Bad Dreams, again

Sometimes you wake up and have to remember you've had bad dreams. Other times you wake up and they've already reminded you. I hate that feeling of dread that hangs in your head like smog, in the morning.

Last night's dream was nice enough to represent multiple pop-culture reference. I started out as Buffy, of course. It's a common theme. I'm Buffy and I'm sooo freaking tough and then I realize how vulnerable I actually am. And then Willow dozed off beside me and started screaming for me to "get them off me!! get them off me!"

I thought she was just crazy.

Then later on, I find out the monster of the week is Freddy Kruger. Now, in real waking life I've never been scared of that guy. . . but when he actually IS in your dreams, it's a different story. He kinda dug me as Buffy, so at first he didn't really want to kill me. Maybe he wanted me to hang out, in dreamland. But he got tired of that, and so I kept trying to run him over with a car, but he'd keep popping up behind trees or in the backseat.

Then, suddenly, the scene shifts totally. I'm still tough, but it's more me now. I'm laughing with my friend Jeanette from highschool. She's written a book about the future and she predicts where everyone will go to school, and also that I will be kidnapped by Arnold Schwarzenegger for some mission. I laugh about it, but then kids starting going off to college where she said they would, and you know what that means.

But in the meantime, some disaster happens and all of the kids our age are forced to run up a big hill and work small 2-person elevators (more like pulleys with chains) down deep into the earth--bomb shelters. I'm in the elevator with a girl who doesn't trust me. she's supposed to cooperate and we let both our sides of chain down at equal pacek--but she just throws her side up in the air and we fly downwards. I laugh nervously, trying to act impressed now.

We're underground, and they've given us money to buy things from the little cave/general store, but I only have 2 dollars and everything costs 9. I rummage through the records looking for more money allotted to me, and realize that Dave isn't here. (that's nothing new, as every nightmare and most dreams I have Dave isn't there, or can't be there). He should be here, because we've been loosely organized by undergraduate class. I start thinking maybe if I make friends, or do favors, I can get more money.

Suddenly I've been kidnapped by ol' Arnold, and he's given me a gun with a blue laser flashlight. He pushes me up into tunnels before him, to make sure they are clear. I'm good with a gun, but I can't help but feel I'm going to die really soon with all this pushing headfirst into things. I lead him down tunnels, and we end up at another room underground, which is also a store. I have to help him clear the perimeter, as the land has swelled out in front of us to include trees and lakes, and dinosaurs (of course). I shoot pteredactyls and t-rex's with my gun, which shoots bananas I can gather from the trees. Then Arnold leads in a group of prositutes he's paid to watch the door. He wanders up to the storeowner, and steals all the pens (which work as guns, and I trade mine in for a better one).

He has a big speech prepared, and in the end he walks slowly over to an airvent. And through the grate, black shiny fingers and an expanding jaw are reaching out to us. Arnold explains these organisms live to kill, and they will kill all of us. Only 2 of the 8 prostitutes are left gaurding the door--the rest ran away. Arnold and I make a quick exit, as the folks inside are fumbling with a locker; it leads to a secret passageway where a puppy is looking at them. They won't make it out in time. We run past giant spiders and swarming aliens, and make it to the surface.

Someone has signalled a biohazard alert, because there are medical teams scrambling everywhere. We've been contaminated. From the background, a flock of cockatoos takes flight--I'm filled with dread because I realize they'll spread the disease to whatever exotice location they are flying to. As they pass over me, golden and sparkling, they catch on fire. The governement has set them on fire, and they are still flying over me. I can hear a radio broadcast, claiming our benefits of genomics in America, how we can conquer this thing. And then I'm gone, and instead we're watching a small, thin black women in a violet slip. She's in front of a wall with shrubbery and flowers growing on it--she's been telling the story the whole time. She sighs, and says that people think the swarm is all gone. . . .

but she's heard rumors in the backwoods. . . .

The camera pans around, and we see that she's telling the story as part of a welcome center presentation. But the center is old and crumbling--it used to hold many cars, but there aren't many visitors anymore. The one car that was sitting and listening, parked inside the moldy cement arches, has already sputtered away. She stops her story, and hugs her daughter as she runs up.

And that's when the alarm rings.

Blargh, why is it so disturbing?