Thursday, February 09, 2012

Another Really Weird Dream

Here's my weird dream:

It began with a journey to Montana. I was near a river, looking for someone's house. While outside, I took pictures of some bears that were nearby. They looked aggressive and I was frightened so I retreated to the porch of a house.

Entering the house, I felt a sense of foreboding; I knew it was haunted. I saw a bed and understood that a little girl ghost was lingering there. She showed me her long illness and eventual death from poisoning by her mother (who had caused the girl's sickness because of her own Munchhausen syndrome). I hugged the little girl ghost, to reassure her, promising I'd help her find peace. I wasn't sure how, but I knew I had to do it. (There was sequence in this part of the dream with paper airplanes but I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe it was a trick I tried to entertain her or set her at ease somehow?)

I left her and traveled to a small town - it was supposed to be the place where I grew up but didn't resemble it exactly. The locals regarded me with suspicion. In the main street shopping area, I entered a curio shop and asked for directions. The owner was a nice woman - we chatted a bit. I left and headed towards the hills to find...something. While there I realized that one of the local children was beckoning me, telling me to avoid the hillside. I noticed a militaristic compound with large bunkers, each with angry-looking people streaming out. At that point I knew that the people were separationists who thought I was encroaching on their land, trying to steal their stockpile saved up for the end of the world.

I headed back towards town where the local child lead me to her house. There was a large patio with a gazebo. Old picnic tables, piles of junk, rocks and plants were scattered about. Every usable space was covered with some kind of alchemical element - fleshy white nodules, empty insect carapaces, gems, dried plants, bits of bone and skin. The variety was stunning and I was confused. I explained to the woman, who was the mother of the local child, that I needed help. She instructed me to brew a solution to the problem. I didn't know what elements to mix, though it seemed I had some natural ability at selecting potential cures. The mixing vessel was a large, flat bowl under the gazebo on a large stone base. I attempted to craft a brew, but wound up sucked into a sort of mental vortex while gazing into the mixing bowl (which was vaguely like Galadriel's scrying pool from Lord of the Rings). I somehow shook free from the vortex and ran inside, feeling drugged and bewildered and definitely out of place.

In the foyer of the house was a chest of drawers against a wall. The piece was weird and organic - fleshy and somehow sentient like a Salvador Dali woman/furniture piece mixed with a David Cronenberg set piece from Videodrome. I contemplated pulling a drawer open but the chest of drawers started undulating and twisting, and I could see a head rolling forward, as though the woman has been staring at the sky in a yoga pose, and slowly brought her head back to neutral position. My companion passed by me and opened the front by pulling the whole face aside (like a cabinet door in which the drawers were falsely embedded). Together, we stepped inside the house. We hid in a dirty bedroom, just under a window which looked onto the hillside. I glanced into the sky, still in a daze from the alchemical mis-fire and saw a giant brain monster with glaring eyes. It was like a hybrid of a B-movie monster and one of the giant robots from the 50's version of War of the Worlds. It was gigantic and angry - a Lovecraftian Horror come to destroy us. I knew that looking at it would draw its ire, but couldn't help myself. It was miles away, but at its size it crossed towards us quickly, its evil eyes burning the scenery around it into a black cloud. At some point I mustered the willpower to break its gaze and ducked below the window frame.

I guess that this trick worked, because we weren't vaporized as I'd expected. Perhaps my magician-hosts had banished the brain monster back to the dimension from which it came? I didn't really care - I just knew that I could escape. I still had a vague memory of trying to help the little ghost girl, and brought with me from the house a sort of pellet gun that shot some of the magic white nodules. This would be of some use though I'm not sure what or how. I walked from the house along a pathway that followed the river. The fields that bordered the other side of the path were green and lush. One of the separationists was about to catch up to me, but I shot at him with the gun and he retreated; my magical host child was happy at this and we laughed.

Finally, I came to a driveway along the path, which was growing into a proper street as country paths sometimes do. I got in the car, a long black limousine, and started driving towards the bridge that would lead me back to where I started at the little girl's house (though it was far away). The car was stiff, difficult to drive, and as I approached the bridge which was off to my left, I was unable to turn effectively and slid into another house's driveway. I got out of the car and stared at the bridge.

That was the end of the dream.