Dream or get out of Bed...
Sep. 22nd, 2008 12:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonI know, I know... the only thing more tedious than having someone tell you about their dreams is having someone blog about them instead. While the dreamer is more than certain s/he is narrating a surrealist tour-de-force filled with Jungian insights across a restless landscape rich in liquid symbols melting into hazy insights... the listener on the other hand seems to be hearing an overly-detailed account of what is most likely nothing more than a psychic bowel movement.
Like shit, it would seem, no one really believes their dreams stink!
Nevertheless (alwaysthemore?) I feel compelled to try and keep a written narrative of that unique life that exists only between the waking light and the unmeasurable shadow of its absence. It is perhaps the fact that while I sleep I find myself telling a story I have never heard before... a story in which I am both the protagonist and the author, both the theater director and the audience, a hunter hunting himself, running around in circles trying to catch his own tale... an amnesiac Narcissus trapped in an labyrinth whose walls are lined with funhouse mirrors. In my writing these down perhaps I hope to find my Aridane Red Thread that, if not providing an escape, will at least offer me the faintest hint of understanding myself better.
I never got kicked out of the Navy after all. In fact I was still serving aboard the same ship I was assigned to and had actually made the rank of Chief Petty Officer somehow. My ship was in dry dock in what appeared to be an abandoned port. The ship was going to be decommisoned and refurbished to become a grade school of some sort. I was given the task of making a last look through to ensure nothing dangerous remained onboard for the children to get ahold of. As I wondered through her passageways I noticed the bulkheads were now decorated with crude crayon drawings, that the Mess Hall had recently converted into a mass classroom (the tables filled with pencils, paste, plastic scissors and textbooks), the helicopter pad had become a makeshift gym and the bow had become a playground - her guns and missile tubes replaced with swing sets, slides and a 'round-about'.
There seemed to be no one else on the ship but me.
I went down into the Engine Rooms to sneak in a quick smoke (note: During my time in the Navy the one place a sailor could sneak in a smoke during flight quarters or a training drill was down in the bilges where even the CHENG barely ventured). Here I discovered that the engineering spaces had been flooded to create what I can only describe as a massive swimming pool. The various propulsion and auxilary machinery remained submerged and for some reason I had the feeling that what I was seeing was not so much the familiar engineering room I had labored in for so may years, but rather a complex stage set for a science fiction movie.
Yet for some reason I felt the overwhelming urge to go for a swim. I stripped out of my uniform and dived in. When I emerged out of the waters surface I was no longer on the ship but in the swimming pool of a motel complex. I dried off. I realized I was no longer in the Navy anymore but was the more current version of the 'me' I've become familiar with over the last decade. I felt both relieved and saddened by this as I dried off and slipped into my 'Civies'. My friend Berny was there, he told me I was running late and that he was supposed to give me a ride to meet up with Vee. We drove for awhile through a blinding mist and I told Berny to be careful because there was no visibility but he just laughed and said he didn't need to see where we were going because he knew the way by heart. Finally after awhile we arrived somewhere. I got out of the car and stepped into Vee's ride, which upon entering turned into a sort of honeymoon suite. We sat on the edge of a bed and talked for awhile. There was something taboo about the whole thing, I felt guilty for some reason and I realized then that it wasn't Vee but her doppleganger (or twin sister, though she doesn't have one, I'm a little uncertain here). She went to kiss me but I leaned back and told her I had a girlfriend (one that looked just like her). She laughed and explained that she herself had two boyfriends... me and a me that was not me.
Yeah, I know... it doesn't make sense to me either.
When we leaned back on the bed Vee became another woman, one that wasn't even human but more of a sort of elf sort of person (she had dragonfly wings sprout of her back, her ears became fins of some sort and she seemed to be dissolving into some kind of snake through a miasma of gray vapor). I suddenly became terrified but also really turned on. I laid back to receive her but then she was gone.
I was now back at the old motel swimming pool deck I had emerged from earlier. My ex girlfriend was there on a lounge chair beside me. She asked me if I asked Vee the question. I didn't know what she was talking about and my ex laughed, kissed me awkwardly on the cheek and then dived into the swimming pool. I waited for her to come back up but she never did. I felt very scared then. Guilty. Nervous. Watched.
Then Berny arrived again suddenly and told me not to worry about it, there was some sort of mix up in communication and he had dropped me off at the wrong place.
He told me the real Vee would be here soon but I had to be patient. He then left me again and I sat alone on the pool veranda watching the surface for someone to emerge.
That's all I remember.
Anyway... maybe in a few days, weeks, months or whatever I'll look at this and find some clue to my state of mind. For now a simple record will suffice.
Like shit, it would seem, no one really believes their dreams stink!
Nevertheless (alwaysthemore?) I feel compelled to try and keep a written narrative of that unique life that exists only between the waking light and the unmeasurable shadow of its absence. It is perhaps the fact that while I sleep I find myself telling a story I have never heard before... a story in which I am both the protagonist and the author, both the theater director and the audience, a hunter hunting himself, running around in circles trying to catch his own tale... an amnesiac Narcissus trapped in an labyrinth whose walls are lined with funhouse mirrors. In my writing these down perhaps I hope to find my Aridane Red Thread that, if not providing an escape, will at least offer me the faintest hint of understanding myself better.
I never got kicked out of the Navy after all. In fact I was still serving aboard the same ship I was assigned to and had actually made the rank of Chief Petty Officer somehow. My ship was in dry dock in what appeared to be an abandoned port. The ship was going to be decommisoned and refurbished to become a grade school of some sort. I was given the task of making a last look through to ensure nothing dangerous remained onboard for the children to get ahold of. As I wondered through her passageways I noticed the bulkheads were now decorated with crude crayon drawings, that the Mess Hall had recently converted into a mass classroom (the tables filled with pencils, paste, plastic scissors and textbooks), the helicopter pad had become a makeshift gym and the bow had become a playground - her guns and missile tubes replaced with swing sets, slides and a 'round-about'.
There seemed to be no one else on the ship but me.
I went down into the Engine Rooms to sneak in a quick smoke (note: During my time in the Navy the one place a sailor could sneak in a smoke during flight quarters or a training drill was down in the bilges where even the CHENG barely ventured). Here I discovered that the engineering spaces had been flooded to create what I can only describe as a massive swimming pool. The various propulsion and auxilary machinery remained submerged and for some reason I had the feeling that what I was seeing was not so much the familiar engineering room I had labored in for so may years, but rather a complex stage set for a science fiction movie.
Yet for some reason I felt the overwhelming urge to go for a swim. I stripped out of my uniform and dived in. When I emerged out of the waters surface I was no longer on the ship but in the swimming pool of a motel complex. I dried off. I realized I was no longer in the Navy anymore but was the more current version of the 'me' I've become familiar with over the last decade. I felt both relieved and saddened by this as I dried off and slipped into my 'Civies'. My friend Berny was there, he told me I was running late and that he was supposed to give me a ride to meet up with Vee. We drove for awhile through a blinding mist and I told Berny to be careful because there was no visibility but he just laughed and said he didn't need to see where we were going because he knew the way by heart. Finally after awhile we arrived somewhere. I got out of the car and stepped into Vee's ride, which upon entering turned into a sort of honeymoon suite. We sat on the edge of a bed and talked for awhile. There was something taboo about the whole thing, I felt guilty for some reason and I realized then that it wasn't Vee but her doppleganger (or twin sister, though she doesn't have one, I'm a little uncertain here). She went to kiss me but I leaned back and told her I had a girlfriend (one that looked just like her). She laughed and explained that she herself had two boyfriends... me and a me that was not me.
Yeah, I know... it doesn't make sense to me either.
When we leaned back on the bed Vee became another woman, one that wasn't even human but more of a sort of elf sort of person (she had dragonfly wings sprout of her back, her ears became fins of some sort and she seemed to be dissolving into some kind of snake through a miasma of gray vapor). I suddenly became terrified but also really turned on. I laid back to receive her but then she was gone.
I was now back at the old motel swimming pool deck I had emerged from earlier. My ex girlfriend was there on a lounge chair beside me. She asked me if I asked Vee the question. I didn't know what she was talking about and my ex laughed, kissed me awkwardly on the cheek and then dived into the swimming pool. I waited for her to come back up but she never did. I felt very scared then. Guilty. Nervous. Watched.
Then Berny arrived again suddenly and told me not to worry about it, there was some sort of mix up in communication and he had dropped me off at the wrong place.
He told me the real Vee would be here soon but I had to be patient. He then left me again and I sat alone on the pool veranda watching the surface for someone to emerge.
That's all I remember.
Anyway... maybe in a few days, weeks, months or whatever I'll look at this and find some clue to my state of mind. For now a simple record will suffice.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2008-09-22 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-09-22 07:01 pm (UTC)Maybe that's true of all writing, perhaps?
Thanks for the food for thought.
Hope all is well on your end.
-R
no subject
on 2008-09-22 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-09-22 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-09-22 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-09-22 08:34 pm (UTC)That's all I can make out of it.
no subject
on 2008-09-22 08:43 pm (UTC)Still it's better than my recurring dream about being shaved by a talking baboon who is overly fond of quoting Joyce first think in the morning... *shivers*
no subject
on 2008-09-22 08:46 pm (UTC)