Jadxia

I've started having dreams again, crazed terrific dreams of strange lucidity. If there is any barometer for the quality of my life it has always been my dreams. They are the mirror to my soul. When things are going well, I tend to night terrors so vicious and evil, sleep itself becomes a thing to fear. When I am unhappy, my night meanderings are wonderful and fantastic.

Lately, I've been a little depressed. Right now my purpose is to be studying another language, but I'm stymied by the dry mouth, which is causing canker sores. They make mouth moisturizer, it doesn't work very well and is pretty much sweetened KY-jelly. Pretty gross.

Last night I dreamed I was an Aztec princess, only not a princess in the traditional sense, in the dream Aztecs were nothing more than a Native tribe. So I was something closer to a chieftain's daughter, allowed to run wild with the boys because I was young. Every year they had a fest, and the boys were given a set series of nineteen tasks, which they attempted to complete in any order while 'killing' (with red paint) the other boys. If a boy completed a single task before he was tagged, he at least was not shamed. A boy who completed two or three could now call himself a man, as could a boy who completed only one but also tagged another boy. Four and he was a hero. I was determined to participate even though I could never be called a warrior, being female. The boys were determined to tag me out quickly if they saw me, and thus not be outdone by a girl in a man's game. Somehow, I completed all nineteen tasks, something no one in the history of the festival had ever done. I had tagged no one; I had been given no paint and no feathered weapon to use.

I had a dog in the dream, a great evil brute of a hunting dog. They brought me forth to the temple ahead of the boys and the murmur of the crowd, to see what the goddess would do. They brought forth my vicious dog by my side. She blessed us as warriors, something she would also do for the boys who had done well, and the murmur of the crowd swelled but no one would contradict the say of the goddess of many feathers.

All was well.

Time passed. The girl died, no better or worse than any other girl. Her life fared no different after that than any chieftains' daughter. The tribe of the Aztecs died, no better or worse than any other tribe which pinnacled in its glory and was gone. The girl had been reincarnated many times, and now she was an archeologist's assistant, without the dog. The end of days seemed nigh and the earth was torn by many earthquakes. People lived in fear of that date, which was not really the end of the days, but a festival day, to mark the rebirth of the goddess of many feathers. We had found a new pyramid, a very tiny thing, really a hump of brick steps in the jungle. The proscribed day came and the goddess arrived. Many people were present on this day, fearing the end of the world or celebrating because any day is a good excuse to get drunk. The goddess was very angry. No one worshipped her anymore; they worshipped a great gray god, without feathers, and his might was greater than hers but she was still a goddess, however tiny, and deserved some respect.

She recognized me as the blessed girl, reincarnated. She demanded justice for humanities crimes. Even a tiny goddess can wreck havoc upon the earth; she had been the source of all the earthquakes and mudslides in the Americas. I grabbed another assistant and slit his throat upon the temple, he was scared but he did not fight. He had been looking for her, for purpose, for some kind of god, his whole life. She took his soul and brought it up to her feathered heaven while I ripped out his heart and ground it into the stones.

"One sacrifice will be enough," I announced to the terrified assembled. And the feathered goddess was satisfied, for all those years of non-worship, to have a single soul and feathers, and she returned to the earth. The quakes stopped, the people went about their lives and could worship the great god unmolested as before.

All is well.

The dream changed. Now I was a different kind of daughter, the child of a holy man, an imam maybe, some great cleric of a faith similar to Islam. Somehow, I had fallen in love with a boy who was not of the faith. I had not been immodest, I was simply in love, and would marry no other though they locked in my room and threatened me. So it was declared then I would never marry. A wily friend of ours, perhaps a nursemaid of my youth, and believing in the powers of love and destiny, hid our love tokens in a chest, along with my bridal dowry that was supposed to have been destroyed. For two years I did not speak a word, only hung my head, and ate little, just enough to stay alive. My body frailed and I lay bedridden and gathering my death. Likewise did the boy lose his luster, but came and called to me every dusk until the guard would shoo him away and he would leave. Finally, in two years, as I lay upon the threshold of death, did my father relent and consent for me to marry this seeming infidel boy. The chest was brought forth, lo, a miracle it had not been destroyed, and we were wed, and there was peace between two great houses, though they were of two faiths, and there was peace in that land between the peoples of the two faiths.

All will be well.

And then I woke up.

Last night AgtOrange swore he almost went to the couch, on account I was tossing and turning all night long. That explains why I only want to go back to bed and prolong my nine hour rest. I dreamed I owned a nightclub.

And before you say, that sounds cool, so you were dancing and hanging out all night in your dream? No, I mean I dreamed I REALLY owned a nightclub, or was starting up one, and we didn't have enough cleaning crew, drunks were fighting, some government bureaucrat swore I had some license wrong in an effort to get more money from me, there wasn't enough parking so we were having people park in an adjacent dirt lot, there were some car breakins so I was having staff patrol that dirt lot unofficially. Then I was getting more bureaucrats saying I couldn't use that lot as it wasn't mine, to which my response was "I didn't tell anyone to park there, what people do with their cars is their own business." Add that to the regular hell of owning a bar, liquor orders, bitchy cocktail waitresses, insane cooks, drunk bartenders, drunk customers, security escalating fights instead of diffusing them, the constant worry of being robbed (on account we didn't have a good enough security system or locks for when the club was closed) and you'll get a closer picture to what my dream was like. Oh yeah, and for some reason no one wanted to go into this one back room in the storage area because one of the cleaning ladies swore it was haunted.

Did I mention this dance club was also open during the day, but as a sports rec center? The bar wasn't making enough money on its own, so in the afternoons (post cleanup), we'd have these pullout bleachers on one wall and the dancefloor was a giant gymnasium with a basketball court for games. The other wall had indoor rockclimbing handholds on it and we'd throw down mats, which was creating a problem at night because drunks wanted to climb the wall. Um... yeah... didn't say my dream made any sense, it just made me tired.

The previous dream was I found an eatery/cafe/bar that was also a medical clinic. Basically you could get a drink and watch people have minor procedures done on the other side of a glass wall. Creepy and I don't think it flies well as a concept bar.

I want to go back to bed desperately, but I have my biking class this afternoon. *sigh*

As I ready myself for bed tonight it occurs to me to write down last night's odd dream lest I forget it by morning.

I was a student, in a university much like the ancient Greeks had, but in a place called Faralon. I was about to graduate and I had a choice, either become a member of the Faralon staff (I think it was an island) and stay there forever, or gather up the things most precious to me and leave, never to return. There was this huge elaborate gathering ceremony, where one assembled all the items deemed precious and traced outlines on a huge mural on the glories of Faralon.

"It isn't fair," I complained to anonymous dream voices, "I've only been here for the length of one dream." I don't remember their exact reply, but it equated to 'Life isn't fair'.

As I was finishing the ceremony, I started to wake up.

"Wait!" I yelled to the dream-voices, "Which one did I pick?"

"Isn't it obvious?" came the reply.

Now this felt like just an ordinary (if somewhat unusual) dream, but when I looked up Farallon I found two entries. One is "Faralon Rock", off of Tobago and Trinidad. The other, which 'resonates' with me more, is an ancient oceanic plate called Farallon Plate. It's named after the Farallon Islands. I have never heard of either to my memory, or any other place called Faralon. Who knows, in some alternate reality maybe I dreamt of Atlantis. Wouldn't that be a good fantasy story?

Where do these dreams keep coming from? Last night I dreamed I was in school, only it was muppet-land. I was also Harold from Harold and Maude. Anyway, a panther had gotten loose in the science lab and they had had to shut down the whole department. Funny thing was, it was a muppet panther, so in half the dream I'm being chased by the equivalent of a stuffed sock.

This is decidedly weirder than the dream of a few nights ago, where I was in a gang with a midget and we robbed a young Prince Charles for his wallet.

I am still sick, I think I caught a new cold while at the clinic. No fever, so it can't be flu, but I still feel pretty crappy.

Last night I dreamed about my rabbit, the one I had to give up when I had nowhere to live. In my dream I worked in a veterinary office and he died in my dream. We put the animals into a giant crematorium and suddenly he woke up and I picked him up from the pile of dead animals and was filled wish such a sense of peace I retained it through waking for several minutes. Then there was only loss, and a feeling of closure.

It occurs to me that, even if not a portentious dream of death, the bunny I took home as a wee bitty thing is very much now a senior citizen. I will not ever see him again and he did go to a better place than what I could provide at the time.

I am still sad, even though I don't think I was meant to be based on the dream alone... sometimes messages from your subconscious can be very painful.

I've been having odd and disturbing dreams since I've been sick, mostly due to the cold medicine. I am prone to night terrors anyway. For some reason, it makes me violently angry when I have a nightmare sleeping next to someone else and they won't wake up. I feel as if they should somehow share my misery and inability to sleep.

In the night I was attacked by zombies -- wake -- attacked by gang of crazy druggies, one bearing a meat cleaver -- wake -- attacked by an old man intruder and raped at gunpoint/knifepoint while AgtOrange slept beside me. For some unknown reason of dream logic, the old man was also sometimes Jason from Friday the 13th. That dream really woke me up and when I was awake, heart pounding in the dark, AgtOrange is immovably snoring and peacefully unwakeable. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to deck him or pour boiling water on him. How dare he sleep after I just had the most unspeakable nightmare about him being asleep while I am raped and beaten and run screaming half naked down the apartment hallway banging on doors for help? And I know it was just a dream, and that he would most likely wake up if a real intruder ever came in, but don't really know that because he sleeps like a rock when he's snoring.

I finally got back to sleep and dreamed there was a special computer art program I really wanted to attend... the only problem was it was a type of rehab program and I was desperately high/drunk. Managed to sleep the rest of the night while dreaming I was working on some kind of awesome art project and living in mute terror the powers-that-be would find out how not sober I was and throw me out. Hell, that's not even a nightmare in my book anymore.

Still woke up earlier than I'd wanted (which was early enough, since I have things I want to do today). So I'm making coffee and trying to get out all this mute rage out of me before I wake AgtOrange with it, by telling him off and telling him exactly what I think -- which is unwarranted and no way for anyone to be woke up in the early morning. I know it is not logical to feel this way. But I also know that I spent the night scared and being scared for no reason makes me angry.

I hate bad dreams.

Last night I dreamed I was watching the news, and on it was a report of a guy who had just been caught for randomly trapping and either raping or torturing women. Now, the reason the newsfolk were up in arms was not so much the guy (that was shocking news, but not national-worthy), but that apparently a couple of guys were eyewitnesses to the goings-on and never did or said anything about it. No matter how hard the journalists and police looked into the matter, neither of these dudes had anything to do with the crime or criminal, yet neither of them called to report it or attempted to stop the guy or help the women at all.

The second nighmare of today was my trip to the dentist, but it also isn't nationally newsworthy (or blogworthy).

A more terrifying prospect, Iran may have enough fuel for an atomic bomb. I don't like to be a fearmonger overall (but so much of that has proven to be bullsh*t to allow our own government a chance to takeover), but the Threat of Nuclear Attack is of Real Concern. Note the keyword CONCERN, not PANIC. We have to look at this stuff very seriously, and make rational choices and decisions regarding national security.

I had one of my incredibly bizarre dreams last night, this time I had a great idea for a new type of shoe and I was looking for funding. I would meet these people and talk to them about my idea because it was so exciting. Some of them loved the idea and wanted to support me. This other group of 'bad guys' thought I was working on some horrible top secret weapons project, so they were murdering anyone who wanted to help me with my shoe. But the murdered people were putting funding money for me in their wills, so the bad guys were also destroying the wills and stealing the money so it would never get to me.

In the dream, I didn't know any of this. All I knew was too many new friends around me were mysteriously dying for no reason and strange things continued to occur. The murdered souls were trying to help me find their wills so I would know I was being stolen from. Basically, they were haunting me and telling me to make this new shoe.

Funny thing is, when I woke up I told the dream to AgtOrange, and then I got to thinking about all the weirdness of it. Then I started thinking about this bizarre shoe, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized it WAS a revolutionary shoe idea. So now I have this crazy awesome invention that I really think would work, and I swear it came to me from a dead person(s) in my dream, which either means I've gone completely off my bork or that my inner creative genius is stranger than I could have possibly imagined.

As AgtOrange states, "you don't even dream normal."

References:
How We're Wrecking Our Feet With Every Step
Jazz Sandals -- these are the closest shoes I could find to the incredible idea in my head

I guess it started with the minor fight, and I suppose that really started with my silly idea to clear the Tivo by watching everything and deleting nothing. Too much flash rots your brain, makes you restless and willing to believe. I don't watch movies with gang violence, I don't watch movies about druggies, or that depict horror scenes or anything set during the Vietnam War. If I wanted to see such things, I'd just close my eyes and remember. Okay, maybe I don't remember the war before my birth, but I know it spirals down into my DNA like a slow-blooming cancer virus.

AgtOrange wasn't really thinking when he suggested I see Strange Days. So about the time I'm drawn into a violent death-rape-taser scene I look down in shock and see my hands have begun to shake all on their own. I can't think other than fight or flight, and I have enough sense left to know there is nothing but smoke and mirrored textures left to pummel, that nothing of my trauma-past remains other than a few minor twitches of the hands and a distinguished lack of breath. I stack clothes over my plastic skin and rush out the door.

"I wouldn't sit a war vet down to watch Platoon," I tell him later for an example, even though I've never been able to watch the movie myself to see if it's really as graphic as I think. I don't have to watch it. Just the cut scenes of choppers flying low over wet-flapping jungle is enough to vapor suck the air from the room.

I take a long walk until the shakes stop, until I can calmly discuss the blue television glow still burned into the backs of my eyelids, which will be there still for a few days every time I think back to it. I dreamed that night about the BatCave, about a robber breaking in with a knife yet somehow I surprise him. Turning the tables in that dead instant of reaction time and holding him at knifepoint. Only AgtOrange wasn't in the dream, in the dream it was Pretty living there, and Pretty who says he'll hold the robber so I can call the police from my cellphone, Pretty who understands how little I know about knifing anyone, how I am only holding the thief with the thief's own shallow fear.

When I return to the room, having phoned for help, I find that Pretty is torturing the criminal with that knife, holding him down to the ground in a painful armbreak and shallowly stabbing him from point to point. I am horrified. I wake up. It's the kind of thing Pretty would do in real life, something I didn't know when I'd first met him.

In the black nothing, my eyes bolt open and I try to pull AgtOrange up from sleeping, to sit with me until the nightmare fades. He doesn't wake, murmurs something meant to be comforting and falls back into sleep. In the dark, my eyes are opened. I see how the night has fallen from me, how once inside me the anger resided so burning I would have dreamed of myself, stabbing and torturing some hapless villain. How in waking hours I would have woke to a dissimilar horror, one in which I fought my own dark impulses never voiced, one in which I was horrified to discover such sadism living in my subconscious. Now, the only awful segment was in my failure to protect, for no matter how awful his person, I could never torture a helpless victim. Somewhere in the night, I changed sides. I slept.

Last night I dreamed as deep as an ocean trench. I am still fighting the effect of the burned-light images, every touch by human hands I fight down the recoil, the involuntary tremor that makes me want to slap out and scream. I am winning. I will win.

Today was gun class, my introduction to handguns and pistols. I went in serious, studious, and focusing. I learned, I quieted -- I did really rather well. The instructor helped me correct the one problem screwing up my aim and afterward I could shoot any of the handguns within a three-inch center circle from seven yards away, including a double-action .38 special. This is only the second time I've fired a handgun in my life. The first time was will no meaningful instruction and then I failed to even hit the target at first. Now I have a target with a single bullet hole, dead center, done with a double-action revolver .22 caliber from five yards -- a combination of talent and beginner's luck.

I had wanted to learn to box, to fight, on account I had this feeling of reclaiming my power. I wasn't sure if it would work at the time, but now I know I was right. The more I learn to defend myself, the more I improve my physical prowess through vigorous training and self-discipline, the less I feel that rage which at one point used to gnaw at my powers of self-mastery. Not only do I not want to hurt anyone, but I feel almost defeated at the idea of not being able to defend someone. I shoot, I am power. I fight, I am power. I run, I heal, I love, I play, I dance, I command, I am... I am... I am.

I am going to be the best bodyguard ever.

Last night I had a terrible dream in which, for whatever reason, I was forced to move back home. Only it was the old, old apartment from my childhood, when Pops was still vicious in his anger, but after ThirdStep was around. I moved in all my stuff and took a day or two to slack off and not think about whatever trauma was behind this move. My dad was suddenly furious, we start arguing and he goes to my closet and grabs one of my shirts.

"I've always hated this shirt. It's so ugly," he says, and rips it apart. It's a button-up, silk, a shirt I remember having back in high school but one I left behind when my father threw me out all those years ago.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" I yell, but get no answer. He's very determined to shred this shirt into strips. I march into his bedroom and he drops the shirt and follows me, daring me to start tearing up stuff so he can beat the crap out of me. I grab an article of clothing; it turns out to be one belonging to ThirdStep.
"You see this? Do you see me tearing up shit? No. Why? Because I have RESPECT," I say forcefully, shaking some horribly checkered pants-thing at him.
"Respect is it? What about you leaving and being gone to Georgetown, and then ThirdStep's stuff is all lying around where anyone can steal it?" This is the moment in the dream where I realize this argument has nothing to do with me being slothful and unproductive. It has nothing to do with my vague feeling of guilt at having taken a few days off for mental sanity. Something has happened to something of hers, and it doesn't matter whether or not he thinks I'm responsible. He'd like to slyly insinuate that somehow it is my fault, but he doesn't really believe it and, truthfully, it doesn't matter. Either way, he's going to find a way to put fault on me. The realization comes slowly, trickling water into my brain, and at first there is only confusion.
"What are you talking about?" This is all I can say, and he smiles meanly, as if to imply he is up to my tricks, and walks off. He announces that I have to get out, now. I start packing up my things yet again, taking the most important stuff only, something I've had to do repeatedly throughout my life. He's in the living room, lying down on the couch as if to sleep, with his back toward me. I can see the back of his head on the armrest of the couch as I shout down the hallway.
"You have to give me thirty days notice to throw me out," I yell, "the law says so." He doesn't even turn his head to yell back.
"Is that so? Thirty days is on Monday." It is Saturday afternoon in the dream and this fact is blatantly untrue. Only two or three days have passed since I've moved home, but I know I have no proof. If the police come, he will lie and say he gave me notice, he may even come up with a fake handwritten notice which he will claim I have received.
"You can't do that," I say, not as forcefully, knowing I've lost.
"Stay longer if you want," he says, not at all angry sounding now, "but your shit will be destroyed by then."

And then I woke up.

What did I take away from this? Well, I fully understand the anger in the dream, having been both perpetrator and victim to such vicious deeds. I know about displacement, how one person gets mad and takes it out on an inanimate object that can't fight back. It is an unhealthy kind of anger, one which creates only more anger because it never addresses the cause. It is like trying to put out a fire by giving it something different to burn. Normally I do not displace anger; from early on I began a habit every bit as destructive -- cutting. When my father would turn his barbs on me, I would retreat to my room and flesh out this anger until the blood ran red as rage. The habit died out, but this is some part of the drive for me to become a bodyguard, this primal instinct that says when the rage of the world is focused down, somehow I should be the one to stand in the way. It sounds like self-loathing, but it isn't. Rather, it feels more like my purpose in the world, my function I was put here to do, a nasty job but a necessary one. This job lends a little meaning to my life beyond the ordinary. Being a protection specialist isn't a great job, but it is one of the very few which suits me. When I think about putting on this persona, the mantle of purpose falls over me and fits tight like a glove. I don't think of doing it because I dislike myself, I do it because it's my job. In the grand scheme of things, I already protect, for the same reason that lawyers file depositions and janitors clean toilets.

Why now? Why feel this anger now? Is there something in my life I should be angry about? Do I feel victimized now? I looked at my current life and nothing stood out. Somewhere along the line, I must have absorbed this childhood anger and owned it. This is the only way it could come back to me. I am reminded of the story of Buddha when he refused to accept the anger of another, which I will repost here for those who need a refresher.

( Read more... )

In all that blood, somewhere I claimed all that anger as my own, otherwise I could not dream of it. I will need to take a deep and introspective look at myself, meditate, cleanse, and finally, accept whatever remains. The dream itself may have been part of that, my subconscious purging out old hatreds in a violent nightmare tempest.

The other thing that stood out was my total lack of fear in the dream. In real life, back in the days when I lived at home and my father was a rageaholic (which is now not the case so much), I lived in mute terror of Pops. The rage was unpredictable, often without cause, and let's face it, he was a hell of a lot bigger and stronger than I. I would never, ever have confronted him as I did in the dream. I would never have dared. Yet in the dream I felt only frustration at his refusal to listen or believe in me, his suspicion of me, and a sort of bitter disappointment at once again having to leave behind whatever goods I'd managed to acquire, at having to start over with absolutely nothing but my laptop and a change of clothes. I know that my fear has dropped away from me piece by piece as I have grown and changed. I still have fear, but I think it is a much more healthy fear than the absolute mute terror I lived in for so many years.

Yesterday was pretty eventful, so eventful I passed out before I could blog about it. I will go over all the ups and downs of yesterday in the next post, after I've had time to hash it all out in my head.

Be careful of your suffering and what you view as sin. Some are sins; some are not; and sometimes the sin isn't where you are seeing it. Remember that it is not your godliness and purity that I so admire, for why should I admire that which is myself? It is instead your human frailty I most cherish.

It's been awhile, I've been depressed, I've been disheartened. I suffered through my exhaustion Monday, a failed laser hair removal appointment Tuesday (as I never did get in touch with Bar in time and she figured I had cancelled), a wrongful move caused by my disappointment on Tuesday night, a fight with MizThang included, missing the metro home and crashing on another friend's uncomfortable couch, my irritation with Commando for daring to be jealous.

I didn't want to see anybody, and my foot still hurts. Fireworks were not on the agenda any longer, and if I don't catch the folklife festival this weekend (which seems to be the case) I will miss it entirely. I really need to be working, however. There is too much to do. Sparks called, I will be helping with his website, and I spoke to Feng who is currently on travel. I put in a bid on an article about the DanceStudio which I may write either way. It has decent sales potential. Always more projects, of course.

I did end up finally letting Commando cajole me over, where we watched a couple of movies I'd already seen, but good ones of course. I went to the office, I worked, I am here now.

Last night, I dreamt the GreatMmm spoke through me, to several holy men and women I've encountered in the past, those who have shown the god-light shining through them... and yet sinners all, just better at hiding their sins, perhaps a little guiltier-feeling than the rest of us. In the dream, blood trickled from my nose and eyes as I began speaking, low in a voice not my own, something akin to the quote written above, and then I passed out.

I dreamed a second dream. There was a book, with words I could clearly see and read, of great importance. I could not remember them upon waking.

I dreamed a third dream. Commando was there, and he gave me a bouquet of roses and I scorned him, brushing aside their ordinariness. We met a second time, and he gave me a miniature rose this time, encased in glass but still with thorns intact. He'd grown it inside the twisted glass sculpture.

"Forgive me my previous silliness," I said to him. "It's a perfect rose." And I was forgiven. Later I would thank him for something that did not occur, or maybe I dreamed a thank you. Lately I've been doing that, dreaming that I've done something and then believing it when I actually wake up -- like an email sent, a phone call made to cancel a lunch, all sorts of things wrapped up in my head.

I dreamed a fourth dream, a fifth, more, each one losing an edge of clarity as my mind wandered from trance-like state into ordinary slumber where the night grew dark and heavy and without dreams of any kind.