Dream Catalog

Part n in an occasional series

So I've started having a new kind of dream recently.

Hrm.

I should probably warn you, this is about my dreams. It's not like, you know, they're not safe for work (NSFW) or anything. But still. They're kinda personal. They might be too much information (TMI) for you to handle.

I don't know. I'm just saying. Dreams are weird. Maybe you're weird about dreams.

If you're weird about other people's dreams, you should probably stop reading here.

While you're making up your mind, here's a crow eating peanuts.

Anyway, dreams. I has them.

The Comic Book Store
In this dream, I'm wandering around a comic book store. Probably because I wandered around a lot of comic book stores when I was a callow youth. The employees are usually dream-images of actual people from actual comic book stores I actually wandered around during my waking life, and the titles were usually vaguely familiar approximations of real-world titles. But the comic book stores themselves, while utterly banal, were totally unlike any real-life comic book store that I've ever actually been in.

That's one of the things that fascinates me about dreams. I'm not just re-creating places I've actually been to and dimly remember. Instead, my mind is imagining totally different rooms, wallpapers, carpets, furniture, etc. It's kinda neat.


I'm not sure what the deal is, with the comic book store dream. There's not much of a sense of urgency. I'm just wandering around, looking for... I dunno, a comic book, I guess. I never actually find one, though. Never take one off the shelf, or bring it up to the cash register, or anything like that. Sometimes there are other people in the store with me, but I don't really interact with them. The end.

Wandering Around the City
Sometimes I dream that I'm wandering around the city. Well, wandering around a city, anyway. Like the comic book store, it's a dream-city, not any real city I've ever been to. It's always a different city (a different part of the same city?) each time I have this dream. Also like the comic book store, there's no sense of urgency, and nothing ever really happens.


Flying
Yes, I have the flying dream. Doesn't everybody? Mine often takes the form of first running, then jumping, then making longer and higher jumps, and then finally steering in the air. Pretty fun. Another version is where I'm spreading my arms out and gliding up into the air. Often my legs hang down awkwardly. This kind of flying is hard to sustain, for some reason, but sometimes I can get pretty high up there.


Interpersonal Conflict
Sometimes, I dream a fight with someone--usually a family member. These dreams are very emotionally charged. I usually wake up feeling angry and frustrated. Once when I woke up from one of these, I actually called the person I'd dreamed I was fighting with, just so I could get some closure and go back to sleep. They were very cool and understanding about it. Lately the usual "sparring partner" in this dream has been replaced by somebody else. It's all very weird.


The House
This is the new one. It's happened three times, now. The first time, it was some other guy's house, still under construction. The second time, my family had just moved into a new house. The third, last night, they'd done some remodeling while I was out.

These dreams tend to have a sense of urgency about them. I'm trying to come to terms with the changes, or get organized, or whatever, but the more I get into it, the more complicated and messy things get. At first there'll be a normal amount of furniture in the room, but the more I try to move the furniture around, the more furniture there is. The more I try to clear away clutter, the more clutter there is. The more I try to find my way around, the bigger and mazier the house gets. The point is, I'm trying to do something, and stuff keeps getting in the way. The harder I try, the more stuff there is.


Sometimes there'll be elements from one of the other dreams in this one, too. Like, it'll start out as Wandering Around the City, and then I'll go into The House. Or I'll be in The House, and end up in an Interpersonal Conflict.

Conclusion
This isn't a dream type. This is just the conclusion to this entry.

In conclusion: Dreams are weird.