subconsciousland

to tell you the truth, i've been having a lot of dreams i don't remember clearly so i've been making things up as i try to fill the gaps. but what kind of dreams are pure/isn't it all a figment of your imagination? pretend-stories might as well be dreams too, as long as you're not stealing someone else's story (at least not completely -- an interpretation of the real thing might be okay). so i'll tell you instances, livejournal.

1) i was the enemy. aliens are a different breed on earth trying to take over the world, as they are stronger and have special powers unlike the weak humans. naturally aliens would be overcoming the humans, and gain power over the world. fortunately, i was one of the aliens. because of my special power i could convert easily to a human form and with my disguise, live in a normal habitat. of course i'd like the human life, and not return to alien life. but then it became obvious that aliens are overpowering and the final battle began. i was cowering in this public bathroom full of humans hiding out and i'm hiding in the stall hoping that THEY won't know i'm an alien in diguise. i'd be sad if they would find out. but the door was forced open, as the alien weapons have destroy the bathroom doors and the humans are screaming in fear and running outside. so i ran with them, still in disguise. its not about winning? it's gaining the humans' sympathy?

2) two girls from my high school and i are in an undisclosed location. i think we belong to the same class, whether it's a high school or college class-- but it doesn't matter. we still know each other but they don't seem to be involved with me, like they are not surprised to see me or acknowledge our history. but then again, in high school i was maybe friends with one of them for a year, but it was one of those intense friendships and i think i had a crush on her. all of this mattered to me somehow as i'm staring at the two girls and i'm jealous.

3) i was at a beach. the two people i was with had one of those faceless faces -- you couldn't tell who they were, they were just living bodies instructing us. i wanted to surf, and they told me that the weather was perfect. never mind i never had experience. the waves were nice and high and i dove in with the board. i'm on top and almost like a pro as i surfed. then the wind died down and i can no longer "catch" a wave. i'm lying on the sand instead. then one of them informs me that i was actually not on a beach, that i'm in a room. i look around and i'm in this building with high windows. what the fuck?

the good thing about not being able to sleep the entire night is the myriad of dreams;

1. i was in my home-home. i made a lot of food and poured it into 3 disposable bowls and took it into my room because my mother probably wouldn’t like me eating a lot at night. then i was called over and i drove and drove a lot. i ran into mav somwhere. “i thought you were in la!” no, he says, he’s back around town visiting and hanging around. i didn’t recognize any of these people he was with. i went to this apartment which is exactly like the hotel chelsea in new york and i “remember” that these people said that they lived there when i was going on and on about new york. the guy i met in santa cruz ONE time (helen’s UCSC friend) was there and i didn’t talk to him (he lives there though). instead i sat at this table, where i didnt know anybody. a girl turns to me and asked very politely what i was doing there. “i’m with mav” and apparently that was enough for her. everyone was trying to decide what to do. i feel like an accidental part of the plan.

2. i was living a normal life (and its a blur) and i’m always hanging around vallco (though its dead mainly!) in my prototype-home-place. then its slowly revealed that i’m being watched. every single move. i’m being paranoid. then i realize i’m just a pawn in this psychological experiment. everyone that i have formed a connection to me had just been testing me. i faced the psychologist, angry, betrayed, and embarassed. i trusted her. she tried to calm me with her cold, cold hands on my forehead. “everything is a illusion” she says. “we’re only trying to help you.”
this made me really mad.

3. shamala was back on livejournal and she commented on my post using two different names. the end (why are livejournal dreams so short?).

made-up places in dreams is an interesting phenomenon. is it really imaginary? or is it made up of pieces of places i know or have seen in movies?
***

the girl and i were lost. she’s yelling at me while i tried to maneuver through this town we’ve never been in befoer. i keep on doing u-turns in this unfamiliar setting, thinking or perhaps saying, “where am i supposed to go?” i follow paths that appear to lead closer to the mountain. we get out of the car and suddenly we’re climbing stairs and on rooftops. one after another. we’re looking down at the traffic. then suddenly i’m driving back towards the freeway. theres this really sharp bend. she’s scared and digging her fingernails into me. i’m an okay driver ‘cos it turns out i didn’t hit anybody despite the probablities (oh there are so many cars!) we abandoned the car again as we got to this park. fenced off in every way possible. we just walk alongside it forever. there’s this train that looms nearby; turns out the train tracks were right there. ok, we found a trail. it had these wooden steps leading up close to the tracks, fenced off cuz there was a cliff on the other side of the fence (i didn’t dare look). we’re now on the edge between the steps and the gap of the tracks. we just sit there. it’s nice, kind of empty and breezy. i think this is where we’re supposed to be.

***
the traintracks remind me of the abandoned ones that erin and i encountered somewhere in north england. but no fences or cliffs.

we were told to race. there were two teams and of course we won, though it's because of my teammates. the second time i switched teams and i was super tired from the first race. so i tried to cheat. i ran far in the corners, behind the trees, in this place with ripped fences and things. i walked towards the finishing place, not bothering to run on the path. we still lost. i was exhausted and took a shower in a slimy place. i started changing after i got out, talking to this girl next to me. i realized i was kind of naked and was trying to cover myself and i realized this boy on the other side of me was looking at me (wait, i'm outside?). everyone went off to class and i scrambled around and put on two bras and a tank and pink shorts and knee-length socks.

i think i was supposed to be in junior high.

disclaimer: this dream is ENTIRELY fictional so i am not responsible for the possible illegal activities suggested or implied by this entry.

( dreaming on... )

bullets were flying. my brother took a brave stance and went forward to protect all of us. i saw a bullet go into his belly in front of my eyes. startled, i stumbled back and fell into the sidewalk. i realized i was bleeding and hurting. yet he was still standing up triumphantly noting how he had taken a bullet for everyone. i slowly realized that i was feeling his physical pain. how unfair; he dumped all his physical pain on me.

i was on campus when Mishga calls me, "let's go see a movie!" i replied, "okay" and walked towards A street. I run into her and Shereen, and i'm surprised, thinking, well, they're in Davis! they said they've book a room in this hotel/hostel place. i went upstairs with them to their room. the place had an incredibly skinny spiral staircase -- metal firescape-style! we got to the right floor and i see at least 10 beds in this attic. all the beds were furry and so, SMALL. Mishga approaches one and says that's her bed. we leave the place and i walk downtown to the movie theatre. apparently i went the wrong way because every street started looking unfamiliar. for some reason i was on the side of a mountain (there are NO mountains in Davis). i looked one side which were steep mountains and i thought that there was no way i'm going to climb that. so i went the other direction, toward the train tracks. broken bottles everywhere. i finally find my car on the side of the road. Julia suddenly appears and sits shotgun. before i take off though, i checked the tires. turns out the left rear tire was all fucked up.. like the outside tire melted and was all flabby. There were barely any air, and the rims were bent. i thought, "how did i even drive this?" these tire people came and checked the tires and said that yes, i'd need lots of reparing.

i was in a lab rushing to finish a paper due for a class except i keep on talking to the guy next to me. i went to class without finishing the paper -- well, it was supposed to be a draft, anyway. i got out of class, still feeling stressed i didn't finish the paper, though. i walked on the edges of campus. i run into julia and i wanted to ask her for a ride but she wanted to go home. i think i wanted to go to san diego. i reached a part of campus i've never been to before. i was outside this abandoned place with a factory garage. i turn around and suddenly bump into... two people -- michelle and kelly! i hugged them. michelle goes, "what are you doing all the way here?" i then realized (for some reason), i was in santa cruz (UCSC), not davis anymore. [in real life michelle goes to UCSC, but kelly goes to UCI...]. i told her i'm just travelling. i leave them and leave campus. i start walking on the busy unfamiliar streets. it started looking like socal. i run into sheenae. she asks, "what are you doing here?" apparently i reached san diego... yes, by only walking for around 10 minutes (in dream-time, anyway). then she leads me to this crowd of people that i know i should remember, but i don't. they're probably people i don't want to associate with because i didn't feel like staying. i wandered around campus and saw that there was a ridge that overlooked a pool or a lake. suddenly i have a car. i drove. i get lost. i asked for directions and they told me to just go straight ahead (at this point, i don't even remember what my destination was). i think at this point i called gonzalo because he lives in san diego? or maybe i thought about calling him. i thought about andrea. where am i going to go? i drove straight up to these mountains (are there any in sd?)
[who knows what else happened, since a phone call woke me up. man, it is sure strange to dream about people you haven't seen in 3 years. i only know what they look like now through MYSPACE]

it's been a few days since i had it. i already told kenji about this -- of course he was weirded out!
--
i was sitting in a holding cell (bare cement walls, so it was a pseudo-prison!) and kenji comes in. he says he's going to be gone for peace corps for 3 years. he departs quickly after he tells me this. i started crying. i started thinking of all the memories -- except in my memories kenji was my brother. so, kenji/brother and i were suddenly skiing. everything was so, so, so white. we were going in a sea of whiteness. at first, he was at my elbow. then suddenly he disappeared. all of this was complemented by memories of my childhood. from very little, "oh!! mei mei's hitting me" [mei mei = "little sister" in mandarin] to older, in berkeley when he's teaching a class.

i started off in a party where i did not know anyone. i was in a random room, feeling stressed out because my boyfriend [hypothetical] wouldn't come near me and this boy i didn't like was hitting on me. i was also obligated to make a speech about something i'm not fond of. i eventually left alone hoping no one would notice. at first i was sitting in a car, wondering if anyone would see me. the boy who had hit on me earlier was in another car creepily staring at me. i left the car and miraculously had a bike that i could ride on. i rode off into the busy streets.
suddenly i was in the busy streets of a city in China. i met up with this little sweet girl (who reminds me of Elise) who i've been really close to. we rode our bikes together but we kept on being stopped because of the heavy traffic. then i saw why the traffic was so bad... there were no traffic lights! we were just controlled by traffic cops who acted like stop signs -- at intersections, they just told people who could go, and who couldn't. when the girl and i reached the intersection finally, we waited a while before they let us go. but then i realized another catch -- we had to PAY to get across to the other side. i was appalled, "what, but we're on our bikes!" the policewoman answered, "well then you just have to pay slightly more than the people who are walking." i'm finding it even ridiculous that even walking people have to pay a toll.
the girl started crying because the cop was being pretty rude. the girl who was a native, said that they didn't implement the toll thing until recently. i was comforting her. then she gave me the biggest hug, ever. we were still standing on the street clinging to each other, while everyone else was crossing. the policewoman saw us and looked a bit sad. she told me, "okay, i'll let you get across for free". i was touched by her sudden change of attitude. "oh thank you..." i told her gratefully. then i wondered out loud, "why?" she answered, "it's because i haven't seen her [the girl] hug anyone like that in a long, long time."

here i am thinking about travelling. me and bus-boy went down on the longest escalator ride ever. it took us to this train that led us to all these asian cities. he laid on his side against the window and fell asleep. we were going through vietnam before finally stopping by this random countryside. the fields were green! i left him still sleeping, and jumped off. suddenly i realize it was my 21st birthday. i went to this fancy marble hotel. (i'm thinking, oh my gawd, my fantasy's coming true!) i went into the fancy bathroom to take a bath, but then suddenly the door opens and LE TIGRE (this deserves fucking capital letters) comes in. they start singing and dancing for me. i'm enjoying it and bobbing my head but then i'm thinking that i really need a bath! so i turn around and started taking my jacket off. they got the hint and said, "have a nice bath!" and left, still singing. it was the best birthday present, ever.

i was in the kitchen at home examining the books laid out that my brother had. two of them were about FLASH. one was the standard "learning about flash" and another one was "actionscript 3.0" [which doesn't exist in real life, by the way!] my brother comes over and i tell him, "yes i need to learn actionscript." he asks, "what books do you want?" i say, "oh actionscript 2 or 3!" so he hands me a book on 2.0 and 3.0 [again, 3.0 does not exist]. i look through it and it was ALL crossword puzzles instead of any comprehensive text explaining the subject. i exclaimed, "wait, how am i supposed to learn actionscript through this?" my brother replies, "just do this all and you'll understand it!"
i don't understand. the power of crossword puzzles is beyond me.

this obviously had to do with my conversation with my dad last night.
-----

in san francisco. my dad took time off work because he was feeling pretty upset. i think we were near the "full house" house. my dad and i were on our feet. we were all being ghetto and not being able to figure out the buses. we hung around this homeless man pushing a cart. my dad was joking around about riding on it. i'm like, "dad!" and started walking away quickly. suddenly we were in chinatown. [this is probably taken directly from what happened when i went to the city about two months or so ago with vanessa] we were on the same street, looking at the same cheap shoes. my dad was saying he wanted to do something crazy. then he told me something like, "i want to listen to the belle & sebastian song, 'there's too much love'". i saw my grandmother (my mother's side). she was walking pretty quickly and wanted to give me a piggy-back ride. i started laughing and saying she couldn't lift me up. she did and we went straight into the crowd. later i told my dad that we should go to japantown [again, exactly what happened with vanessa]. i thought it'd impress him a lot. i told him i didn't really know which direction it was. we were at a bustop and there were like, 6 intersections. so we decided to go ask for directions. we went into this store which had a really glossy ivory floor. these people looked like they were flight attendants. so they told us that we shouldn't go to japantown because the store people don't let you pee unless you buy something. i'm like, "that's b.s. because there is a public restroom in the mall" we both got different directions from different people. i just followed my dad's. he pointed to this secret path outside the store. we jaywalked and tried to catch a bus. we never reached japantown.
----
other notes: i woke up before i found out what happened. i don't know why i only dreamed of my dad and my grandmother, not the rest of my family. hmm. also, my dad has told me a while back he liked that b&s song! haha!

(yes, nap-dreaming counts)

i am a prince. the king was preaching in a fancy court. at least, it looked fancy from one perspective if one stares down the red carpet towards the throne, which was heavily jeweled and sparkly. the balconies resembled the ones on the shakespeare's globe set. the king had a long grey beard which looked too much like sean connery (maybe i'm so used to that image).
i was standing in the back with my starchy embroidered trousers (with those puffy ruffles!) i was going to walk forward when i notice all these boxes (similar to the ones i "slept" in a week ago) on the sides. i walk towards one and notice all these girls in it. they were all giggly when i reached my arms towards them. apparently, they were my "fans". their giggles elevated as i touched them. they told me they were 16. one of them eerily looked like the girl from sons&daughters. she moves like she does. i did not like any of them in the box. but i jumped in, anyway, and closed the lid.

*side-note: i don't know what disturbs me more, seeing from the perspective of an "attractive" male, or being in a box with many 16 year old girls.

from echoing 2/28/04 [keep in mind this is back when i just started doing a radio show]:

I was doing a radio show...except my co-host was not Daniel. I think it was Tommy. It was going well except Tommy had to depart and I had to do my own set for the rest of the show. I did an airbreak saying I'm going to play a song about ducks that reminds me of Tommy.
I was hanging out in the KDVS couch room a lot after my set finished then suddenly Tommy barged in demanding about the "duck" song. He said he found it utterly offensive, and I was like, what? What do you mean...because I didn't remember playing any offensive song at all. I started blaming other people in the room. I asked this person for my playlist and so I saw it. It was by this band with its band and song title written in symbols and geometric figures, so I couldn't read it. I told Tommy, "How could it be offensive when I can't even read the song title?" But Tommy was just staring at the song title on the piece of paper for a while and I asked him, "Can you understand what it means?" He slowly nodded, and I realized he could understand duck-language. The song was especially obscene because it involved ducks.
Then I broke down and started crying saying, "I didn't mean to...I didn't mean to! I swear..." because I felt afraid I was never going to be a DJ ever again because I've played the worst song ever.
I woke up feeling honestly sad.

i was getting lost in an institution. i wish i could say it was just a school, but there were so many labs and other operating and engineering rooms that makes me question the purpose of the building. nevertheless, i run into students scurrying away to class. sweat was rolling down my forehead because i was running away from the enemy. the place almost resembled the stairs of the art building on the UCD campus with the grey metallic interiors with pipes showing. and also slightly the small hallway of the radio station WFMU in New Jersey. as well as the abandoned hallway from the film, Shutter.

i run into these asian schoolgirls who were giggling and telling me something. i stop them and put my index finger to my lips, shushing them. "shhhhhhh" i say.

they were confused and frowned at me. i take out a notebook and a pen and write it all down. i can't speak. i can't speak because they are spying on me. they can hear every word out of my mouth because i'm bugged.

after this, i tried to recruit as many people as possible to my side to unfoil the plot of the unseen evil force. "who's side are you on?" i kept on asking. we try to get around the security cameras, then split up into smaller groups to confuse them. the operation was on. i ended up being stuck in a controls room with blinky lights and not being able to breathe.

i woke up thinking how much it would suck if i couldn't talk ever again.

before a phone call woke me, i had a dream that i was in a game. a video game, except i was the player inside of the game. i scored point by successfully disguising myself so the “bad guys” would not kill me. my mission was to convince the girl to join my force. and somehow i found out i was scoring major points & therefore winning.

this is where i scribble my dreams. hopefully it'll help me keep track of what i've been dreaming--so i will find some sort of connection.