i dream in nightmares.

I’m one of those people who talk in their sleep.  It probably has to do with the fact that the majority of my dreams are extremely vivid and graphic nightmares, all of which are more bizarre and believable than the next.  I dream in color, high resolution and all, and I also hear music and play music in my dreams.  Most of the times, I’m in a ridiculous situation where I’m running for my life and trying to convince someone not to kill me or someone I love.  If anyone ever tried to psychoanalyze my dreams, I’m pretty sure I’d end up in an insane asylum.  But just for fun, here are some of my more recent REM ramblings and motion pictures…

Weird Dream No. 1:
There’s a party in the church basement and several of my WCEC friends are there.  I’m there with Ryan’s family, but I when someone asks me who I’m with, I tell them I’m with “the Elgars.”  While we’re in this basement, Angela leans all over me and I realize that she’s drunk.  Ryan realizes that all of the drinks are spiked, and neither he nor I had anything to drink.  He goes to find whoever spiked the drinks and tells me to run, because someone is after us (this is going to become a common theme in my dreams, so prepare yourself).  I run to the top floor of the church and realize that Ryan’s not coming with me; escape is on my own.
I try to escape; I cross to the adjacent building on wooden slats (no idea how), and all of the sudden I am in another house.  My brother shows up out of nowhere and suddenly I know we have to hide.  Also in the house, a woman named Mariam and her two little boys are also in hiding.  They are from Kabul; Mariam wears a hijab and neither she nor her sons speak to us.  It begins to get dark outside.

I notice that the neighbors are migrating out of their homes; everything that happened in the church seemed like years and years ago.  Soon, I begin to see everyone I know walking out on the lawn.  I see my friends from college moving together in packs, all of them trying to escape what seems like an attack or invasion.  Everyone is trying to escape death.  My friends from high school show up outside the window and tell me that they are going to France.  We say goodbye and part ways.  Someone is coming, and somehow I know that we have to do our best to prepare for the worst.
Frank and I try to clean up the house as much as possible, we shut all the curtains and try to convince Marian and her sons to hide.  I realize that we are minutes away our death because they are coming.  Whoever “they” are, they are different than the people who tried to hunt Ryan and I in the church.  Before we know it, gunmen break down the door and begin shooting everywhere.

I wake up.

Weird Dream No.2:
I am swimming in a large pool with a great white shark tailing my feet.  Somehow, I know the shark is malicious and that if I didn’t get out of the pool soon, that I’d die.  I overtake the shark and jump out of the water as if I was doing a stunt.  The shark follows me out of the pool — we fly into the air and out of the nearest window — I look down and realize that we were on the highest floor of an urban hotel — and as soon as we begin to fall, I blow up the hotel and the shark dies.

I wake up.

Weird Dream No.3:
I walk into an empty bedroom early in the morning, armed.  The bedsheets are rumpled and the room is a mess, indicating that an intruder was here earlier.  The only sound that I hear is a constant beeping — there’s a bomb in the room.  I quickly hurry towards the source of the beeping and discover that the bomb is in the Little Mermaid alarm clock, which has been placed on the nightstand besides the bed.  The beeping gets louder and louder, and I frantically try to turn the Little Mermaid alarm clock bomb off but I can’t.  I’m gonna die.

I wake up, and realize that the perpetually beeping Little Mermaid bomb is actually my own alarm, telling me to get up.

Weird Dream No.4:
All of my friends from InterVarsity and I are hanging out during dinner in the cafeteria.  We’re in a place that resembles Camp Andrew’s, except there is a newly installed retro diner on the campgrounds.  I grab my meal and start eating with Meredith.  By the end of our conversation, everyone begins to move outside.  The sun has set, and all of the lamps on the campground are on.  It’s uncannily quiet outside, and I notice that people stop what they were doing in order to come and join our moving herd.  We are all moving towards one direction.

The lamps on the campground begin to flicker off.  Something is definitely wrong; there is an intruder on the campgrounds.  Suddenly, all 100 or so of us there stop in our tracks: we notice a man hiding behind some bushes in the distance.  He is armed.  Ryan starts walking towards the hidden and armed man, exposing him from his spot.  Before we all know it, gunshots fire everywhere and Ryan is in hot pursuit of the assassin — we all run and follow them.

Soon, the campgrounds turn into a parking lot, and we are running across the parking lot of a large airport.  I’m at the front of the pack now, trying to catch Ryan so I can tell him not to get hurt.  But I stop in my tracks — Ryan finally caught up to the assassin, and the two had breached the airport security checkpoint and were engaged in some seriously bloody hand-to-hand combat… [insert gross and graphic picture of hand-to-hand combat here].  I scream.

The next thing I know, all 100 or so of us are walking around in the hallways of an anonymous high school with paper bags on our heads.  I guess we’d be in trouble if they found us out.

I think 4 weird dreams are enough to post for now.  Seriously though, I think I watch too many action movies…