. I dunno, just throwing that out there. Regardless, prayer is good.

Now that I've graduated, I actually do miss chapel. Not every week, and certainly not on bad chapel days, but in general, I miss being with everyone.

Brijenieve said...

True, paralysis would make your particular method of self-waking a little more complicated. I can only wake myself up on very, very rare occasions, and I do it by squeezing my dream-eyes shut.

Also, I REMEMBERED where the zombie guy in my dream was from!!!! Hahaha ok, if you've ever seen Happy Gilmore - you know, the Adam Sandler movie where he plays golf - there's a really tall, hulky guy with a nail in his head. He is a Happy fan, and enjoys intimidating Shooter Mcwhats-his-face... At one point, Shooter has to play the golfball off of the hulky guy's foot... So, the hulky guy WAS THE ZOMBIE!!! Hahahahaha. I KNEW he was from a movie. So there. =D

Dee. said...

I used to have flying dreams when I was a kid... now I only have weird dreams and nightmares.

y'know what? a friend of mine is psychologist and whenever I have weird dreams I talk with him about them, I'll ask him about dreaming with demons and then I'll tell you what he said... okay?

Amandasaurus said...

Thanks for that. I'm trying to get opinions from as many people as possible because it's really bothering me.