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Fermius Firefly

A Dream Log, whenever I remember the dreams I've had.

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Name:
Location: San Marcos, United States

Fermius is a pen name drawn from a series of short fiction I wrote when I published the small press magazine Stellanova (on paper.) I play RPG games to escape from my daily grind as a technology wage slave for the state of California. I eat out a lot in order to do my part in supporting our increasingly service level economy. I am butler to 2 feline masters. If you ask them they will tell you I'm not very good at it, late with dinner, don't have enough hands with brushes in them, and sometimes I even lock them out of their office.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Space Artifact - Halls of Doors

Dreamed I was on some sort of station in orbit around the Moon. An asteroid had been found with some sort of ancient construction in it. The asteroid had been hollowed out and living quarters and labs had been fitted throughout the long tube that had been carved through the center of the rocky body. What was odd about the thing is that it had a gravitational field on each of the four "walls" of the tunnel. Each wall had cubical farms in the center, and along the outer edge of each was a section of doors, or portals.
The doors, about 8 feet wide and slightly less tall were in a raised square cross section that ran the length of the tunnel. There was a door about every ten feet, so there was less than a foot between them. Each of the doors had many indicator lights and screens of data, most were inactive. All four sides of the tunnel acted as a floor, and each of the four tunnels had doors on each side.
There were rails that you could climb that would take you over the square cross section holding the doors, and would allow you to shift to the new direction of the gravity. You could look up and see people walking through the halls 80 feet or so above you. Some of us had rigged ropes up through the center of the habitat areas, just to have the experience of climbing up and through the zero G point in the center of the tunnel. We also ran a steel cable through the center so you could move from one end of the artifact to the other. (The tunnel was just over two miles long.) One of my many jobs was to fly the "Crane" an aerodynamic space hybrid that was capable of hovering like a helicopter or space ship. It was tethered to the central cable most of the time. I had helped build the vehicle and had come up with the telescoping counterweights that allowed us to hover over any part of the station.
When we'd found the place, it had been vented to space, explosively, from the inside. We'd managed to retrofit some airlocks on either end and fill it with atmosphere. (Ours was different than the remains of atmosphere we detected in sealed rooms.)
The section with the doors had an edge on each of the four with bright light that kept the entire place in near daylight. The color of the light was slightly greenish, the plants seemed to like it a great deal. We'd been in the place for over a year, and had never been able to open one of the doors yet. We'd managed to get readings of activity on a couple of dozen, though.
One of the doors opened on its own, and beings from another world exchanged radio data with us, and we soon had a mathematical understanding, a time and place understanding, but not much else. We were not making much headway until we finally deciphered a warning. (We thought it was a warning, it used the number 81 and connected it to the symbol we interpreted as their people, then the number in the next few transmissions diminished rapidly down to 9. The sequence repeated three times, and then the information with the door and date, which was counting down, then the warning frame again.)
"UNTRANSLATABLE is returning," with a door number and a date in the not too distant future. As you can imagine, this caused a great deal of panic, even in a group of folks partially chosen for their level headedness. The door slid closed with little warning and no way of stopping it. The materials the door was made of only slowed little at the steel wedge we'd inserted. (It housed our probe circuitry.) It did hold the door long enough to witness the portal disconnect; leaving the station it had connected to and drifting into interstellar space at an impossible rate.
It took us a while to figure out their door numbering system, and once we did we cleared the station for 100 feet in every direction from that door. Heavy weapons were brought in and assembled on the floor across from it. Marines were trained and brought up from Earth. On the date of the door opening the artifact was abandoned except for Marines and a few volunteer scientists, as well as a few of us technicians. All of us were armed. As the evacuation occurred several of the more panicky types continued to argue that we should blow the airlocks as a precaution. That had been considered, but the feeling was that Space Suits were too difficult to allow for effective operation of the soldier's equipment. I was in the small craft that we used to move equipment through the center of the artifact's zero G area. I had a Marine in the jump seat with a pulse laser drill. We swooped slowly through the tunnel, turning and looping back from a couple of hundred feet on each side.
I was checking on the status of the emergency evacuation tubes we'd installed Each one would take one or two people and seal them and launch them towards the airlocks on either side of the door. For speed's sake we already had the inner freight airlock doors open on each side of the artifact. We could be removing about a dozen at a time; shuttles were on the other side of the locks. Or, depending on how bad things got, we would blow the locks outer doors and shuttles would recover the life pods as they could. We'd calculated that most would go into a high looping orbit around the moon and be relatively easy to recover.
Below us the door indicated a positive pressure difference, we'd figured out how to read some of the indicators. The door slid open. Heat began to pour in through the opening, the temperature was about 180 degrees on the other side. A marine commented that they were looking into the mouth of Hell. "Something is coming!" another one warned. We were not in a position to see through the door, and the monitor though about 17 inches, didn't give much detail through the swirl of heat. It did look like a long tunnel much like this one only with this door in the end of the tunnel rather than along the length. Several of their doors were open. The floors of their tunnel were pockmarked and melted, something we hadn't been able to accomplish. There were shapes moving in the doorways. Unlike our tunnel, nothing indicated, to my eyes, that the floors were inhabited at all. Marines started praying, the first alien object pulled itself through the doorway and I could see the air behind it sparkling with a laser beam back into their tunnel.
"They're using lasers instead of radio," I commented to no one in particular. I tried to get a data read from the flashing light, but my systems were not sensitive enough to make out any data.
"Incoming!" came the shout from the floor across from the door. I switched the camera view to their position, a door shaped object with an accordian front was accelerating towards the door at an angle that would land it on the tunnel floor opposite the door, roughly in the center. Science operatives on that floor pulled back behind bunkers. Just in time. The object burst through the door, lasers pulsing in every direction. I shot past us, missing us, but melting holes in our counterweight system. I was able to maintain control.
The invader slammed into the wall/floor on the right and the front end collapsed. As it did so it blew small pods out in every direction. Bunkers vanished where the pods landed.
Missles streaked from a few survivors racing through the doorway, knocking the next intruder aside enough to cause it to collide with the doorframe on their side of the door. Several missile impacted on it and knocked it aside (too bad I thought.) My gunner was drilling the intruder below us for all he was worth. Hot orange gouts of molten something spurted from the alien device where our pulse laser struck it. I gave him the ten minute powerdown warning and took evasive action as it swiveled around to fire lasers at us.
I pushed the throttle and hooked us into the center cable just as our thrusters were holed completely. The pulse laser batteries took a direct hit, even through the plating. I ejected, the Marine and I turning the silvered underside to our attacker. I hoped it would be enough. We must have drifted outside the devices firing angle, as it continued to pour fire into the body of our craft until it disintegrated, parts of it falling in all four directions.
I realized the young marine had been shouting at me, wanting to keep firing with his sidearm, until he saw the craft explode like fireworks, then he got very quite and just said, "Good call, sir."
I wasn't too sure how good the call was. We were headed for the central airlock on the far side of the artifact, but not fast enough to get there if more broke through, too fast to stop for a regular airlock cycle. I was trying to work out the timing on getting us out, but could see that wasn't going to work, I could hear air movement, our pod had take damage after all. While I had an airtight suit, the Marine didn't (His armor did have a sealable hood with a viewplate in it that would allow him about 3 minutes to get to auxiliary air or a life pod.)
I Started clamping the brakes on the cable and started lowering us into the gravitational field.
I noticed that there were other doors lighting up. As we came down in the hallway of the wall opposite our invader, I checked the door status, looping through the survey cameras, most of them had vacuum on the other side. I hoped our side of the door wouldn't open. I heard explosions and more missiles firing from behind us, but couldn't turn around far enough to see what was happening. The marine told me they'd stopped another one in the doorway. We broke and ran back towards the action, because that's where the escape pods were located (my reason) and that's where the action was (the Marine's reason.)
As the dream faded I heard someone shouting "they're back!" and on my channels scientists saying they've begin to decode the door control signals the invaders were using to activate our other doors. "Great," I thought, "If we survive we might have some idea of what to do next time."

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Diablo III and Haunted House Both Recurring Dream Themes

Dreamed more recurring themes on a Diablo III world. This time I was running an archer with a pokey henchman through a maze of sleeping dogs. Only by continuously running could I keep the henchman from attacking them.

I made it through, leaving the dogs behind. Made it into an area where the fields of desert plants were filled with archers.

I managed to clear a safe zone around us, and then the henchman ran off to attack something off screen, and, of course, dragged the mob back to us. I was running out of manna, firing a bright green batch of magic arrows so fast it looked like a machine gun. I couldn't save the henchman and only just managed to take out the last of the attackers, extremely fast zombies, with the last of my manna. I switched over to regular arrows. Sure enough, the unique bad guy was just off screen, my last few shots had passed through the crowd and hit him, causing him to charge me. He was enchanted with a fiery aura that took half my life orb the first time it struck. I managed to hit him with only one of the first ten arrows I fired. Not good odds. I had a bow full of runes of life stealing; it refilled my own life, but didn't drain his at all. I couldn't run as fast and even though when I hit him, he slowed down, it wasn't enough to keep him at bay. I tried running around some plants, but the AI was just a bit too smart to allow me to get away with that for long. Plus I had to stop where I had a clear shot at him to keep my life energy charged up. Finally I had enough manna to hit him with a blast of freezing arrows; just enough to slow him down so I could race back through the sleeping dogs. I hate purple Zombies.

Unfortunately, even though I had targeted him with a seeker arrow, somehow it also passed through one of the dogs, waking it. As the big bad guy finally went down, the dog started howling, waking up the eight others around me. I was swarmed and reduced to pulp in less time than it took me to fire a single arrow.

 

Another dreamed moment, clearing the garage in the haunted dream house. No ghosts helping this time though. I had to shovel it all out myself. Once everything was out of the garage, I could tell there was really room for four cars. I hadn't even noticed that there was a fourth car sized door there'd been so much stuff stacked up in the garage. I am not sure why I didn't notice it from outside.

I walked out to check and sure enough, there were two one car doors and one two car door next to them. There was no driveway up to the fourth door - that must be why I missed it.

I decided that now that the place was clean, I didn't want to put any of the junk back into the main garage area. The only things I brought back in were the tools and one workbench. "I have to build something now that I have room for it." I was imagining a flying saucer, or perhaps a radio telescope.

"Not until you make the kitty condos," N commented.

That meant that I had to bring the plywood and carpet remnants back into the garage. I got an interesting idea for the kitty condos, like the old tupperware blocks I had as a kid. Make some "White Things" or connectors, and make the other parts carpeted with a wooden edge to attach to the connectors. It would be a big set of building blocks. I figured I would drill holes and use dowls to hold everything together.

I couldn't figure out why I had to make kitty condos for the garage, we didn't really have any garage kitties in the dream. Only T-Rex, Ginger Muffin, Little John and Chloe Lumpkin-Queen of the Toasty Bookshelf; Peepers and Jennifur were back at the SM house, keeping an eye on things there. I don't know where Miranda and the Dolly Kittens were.

 

Ad astra per technica,

FF

 

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Fever Dream

The cats, though spayed and neutered, began to multiply. I thought it was difficult to sleep when one fluffy kitten was in weasel mode, in my dreams there were 5 of them, plus their mother Chloe Lumpkin, Queen of the Toasty Shelf. They kept jumping on my stomach and pulling off the covers. It was too cold to get up and put them all out of the room. When I finally did get up, they were all lying in a line at the end of the bed with one eye half open, pretending to be asleep. It is tough to stay mad when they're so darned cute.

When I woke this morning I was disappointed that they weren't real. (Although, realistically, we have plenty of cats.)

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Evacuating the Morphs

This dream starts in water. Unusual, most of my dreams end in water, that insistent urge of morning impinging on the dreamscape. This is also one of those dreams where I am somebody else in a situation far removed from any day to day reality.

I and several others trudged through a muddy bottomed stream, waist deep in water. Hundred foot high trees, vine covered on either side of us. There was the whine of machinery high over head, well above the trees. A spinning electric sound. Making our way along the watery path to hide our trail. We came at last to a small marshy field, open, contained on the other end by a small ridge made of glassy rock. Obsidian. We seemed to be in a small caldera. Across the marsh I could see pockets of steam rising into the air. I put everyone back into the trees and told them to get some sleep, we would cross the marsh in the darkness, under cover of fog.
I knew there would be fog, and the fog came. It built up in the marshy hollow, and as the temperature in the clear sky above dropped, the bowl filled with thick mist. I woke up our group, about four women, six children and one other man besides myself. I seemed to be the only one with modern arms, and even that was only a bolt action rifle with less than 100 rounds of ammunition.
I had some flashlights, the LED kind. I tuned them to a low red glow and gave them to the women, showing them how to flash them a little brighter when needed, but telling them no to do so unless it was really necessary, there were enough flashes in the mist that ours could be easily mistaken for natural processes. The steady parade of electronic whines over head had vanished, now replaced with only an occasional patrol. The owners of the craft, the ones we wanted to avoid, seemed to dislike moving around at night. I hadn't expected that. I found us a trail, one that took us through the warmer parts of the marsh, trying to hide our heat signature against the warm water springs and the streams and currents that flowed through them. We made it across the marsh, coming out near a steam filled spring feeding a waterfall out of the caldera and down into a jungle far below. The man and women of the group began gathering vines and weaving them together into a pair of ropes. They explained that it would only be sturdy up to a certain length, and then would be unreliable. The vines were not pliable enough to knot together, so I dropped down on the end of the first span, searching the steep slope for a tree thick enough to turn the second rope around. We descended, each woman taking one of the smaller children on their backs and the rest climbing down in pairs, lashed together by lighter vines. I climbed back up to the top and cut our vine free, using it like a "U" to lower myself halfway to the next tree. I then found a rock to loop the vine around and repeated the climb. Finally pulling the vines both down into the forest, hopefully hiding our trail. I knocked several rocks down to provide an excuse for the damaged foliage and we unwove the vines and arranged them as naturally as possible further down the trail. We followed game trails down the side of the cone until we reached a burned out village near its base. It was still dark, so I risked a trip through the grocery store, picking up canned goods and items in glass jars. I wasn't familiar with the writing or images, so hoped I had found something useful.
The women were glad to see the supplies and immediately started opening cans and distributing food. I couldn't eat it, it smelled like skunk and horse droppings. Fortunately I had MRE's in my backpack. They thought those smelled horrible. After a short meal break, we got back on the road, but only until the mist started to clear and the alien craft began to fly regularly. We found an old mine shaft and camped there. I opened up a 6x9 notepad computer and started scanning the maps of the area, I found what I thought was the town, then figured out about where we were. I tried to explain that we needed to get to a coastal area, and as the city along the coast was being occupied by their enemies, we would need to go around. I found mine tailings on a hillside overlooking the ocean in one of the aerial photographs. There was no way to know for certain if we were in the same mine complex. The children had been gathering fruit and water was plentiful in the mine. I asked if they could stay inside out of site for a couple of days. I wanted to find out if this mine came out on the hillside near where we needed to come out. I left the other man with the group and one of the women came with me, she had worked in these mines when she was a child.
I found out why she only worked here as a child. Once you got into the newer parts of the mine, the shafts were only about 5 foot tall, frequently smaller. Although she didn't know the route, she knew the general layout of the mine, and could tell for what a shaft was used by its size and cross section. I had a UV marker that we used to mark our path. It was the second day when we found the opening overlooking the beach. I waited until nightfall and used a UV laser to find my ship and report in. We made arrangements to rendezvous three days from now. The trip back took only about eight hours, I marked our trail on the map and on the beams. The LED flashlight highlighted the symbols I'd used in mapping the place, and allowed us to find our way back without all the back tracking and exploring. My guide had gathered several chunks of a chalky material and used it to create a nearly smokeless fire when we got back. Apparently the older children had risked another trip to the abandoned market for supplies and they had hot food that night. I also heated up some of mine, although it didn't really make much of a difference. I did find that I could eat some of the fruit that they couldn't, and most of the jungle fruit and nuts they could eat, I couldn't. Apparently our biology was very different. In my head I knew they were shape shifters, but I had not seen any of them leave their human forms.
Even though we were back with the group, the woman who'd accompanied me slept curled up with me. Up close they smelled like horses, or clean cows. Not unpleasant, but not particularly attractive either.
Shortly after we'd headed down the tunnels I heard an electric whining noise behind us. I gave the UV flash to the woman and dropped to the rear of the group. I made my way back to an intersection, and just as a precaution, changed all the marks on the beams to the same mark. I then headed down a side tunnel that I knew would eventually return to the main tunnel and back to our path. Ahead, I could hear the group running. I made some noise to cover and a small flying disk entered the main tunnel. I knocked over some of the chalky stone and lit it on fire. The electric whine intensified and the saucer flew towards me. I made sure it didn't see me as I sprinted down the hallway. I found a depression in the ground with a collapsed beam in front of it. I dropped prone and readied my rifle. The saucer game into the narrow tunnel, I could see puffs of air spiraling around its surface, it had bumps all over it like a Dalek. There was a sensor array dangling from the bottom of the craft, it finally spotted me and swiveled a pair of laser tubes around. I fired, hitting the sensor pod.
The pod exploded into debris, like safety glass. I racked the bolt back the brass clattering into the catch cage over the receiver. I fired again, hitting one of the laser tubes. The saucer tilted from the off center strike, causing its laser to pulse down the wall as it tried to bring it to bear on me. I fired again, just to keep it off balance, then on the fourth shot managed to strike the second laser. I rolled back and crawled quickly around the corner turning back to take a shot at it where it had climbed almost to the ceiling. It blew up, caving in the tunnel behind me. I barely avoided getting hammered by the debris of the blast. I raced back to catch up with the group. When I caught them, there were two of everyone. I thought I was seeing double, but they had come across another group of changlings. Somehow we had missed them, or I had missed them, my guide had known they were waiting for us. She didn't tell me because she didn't want me to abandon them when they took on another half dozen children. They really didn't have a very high opinion of most humans, it seems we were the ones attacking them and driving them out of this area. Even though we were all the same, all the time, we could be at war with one another, that was confusing to them, so they chose to think of me as a different creature from the ones attacking them, just morphed into that form, as they had done to get along when we first colonized their world.
We hadn't know they were capable of intelligence, actually, neither had they, until they had accidentally consumed one of us, that is. Intelligence spread through their species like wild fire, and some humans had adopted and begun teaching them, others had begun hunting them for other purposes. Our colony was trying to rescue as many as we could from this island, once we'd discovered the poachers. My group would be the last group out. Presuming we could make it. For some reason the poachers were far better armed than we were. When we got to the beach our submarine surfaced and unlimbered its deck gun. We used the pulse laser to keep the flying saucers away while loading the morphs aboard. I got a message that the colonial air patrol had managed to ground a poacher shuttle and rescued more of the morphs. Once the poachers reached orbit, we really had no way of stopping them. I jumped aboard last, the sub rocking under my weight. Pulled away from the shore. I fired the last several rounds in the rifle and managed to knock down three of the five drones. Our UV laser wasn't as effective as they had some sort of reflective coating. Their lasers, on the other hand, had done considerable damage to the deck. Fortunately the water caused their beams to disperse some. Still, I had several hole clean through my calves and one arm. My body armor had absorbed the chest hits, and I'd not been hit in the helmet or face. I dove into the water along side the sub and swam to the dive port on the underside. I wasn't looking forward to cleaning my rifle after swimming in the very algae full ocean of this world.
The dream kept going, mostly showering, cleaning my gear, teaching the woman morph how to use the doors and computer pads. (Which we called emersons even though mine was clearly manufactured by Mitsubishi.)

I noticed that the longer the morphs spent with us, the more they moved and smelled like us. It was a little disconcerting to know that this was not their shape, and some of them were using their morph to make their clothing, and some were wearing clothing. The more they read, watched and communicated with us, the smarter they became. At night they would meet in the galley, the only place large enough to gather, and share what they had each learned, but still they somehow kept and developed their individual personalities.
The crew were a little bit leery of them, but the morphs were just so darned nice that you couldn't help but like them after awhile. The morphs figured out how to make radio waves, and began communicating with morphs all over their world, of course, we helped by giving them rides to all off the communities we could find. The population of intelligent morphs went from several thousand to a couple of million in just two weeks. The dream got very strange when they began to design their own aircraft and started taking on their own defense duties. They really liked my colonial group but were a little patronizing after awhile, we couldn't learn and grow as quickly as they could. We couldn't packet share what we'd learned during the day. They just felt sorry for us.
We could, however, think faster than they could, as individuals. So the scales were somewhat balanced. The woman wanted to stay with me, a permanent personal guide or guard, I couldn't really tell. I know by the time the dream ended she looked different then when it started, but I couldn't really pinpoint when the changes had occurred they were so gradual.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Accident, White Cat, Telescopes

Little red-haired roller skater knocked down by a bus. The driver wouldn't stop so we could get her out. The little girls two sisters were screaming and the bus driver trainer was face pressed to the doors trying to tell us something. The bus slowed to about a mile an hour, like they wanted us to try to pull the little girl out, but they wouldn't stop. The little girl was so small all we could do was hope she stayed flat and the bus wouldn't deviate from its current course.

A white cat bumped her head up under the covers and nuzzled my hand, asking for more scritches. We don't have a short haired white cat. All during this I kept having 3/4ths of my vision white out. The rest of the room was still dark. I could feel T across my feet and the Muffin family were a fluffy bedboard. PTL was singing in the kitchen, and C is too short to stand on the floor and reach her head up under the bed.

There was a third dream about everyone having telescopes in their front yards connected to cameras, S was trying to synch everyone's images up to create a virtual Hubble.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

XXII

XXII Featured in my dreams last night. Roman numerals for 22. Not sure what that means. It was somewhat like the dream where SP told me to remember Red 9. I love it when my brain tries to tell me something, and I have no clue what it is trying to say.

--
ad astra per technica,
FF
``Clearly something is going on. And it is fascinating. But the question we need to ask, is it going on in outer space (or the outer world) or is it going on in inner space (or the inner world)?''  
-Carl Sagan

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Dreams, what dreams?

Dreams, what dreams? I was too tired to remember my dreams, other than the fact that they were tiring.

This is today and yesterday's entry. Ugh.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Dreamed Opening of Multimedia History Show

Dreamed I was at a premier of a show I had written for the Historical Society. It was a brief synopsis of events that took place in our city of San Marcos, and involved the settlement and growth of the city over the last 200 years. The show was a collection of acted pieces, demonstrating the clothing and uses of some of the historical artifacts, mixed in with photo collages of the museum's collection. There were readings of actual letters and commendations that were received by residents throughout the years. I was in a tuxedo and had my hair braided back. S and C were there as well as R & M both in formal attire as well. The M&L family showed up, even the grandkid. C was in his dress blues, it was quite the event. Like many dreams before, I was wearing inappropriate footwear, this time, my tiger slippers. The kid seemed to like them though.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Red Haired Interloper

Dreamed N and I were returning home from some small shopping adventure. The front door was open. We came inside and noticed the hall closet was open, and around the corner, the linen closet. I heard splashing. Making our way around back there was a chubby redhead in the hottub. N and I looked at one another, silently asking, "Friend of yours?" with our eyebrows. We both shook our heads "no" at the same time.
The woman stood up and covered herself with one of our towels. I didn't see any other clothing. We opened the sliding glass door and apologized for locking herself out. All of the doors had been locked, and she didn't have any clothing at all, or other possessions. She was completely, new. N's pants fit her, but she was too busty to wear any of N's tops, so I loaned her a T-shirt and plaid flannel shirt. She pulled her red hair into a pony tail leaving a set of wet bangs from her ears forward.
N made a comment about that being a pretty masculine haircut. I didn't find it so at all.
We all sat down around the small table and I micro waved some burritos for lunch. Before it lunch was over N was asking if we could keep her. I tried to point out that this wasn't a cat or dog, it was a person who was obviously missing from somewhere, even if she couldn't tell us where. I finally agreed to a compromise. We would take her to the sheriff so she could start to find out who she was, and we would set her up on the futon in the living room. I was still confused about how she'd gotten into the house since it was locked.
She didn't have an answer, other than that she thought she lived here.

I also dreamed a moral of the story groaner for a short fiction bit I'm working on with SV. "Ask not for whom the Mel trolls, the Mel trolls for thee."

Short hypnopompic moment when falling asleep, a bright clear voice calling my name. I wanted to respond but could not move.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Sanitarium Dream

 A dream outside the Sanitarium. The warm water on the surface and the middle aged buoyancy conspired to create the illusion of being a tweenager in an idyllic past that was no one's, and every one's, at the same time.
 They splashed around, the two younger boys, Dan and Merl, climbing out into the warm spring sunshine and pacing along the diving dock after my strong pulling strokes through the water.
 "You gotta see what's at the bottom!" Shouted Merl, (A character from SV's version of another dream.)
 "To the bottom!" echoed Dan.
 I'd just started to inhale the light summer taste off the surface of the water when two lithe bodies hit the water next to me and, a hand on each shoulder, pulled me under. I turned to Merl who was pointing down into the depths of the lake.
 We sank a while from their momentum. On only half a breath, I knew I couldn't stay down much longer. A few more feet, the pop that meant I would be shaking water out of my ear for a week, and I felt feet against my back. Dan pushed off, headed for the surface, chickening out, out of breath already. His push forced Merl and I even deeper. I was becoming concerned that their prank had now gone too far. Merl was releasing air to make it easier to descend.
 We passed out of the warm layer of surface water into the dark and cold. I could feel the current pull towards the stream at the far end of the lake. Merl gestured down through the black water.
 My eyes adjusted, the sandy bottom of the lake was littered with sparks, like stars, or glistening grains on a moonlit beach. The moment stretched by my lack of air. Streams, tendrils of light swirled away in the current.
 I needed to breathe, the body inhaled, water filled sinuses convulsed, clamped down on the breathing instinct. Surrounded by water, I was burning.
 Merl was releasing air. I wanted it, even if it was stale, to fill the empty crushing space in my lungs.
 
Yes I woke in the middle of an asthma attack and had to lean over the edge of the bed to clear the fluid from my lungs.

--
ad astra per technica,
FF

Thursday, January 12, 2006

 Visiting an old GF (Who would have just turned 40) where there is no one home. I make my way into the back of the house to watch the sunset. Then I can't find my way back out to the front except to go through the house. I hate it when the landscape changes. I go through as quickly as possible.  She and her kids arrive home. I call out to them so they won't be surprised. She says she knew I was here because of the old car out front. I walk out to see what she is talking about.
 It is an old Valiant, not a Satellite (Pity, I like dreams about Cecil, my old car.) I tell her that my car is a new Red Insight. "Uh, Oh!" She covers her mouth and looks away. This is not the response I'd anticipated.
 I then discover that "someone" had rolled back into the Insight, crushing the front end like an accordion. The motor was on the ground just in front of the firewall. No way I was driving away from that.
 "We'd better call a tow truck, I think they're gonna need a bucket,"  I tried to calm her down, we both have insurance and all. She admits that this is the third time this has happened. Her insurance is going to go through the roof. I then notice that there are no marks on the back of her truck, and the truck's brake is on, and she's parked about a foot away from the wreckage.
 "I don't think it was you. I think this is a hit and run, someone who visits or lives nearby. I'll let the sheriff figure it out." I was fairly certain that who ever had crushed my car that bad would have plenty of red paint all over their vehicle. I could already see flakes of paint and broken plastic leading away from the scene. They crossed the street and went up a driveway into a closed garage. I didn't think the sheriff would have a difficult time finding the culprit.

 I Dreamed I was in the loading zone at MCHS cleaning stickers of the windshield of my car. Someone had pasted band stickers on the window just a bit too high to see safely through. Several kids stopped to help, and as more and more students stopped to help, the car grew longer and longer, becoming a stretch SUV that would seat at least 20. As the vehicle grew even larger I began to become alarmed. It started rocking from side to side, seemingly of its own volition. I shouted at the kids to get back. They complied, asking what was going on.
 "It's hatching!" I heard a girl say.
 "That's stupid." Replied a boys voice from the back of the pack.
 A yellow Volkswagen was rolling past when the vehicle turned over, pinning the VW. I Shouted at the driver and the passenger to get out. The driver climbed out the window, she raced into the parking lot away from the rocking vehicle. The passenger started to open the door, into the narrow gap where the wheels and axles of the larger vehicle where straining like feet and legs. I started to warn him to climb out the window, but it was too late. The door opened, the structural integrity of the VW was compromised, and the Giant SUV rolled completely over onto the bug, smashing it flat. A wheel and axle flew out from under the GSUV and I managed to snag it before it hit the crowd.
 The GSUV began to change. It transformed into a towering Robot, at least 60 feet high. Students ran in every direction. The Robot took a step. Three tires began spinning on its shoulder. 3/4 inch nuts flew out like bullets, hammering the nearby buildings and ricocheting off into the parking lot, smashing windows and denting cars. I didn't see anyone struck by the nuts. Soon it spotted me, carrying its fourth tire. It strode towards me, I took off racing between buildings under the soffet, where it couldn't see me.
 I doubled back, and as it swept by, headed towards the theater, I rolled the tire under its leading foot. The tire blew from the weight, but the rim rolled up under the foot and the robot skidded and toppled into the theater building. The walls and ceiling collapsed around it. I was grateful that the building was empty for renovations. It would really need them now.
 Kids started to cheer and run to see the robot. I tried to tell them to get back, but they weren't hearing me. The robot stirred and rolled over. The crowd dispersed, but several kids were knocked over in the process. I ran out and helped them to their feet and they scampered off, all but two who were complaining of twisted ankles and the like. I had one under each arm, carrying one completely, supporting the other. The robot rolled towards us, not bothering to stand. I noticed there was an open door.
 I dragged the kid into the Robot and told them to strap in. I then started climbing up to the driver's seat. The Robot froze, then started to stand. I put my feet on the back of a seat and grabbed the steering wheel as the floor tipped out behind me. I could hear the kids in the back squeal as debris slid down and pelted them. It was all small stuff, so I wasn't too worried about them. I dragged myself over the back of the driver's chair, and swung around to slam on the brakes and push in the clutch. I shifted the thing into neutral and turned off all the knobs I could find.

--
ad astra per technica,
FF

Dream Food

I dreamed I was in my parent's kitchen making baked potatoes, using various kitchen implements to fluff them up or carve them into the shapes of other foods. I would then paint them with food coloring. I offered them to the rest of the family, but no one would take the potato that looked like applesauce over carrots. "They're all just baked potatoes," I tried to explain, but they would only take the ones that looked like steak and potatoes, N's choice, and the ones that looked like pork chops and rice, Dad's choice. I also had one that was done up like green eggs and ham, Mom took that one. I didn't have any trouble with the remaining choice. Oddly enough, it ended up really tasting like applesauce over carrots. Now that was a good trick. I wondered if the others had the same experience.
--
ad astra per technica,
FF

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Fishy Dreams

Dreamed of something to do with tapping on a screen to get a fish to jump up where you could see it. Then the real fish escaped from their tank and were floating and swimming all around the front room. I was wondering how they could breath out of the water. Oddly, I didn't wonder how they could swim in the air.

--
ad astra per technica,
FF
``Clearly something is going on. And it is fascinating. But the question we need to ask, is it going on in outer space (or the outer world) or is it going on in inner space (or the inner world)?''  -Carl Sagan

Monday, January 09, 2006

Dreamed of Skunks and Cryptid, Bridges, Play

I dreamed I was on a patio behind a sort of lodge. While I was upstairs my dad walked down to the ground level. I spotted some skunks walking towards the area below the patio. The turned back around when I took photos of them. Forgot to turn the flash off. Dad stepped off the path and started sinking into the sawdust as the skunks turned around and walked right by him. He was still and they just walked on by without noticing him. While he was climbing out I spotted a six-legged creature. It looked like it had white leather patches sewn on its face to look like a bison. It had two slothlike sets of front legs and shoulders and its back third looked something like a bear's legs and hips, only grey instead of brown or black. The thing moved like a living animal, but it looked like it was sewn together. I got about a dozen very clear photos of it while Dad was climbing out of the sawdust. He missed the creature, so I showed him the photos. He still couldn't believe it. I took him over to where the tracks were and took shots of the tracks, then went back to where I was standing and had him walk along the trail so I could take comparison photos. It was much bigger than I had first though. No one else around had seen the animal, and they couldn't believe that the tracks were anything but a bear's, even though the claws on the front paws were only three toed, and there were twice as many front prints as back ones.

In a later Dream
I'm sitting on the library balcony looking out over the front yard. (We apparently made enough money to add the second floor after all.) A Gal drives through bushes onto front yard. The Junipers are ripped out in a car wide path, and she bends a rose bush. She backs out onto the street and gets out of the truck. Then she comes into the yard and straightens out the rose bush and tries to set the ripped up junipers back in the ground. I confront her. She has no money, the truck is borrowed. It turns out she does have a bunch of debit card/ gift cards but no cash. It also turns out, that when the person shows up to take back the truck she has no place to live and no transportation. He tosses her stuff (one bag of clothing and a rolled up futon mattress) out of the bed of the truck and has one of his friends drive the truck off. What she does have is beautiful light hazel eyes and long shiny almost black hair, full lips and the lightest dusting of freckles across her face and shoulders. I end up offering to let her stay and work off the debt. She seems relieved, and resigned. I tell her it is because she has "lovely eyes, lovely, not trustworthy."
She is surprised when I take her gift cards and hand her a shovel. "I thought you and I would..."
"Maybe later, if you're real good. Right now I need someone to take out the broken plants and fill in the holes you made in the lawn." I went into the garage and dumped the cards and her bags on the shelf above the washer and gathered a rake and a wheel barrow full of composted dirt, as well as the green recycling container. I planned to drop them off with her and go back up on my balcony with a couple of cold lemonades to watch. She was already hard at work when I came around the corner. I decided to find her a place in a women's shelter after she was done with the yard work. If she was really interested she could come back tomorrow to finish working off whatever new junipers, pavers or river stones would cost. Watching her work was interesting, she was completely focused on the work, and not complaining about it at all. She was grateful and surprised when I brought her a lemonade and a towel to clean up.
When I tell her that I'd always thought of putting a little garden bridge over the junipers to make it easier to get into the yard from the street, but would probably just ask her to come back tomorrow to help plant some new junipers, she offers to help build the bridge and asks if she can stay here rather than go to a shelter. She offers to sleep outside as long as she is off the street. I tell her I'll think about it and go inside to make sure the guest bathroom has towels for her to clean up for dinner.

On a Bridge or Dam disguised as a monk, only 18 inches to sit from the edge as the center is reserved for the emporer's procession. Myself and 3 others are in disguise, but not very good ones, we are wearing plaid saris instead of the green, brown or gold of those around us. I end up going over the edge. Someone figured out that we weren't really monks. The Robe wasn't the giveaway, the fact that I couldn't sit in lotus was the trouble. One of my companions tossed a sash to me as I fell and I was able to swing myself under the bridge a bit and catch on a protuberance, but I would have to hang on until the emporer passed the bridge as no one wanted to disturb the emporer's progress. I could tell the emporer was making his way across the bridge (or dam, perhaps it was both) as monks would occasionally fall from either side. At least the ones on the other side were able to land in the water and swim to the shore. The ones who fell on my side fell a long way before they intersected with the wall of the dam. There was some structure directly under the bridge, but a person would need help, like hanging on to a sash or cord, to swing you under far enough to grab on. I didn't know that I could hold on, so made my way over to the very ornate support piling and used it to climb down to the face of the dam. I climbed up under the bridge and went down into the water to help one of my companions, who'd fallen off the other side of the dam. Soon all of our party was reunited in the water. I had noticed from when I was above, the soldiers of the emporer were greeting the fallen monks with spears as they climbed out on the shore. We decided to climb down the face of the dam, using our robes and sashes for climbing assistance.

Dreamed I'm part of a play with Little John and Chloe as their "wrangler." Chloe gets scared when she makes her exit and I have trouble finding her back stage in the dark. The little scamp finds her way back onto the set, fortunately we are behind the act curtain still. I manage to pick her up, she mews cause she's not getting her way. The audience chuckles as one of the actors tosses off an adlib. I manage to get us off the set just as the lights are coming up. That was a close one.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Spiders and Spaceships, Cruise Ship Dreams

Haven't had much time to spare for dream recording, but the one I had
night before last still sticks a little bit in my head. Mostly the
ending images. I and my family, I don't know where the two kids came
from. (I'm not sure I was myself as much as riding along in someone
else's mind.) The ship was travelling on some sort of interstellar
hyperspace wave/lane. There was a huge cottony mass off of the front
of the ship that caught the current and acted something like a sail.
The ship was crewed by myself and another couple. My wife and kids
were passengers, and there was a delegation of large spider like
aliens aboard. We came under attack by pirates. The Spider delegation
wrapped my kids in airtight silk with rebreathers and oxygen tanks.
Apparently they were planning on abandoning the ship and taking the
passengers with them. The crew and I took some drilling and survey
lasers out to the hull of the ship. One of the spiders went with us.
They didn't seem to have a problem with the vacuum of space. The laser
flashed through the suits of the pirates who were trying to board us.
We couldn't get to the underside, our cargo pods were in the way,
especially the spider habitation unit. Suddenly, the spider habitation
unit separated, giving us a clear shot at the pirate vessel. The Space
spiders, and the cocoons with my two kids and wife, spread out into
space. The Spiders spun out a huge web of material that caught the
hyperspace current and swept them away from us. I felt relieved. We
concentrated on trying to take out the pirate sensors and maneuvering
jets so they would not be able to dock with us. Our vessel began to
accelerate. They fired on us, winging my crewmate. As his suit began
to decompress one of the spiders swallowed him head first, and took a
bite out of him. His head and chest appeared in a hollow dome on top
of the spider's head among his other eyes. Shockingly, my crewmate
opened his eyes and I heard his voice shouting on the radio. He calmed
down in a few minutes, amazed that the pain was going away and he
could still move and see things. The Space Spider folded its front
legs together, like a single pair of arms, and did the same with its
back legs. We managed to cause the habitat to spin into the pirate
vessel. Both objects fell out of the stream and receded from us too
fast to follow. We reentered the ship. My crewmember's wife waiting
with a shotgun to blast the spider. He finally managed to convince her
otherwise by writing "It's Me!" on the wall with his new hand/s. I was
pretty creeped out, as I was still listening to the translator. It
seems the spider was actually happy to be, um, occupied. I don't think
the wife was too happy about it, and I don't know that my crewmate
would remain happy about it for long. I don't know that there was
really any other option. Apparently the Space Spiders consumed their
parents, and one got the parent brain, giving them a sort of
immortality of sorts. It was also these "Two Headed" spiders that were
the leaders of their communities. They'd apparently been studying us
with the idea of preserving our leaders. I'm not so sure I liked the
idea of being consumed after breeding, though. I made my way back up
to the control center and contacted the wife, they would slow down and
rejoin us. The kids actually wanted to "Ride the spiders" the rest of
the way, but I reminded them we were still 5 days out, it would get
pretty stinky in their cocoons. The spiders offered to paralyze them
for the duration, I declined as politely as I could. I still couldn't
get the idea of the spiders sucking them dry, as earth spiders do, out
of my head. They understood and slowed down to join us.

Last night was a happier dream, I think. I was on a cruise ship,
taking part in a big party game that involved a scavenger hunt conga
line and some pretty silly rhymes. I was trying to make the rhymes to
get a pretty woman to let me take a photo of her red mesh stockings
and their fluffy white furry tops, but she stubbornly insisted on
joining me in her entirety. Not really a bad deal, she smelled great
too. She ended up sitting in my lap after I found the chair with
wheels, and whispered into my ear that she did too understand what I
wanted, but that wasn't what she wanted. What she wanted was to be my
second wife. I tried to explain that I would be broke after this
cruise so wouldn't be able to support her, but that didn't seem to
dissuade her. Not that I really minded, though I was a little worried
about the apparently obsessive nature of my delightful find.

I also dreamed about something that made me think, on waking, I have
to remember this for S and N, they'd really like it, but it is lost to
the day.

--
ad astra per technica,
FF

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Wretched Set Disassembly

Hork! Was the noise I kept hearing. Was it the cats leaving us moist hairballs? I don't really know, but the sound permeated this dream. I was up at an outdoor amphitheater after the last performance of a show called Wretched to help dismantle the set. I started helping by using the electric drill to remove drywall screws from the tops of the roof details. Hork! The screws sang as they flew out of the set. Ping! As they hit the ground. Just my luck, while SCV and I were crawling around on the top of the set, way up on the second floor, someone on the bottom decided to knock the supports out of the lower floor and just tip the top down "to make it easier to work on."
"Don't," someone shouted in the darkness "you'll kill the writers."
"Too late," shouted SCV as he slid along the floor, managing to catch himself of a step. The door above the step swung open and S let go, dropping about 10 feet to the ground. The door punched through the wall and tore itself loose. S managed to duck under the collapsing set, out of the way of the falling door, but not out of danger. I managed to loop the cord of the electric drill over a pipe hanging from the light grid and used it to support my weight. I tried to keep the set from collapsing by wrapping my legs around the top of a flat, but only managed to slow it a little, as the flat soon tore away from the floor. S and several stage hands rushed out from under the set and the whole thing collapsed, leaving me hanging with a sputtering drill under my armpit and my feet dangling 15 feet above the wreckage.
"Well, you said you wanted to design a new set," offered S.
N ran up shouting at the stage hands, "Get a ladder, get him down."
"No rush," I spun slowly around to watch them scrambling for a ladder. "I could hang out here for seven or eight minutes." The electric cord made a strange hiss and pop, then the drill stopped. The cord stretched and I dropped a couple of inches. "Or not."

Monday, January 02, 2006

Just Another Work Day, Dream

Dreamed I went to work at my old work site in the new building. I arrived early to set up the computers in the Band room Offices. After getting every system set up I was starting the process of updating the Email clients when I got a page from my boss. The phone would only connect to one of the other sites band rooms, the person answering has been dead for a couple of years now.
I managed to find another office with a phone that was working. My boss wanted to know where I was. The site assistant principal couldn't find me and had called her. I told her there was no one in when I got here, so I just left email for them as to where I would be working. She asked me to stop what I was doing and go check in with them as they had something that they felt was a high priority.
I left a note for Maestro T letting him know that I would return to finish their email setup when their AP let loose. I went over to the office where the AP kept me waiting for almost half an hour.
I could have finished the setups by the time he saw me. It turns out that the principal wanted me to go work on the band room office as soon as I got there. He was flustered when I explained that was where I was, and that I only had about 20 minutes of work to finish it up. He started to complain that I hadn't checked in when I arrived. I pointed out that there was no one in the office when I arrived, so I had emailed him my plan for the morning. Sure enough, my email was sitting in his inbox, unopened. I managed to be polite and non sarcastic throughout the interview, but it was difficult.

I really hate it when I dream about work. Don't I spend enough time there as it is?