[First Time Caller]

(05-16-2017, 09:25 AM)WalrusWrangler Wrote: Was the chili expired? That is a weird dream, and a good analogy for some churches (and many other societal structures). I had a lot of weird church dreams when I was first leaving the IFB. In one of the more alarming ones a large group from my home IFB church (most of whom didn't know that I had left the IFB) decided to surprise pop in to my new, contemporary church on a Sunday morning. In another I left for my new church on Sunday morning and somehow ended up at my old IFB church instead. I've done similar things in real life, go on autopilot while driving and go somewhere familiar instead of wherever I was planning to go.

Nope. Not expired.  Actually it was chili cheese dip left over from a party.  That's cream cheese, covered with Skyline chili  (many people don't know what Skyline chili is.... which just means they are not one of the elect and are to be pitied) then covered with mild cheddar.  Good stuff.  Inspirational, in fact.  So it's not surprising that I had a pretty cool dream. 

I did feel like the dream was one of those deeper-meaning kind of dreams, but haven't really delved into it much.  But my brain tends to work overtime, and it's been pretty chill lately... so, maybe it's just how I'm processing things.

[leo the lamb]

FTC, I won't try to interpret your whole dream, but had a couple thoughts... You were the only one who noticed or cared that the food given to the people not so well-off (and maybe not so interested in the church service) was of poor food pantry quality. In real life maybe you're the only one who really cares that the type of sustenance found in fundy churches is low quality, the messages expired for any worth they may have held in the past. Maybe the difference between the bags of groceries and the gourmet entrees is one of perception; those still drinking the kool-aid believe it to be fine wine, while those who aren't so sure anymore are seeing it for what it is.. but still accepting it without question because they're not ready to admit reality.

School-related dreams are pretty common for me, and the grounds have taken on a familiar layout that I can ostensibly traverse efficiently by cutting through the locker room from outside and a few gyms, or the metals shop... though I often end up getting lost. Anyway, I dreamed a few weeks ago that this school was being taken over by a large mercenary army from oversees, a sort of Red Dawn scenario. I was in a classroom with some faculty, I think, when the news came. It was a large school, so I had time to tuck tail and run in the general direction of the rear courtyards. I made it to the far end of the school grounds where an old line of train cars was used by students to do drugs and fornicate. Very strange place, there was even a dead body that I tried to pretend I hadn't seen. I couldn't hide for long because the mercenaries had made it to the back shop area. A couple of them came through a door under the pretense of wanting to talk, still wielding guns. I again managed to flee, around behind the rail cars, when I heard enough gunfire to assure me that the bad guys were killing everyone in that area. I did my best to stay low behind a lot of metal, and there was another adult behind the train returning fire from his revolver, but bullets were flying all around... thus the dream ended.

[leo the lamb]

I had a wonderfully weird dream last night. It was another one inspired by the game Halo, but here the rules of the game and the laws of physics were constantly shifting, with imagery to match. I was mostly in the game, playing my part as Master Chief, but at times, and maybe simultaneously, I could sort of see myself at the pc trying to remember which keys to press to fire my weapon properly and such. My adversaries were mostly the big hulking Hunters, who could do much damage in close quarters if they could get a direct hit in with either their plasma cannon or their large arms/shield. One hunter grabbed me in a bear hug from behind (I could very much feel it), and I figured that since he wasn't hitting me he was probably going to fling me against a wall or something. Instead he reported something like "I am Hunter Two Four Seven" and promptly keeled over backwards. I seemed to have my own smaller plasma cannon or similar weapon, and I was able to hold my own until more hunters kept appearing on floors I'd already cleared. In one scene I was on a platform with a hunter, and various fascinating alien artifacts were lying around. I was picking them up while trying to remain alert, but the alien squeezed through an impossibly narrow opening in the floor and was no longer a threat. Later the A.I. Cortana was caught singing to herself in bodily form and she seemed a little embarrassed when I saw her. I know trying to describe such a dream is kind of pointless, but I'm recording the date just in case at some time in the future I am able to go back to last night and see the dream again and maybe even share it... It was definitely one of the wackiest dreams I've ever had, but it was surprisingly cohesive overall. One of my all time favorites.

[myotch]

I was at a party at Bill Murray’s house. Lots of people.

Beer, maybe a little pot. (I partake of neither, not even in the dream world).

The house was large, two-story suburban middle class home.

Bill was a very entertaining host and made sure to spend a little one-on-one time with everyone, including me. Nice guy.

[rsc2a]

(03-20-2018, 05:00 AM)myotch Wrote: I was at a party at Bill Murray’s house. Lots of people...

...Bill was a very entertaining host and made sure to spend a little one-on-one time with everyone...

What about Bob?

[leo the lamb]

Last night's images were less enjoyable. They were inspired by a long-distance conversation with my youngest older brother which veered into some light spiritual stuff as usual. With him such conversations are never negative or particularly triggery, and it was good to catch up with each other.

In the dream, I was in a house of some kind with some family members and general bunch of church folk. They were having something like a prayer meeting and appeared to be really connecting in fellowship. At one point they started to literally take a stand on.. something; some issue to wage spiritual warfare over, I suppose. Everyone was standing up except me, as I refused to take part in something I knew I wasn't a part of, i.e. not the issue at hand but the religious fellowship itself. My continued sitting drew attention, and the people seemed to be getting angry and frustrated with me. My conscience was confused and torn, for I wanted to be able to repent of my unbelief and be welcomed back but wasn't sure I could honestly do so, or really even wanted that particular kind of acceptance. On waking I was relieved that it had only been a dream. Some of the uneasiness from the dream lingered for a good part of my work shift, and I indulged in some sugary comfort food on the way home.

[leo the lamb]

Recently I had a fun conversation with my nephew about things that don't exist. He came up with random such things (I countered that anything that we can think up exists, if only in our minds). One of his examples: "Another one of me doesn't exist... well, maybe in a mirror."

A couple of weeks earlier I'd had a job that involved moving stuff out of an old elementary school and its small basement. Basements and hallways and tunnels are good dream fodder for me.. as are scenes involving an opening between Purgatory and Hell in the series Supernatural, and disturbing characters in movies like Hugh Jackman's Mr. Angier in The Prestige...

So, the dream: I was being offered a job by a shady company. The offer was for me to be a covert agent working between this dimension and one adjacent to it. This other dimension was physically a mirror of ours, so it had the same things and people but in mirrored form. There was an opening between the two worlds, and all it took to get from one to the other was walking through a short hallway or alley. The byway looked nothing special and so wasn't even hidden. My missions would likely involve my mirror self, and I had concerns about being found out because my face isn't perfectly symmetrical and people might notice the difference, whether I went over and pretended to be mirror me or - if mirror me was to be in on the missions - vice versa. Then the guy trying to recruit me admitted that he and his associates had killed their mirror selves in the mirror world (presumably to make it easier to work in both worlds without competition from the look-alikes or "I saw you last night"-type complications). I was slightly horrified, but also still intrigued by the job opportunity. The man assured me that agents weren't required or expected to murder their counterparts. I was still deciding when the dream ended.

[leo the lamb]

I had a couple of rather disturbing dream segments. In one, I was working in a building that had machinery and equipment all over, very disorganized. I was foolishly walking between a forklift and its load, and nearly got myself pinned.  As I walked away, I saw a random piece of equipment on a workbench that looked very much like a vicious black dog's head baring its teeth at me. I knew it was just a power tool or some such, but it felt like an omen of my impending death, and I was remembering a similar vision earlier. I got scared but also angry, and mentally and verbally balked at the message. The hellhound image faded, but I couldn't help worrying about the state of my soul and my possible doom.

In the other, I was in a reading room with a group of kids and a few adults. Everyone was reading something like short graphic novels with gratuitous scenes of death. A young girl got everyone's attention and promptly began acting out various violent scenes from the books and killing the readers. One kid she impaled with a sword, and another everyone was expecting her to shoot with a derringer because that's what was portrayed in the book he or she had been reading. The girl had insane skills, and no one stood a chance. Anyone who tried to be a hero was promptly killed with style and exuberance. Her whole mood was one of merciless enthusiasm. She read energetically from each book as she meted out judgment. The judgment, it seemed, was for reading such violent material so casually. The onlookers were too terrified and spellbound to do anything but watch and await their own fate. I headed for the exit, apparently unnoticed by the young killer, but hesitated at the door. I thought about doing the hero thing, but it seemed pointless because this girl either could read minds or had flawless fighting skills. I thought that if I could get a couple of the adults to join me in trying to take her down, it would be worth it even if we failed. I tried to recall if I had been reading anything pointlessly violent enough to turn the executioner's focus onto me any time soon. End of dream.

On a lighter note, an earlier dream had me riding a mountain bike through a natural tunnel or small canyon. I could feel the burn in my thighs as I churned skillfully through muddy-dusty ruts. One of my more pleasant types of dream just has me riding a bike, usually a bmx, over challenging terrain. In real life, I generally only feel a fraction of that kind of in-tuneness and appreciation of muscle engagement when riding a bike, but I do sometimes enjoy the burn when cranking up a hill on my singlespeed.

[WalrusWrangler]

I haven't been sleeping well lately due to random dry mouth waking me up in the middle of the night. It caught up to me yesterday afternoon, and I took a six hour nap with vivid dreams.

I only remember some of the dreams, and they all flowed into each other in a way that only made sense in-dream. The first I remember is a bunch of distant family coming to my grandparents' house. The people in the dream were actually randos, but in my dream I knew them as family. I was balancing going between my parents' house, where I had a room in-dream, and my grandparents' house, where we were having some kind of get together. I don't remember many of the details. I do recall being stressed out about getting something done while distant relatives kept interrupting, though.

Then I transitioned to going to this theme park type place, but it was really just a giant old-timey market. I was walking around trying to see everything in a limited time. I went to different booths and stores looking for some specific class of things, but I don't remember what it was.

My dream then transitioned to me playing a video game. The video game was set in an area similar to that giant market, but there were big crowds of good guys and bad guys. In the game your attacks would hurt both good guys and bad guys, and it wasn't always clear who was who. I ended up attacking good guys on accident while fighting bad guys. None of them held it against me, though, but I still felt bad about it. I ended up recruiting one of the bad guys to our side. He was this hairy bigfoot looking creature. I remember giving him a big hug.

The dream then transitioned to me looking for a friend in game, but then it turned to IRL (but still in dream) when I found his office. It was similar to his real-life office, but it was in my great-grandma's house (different from the house mentioned earlier) for some reason. He was nowhere to be found, though. The house was really dark. I still had a sword from the game, but I turned it into a light saber so I could see. Out of the game it didn't hurt anything, though. It would just kinda bend against whatever it touched.

The dream sort of came full circle at that point. There were some of the family members from before at this house, and my sister was there (she actually lives there IRL, since my great grandma passed away). There were also a bunch of cats outside. My cat was in my car, and I thought I'd let him out to play with the other cats. One cat started killing the others, though. It straight ripped their heads off. I was frantically looking for my cat. He was still in the car, but the door was open. I was debating whether to try to close the door and get out of there, but then the cat kept killing other cats. I was afraid I would have to kill it to keep it from hurting anyone. Then I was afraid it would rip my arm off or something the way it kept killing other cats.

I woke up shortly after. This was the craziest string of dreams I had in a while.

[leo the lamb]

A couple of months back one of our cats died of unknown causes, and last night I dreamed he came back. He appeared as if he'd just been outside somewhere for a while, but everyone knew he'd been buried weeks ago. I simply decided that he'd been 'reconstituted' for us, but my sister offered an even crazier idea: when he was alive, a mosquito bit him, and later that same mosquito bit another cat. Somehow this made the second cat look more and more like our kitty until he became indestinguishable in appearance and personality. I was thinking about how to prove that this was originally a different cat, probably have to dig up the grave site...

I realized only a few minutes ago what had triggered the dream. I've been watching paradox-related videos on youtube lately, along with some light quantum mechanics stuff, and I read a comment last night referencing Shroedinger's Cat.

p.s. My habit of watching mind-bending YT videos before bed is contributing to a sleep paradox effect I've observed for some time. When I go to sleep at a healthy hour, it is often the case that I will wake up feeling like I hadn't slept very long. When I sleep after staying up late, it's not unusual for it to feel like a long night; I'll even wake up one or more times, look at the clock, and wonder how I could possibly have one, two, even three hours left before the alarm goes off, as I've only been sleeping a couple of hours but it feels like a lot longer. I figure the phenomenon has something to do with the subtle anxiety I feel when I'm up way past bedtime, but in any case I can kind of take advantage of it when I want to prioritize the feeling of a good night's sleep over more hours of sleep.