Thunderscream

Several summers ago, when I was living in Lake Ridge, I was in the middle of a dream (the bulk of which I can't remember) in the morning. Outside, it was raining heavily. In the dream, someone right in front of me, practically in my face, was getting ready to scream.

And just then, as I woke up, a huge roar of thunder came from very close by.

I have a hard time believing that the coordination of the dream scenario and the real world lightning strike was a coincidence — people screaming in my dreams is, in itself, a pretty rare thing, and to be perfectly timed to a very close lightning strike (also somewhat rare, though not as rare during the summer) is... Well, I think I can come up with a couple possible reasons for it.

One possibility is that the lightning struck brightly, and I registered it unconsciously through my eyelids while still asleep, and somewhere deep down, I knew there should be a really loud noise following shortly thereafter, for which my dream world constructed the image of someone getting ready to scream.

Another possibility is that I woke up to lightning and thunder, and only after waking up did I imagine that I had dreamed of somebody about to scream, but for whatever reason, the chronological order of the memory was quickly scrambled.

I guess the third obvious possibility is that there was no real correspondence between the dream and the events going on outside my window, but the salience of the experience caused me to assign more meaning to it than was really there. A good point of evidence why this could be the case: I can't recall ever having had another experience quite like this.

Friendly biker and snakes of unusual size

I was walking/jogging along the median side of a two-lane road (reminded me of Old Bridge Rd near Smoketown Rd in Lake Ridge), when a woman, perhaps in her sixties or seventies, came up behind me on a bicycle. Instead of cutting around and passing me, or at the very least signaling her presence, she instead crept up next to me, between me and the median, until we were side by side, and she kept pace with me.

I was annoyed, and I asked her why she hadn't just gone by on the other side. She seemed a little annoyed too, but she was really trying to engage in conversation with me while riding along -- probably just trying to be social, whereas I don't go out walking or jogging or biking expecting to end up in a social encounter with a stranger.

We had turned left into a sparsely built, hilly housing area with plenty of trees around. We ended up chit-chatting a little bit, as we went down the sidewalk alongside the winding street/hill. I had already had one or two songs (sung by John Flansburgh) running through my head before we met, and then something she said made me think of yet another Flansburgh song, and I had to force myself not to break into song (figuring it would be kind of antisocial to do so).

We came to a bend in the street (the sidewalk had now ended, and the street was unpainted asphalt), where the street hooked almost 90° to the left, passed alongside the front yard of a single family home, then hooked around 180° and continued down the hill.

Standing at the end of the driveway to the house was a young, vaguely punky woman in her twenties, with brown hair. We both seemed to recognize each other, though neither of us seemed really sure where we could have known each other from. So we said "hi" to each other and looked at each other for a moment before I continued on. Besides the initial confusion, she seemed to have a bemused and self-satisfied expression on her face.

In the stretch of grass delimited by the curved street, there was a single round deciduous tree with a small animal standing on one of its lower branches. Below the tree, a giant snake (at least ten feet long, and perhaps six inches in diameter) came creeping up, and then suddenly sprang up from the ground and swallowed the animal in what seemed to be slow motion. I was pretty sure the snake belonged to the girl living here.

The last thing I recall before waking up was that I had gone a little further down the street/hill, and was now either floating or being held up by a burly man, three or four feet off the ground, and a different snake of identical proportions was lurking on the ground below. I had every suspicion that it was going to go for my foot.

Spinning chamber, and "Freedom From Glory"

I (female) was lying on the ground, face up, in the central part of a weird dark spinning chamber, maybe 20-30 feet in diameter. I could vaguely make out a few reflections of myself on the outer edge of the room, as well as a few reflections coming off triangular mirrored columns closer to me. Due to the movement, the reflections were mostly indistinct.

Although I was lying down, I was moving my feet as though walking (or skipping/running). As I spun around, I kept catching sight of one clear reflection of me. This reflection was walking / skipping / running the perimeter of the room at the same rate I was spinning, and she was always facing to my right, so I saw the right side profile and never much of the face. She duplicated the motion of my legs, even though I was lying down and not really walking. When I moved my arms, she did the same.

For some reason it bothered me each time I saw my reflection looking away from me. (That might bother me a little in reality too. I'll leave it up to you to imagine a situation where that happens.)

I noticed this song going on just as I was about to wake up:


"Till you earn your freedom from glory, glory...."

And the "glory, glory" line repeated for a while before I realized there was even a song going on. My brain pieced together the beginning of the line (or made it up (which might be the same thing)) as I was waking up. I recorded this demo of it later in the day, because I'm tired of writing down dream music in text notation that people are unlikely to really appreciate :)

Interesting toothpaste.

I was using some kind of product that enhanced my feminine traits. ... Physical traits. Particularly in the bosom area. I was hanging out/jogging with Cassi K at a running track next to a grassy hill, remarking on how we'd both used said product, and comparing results.

Then I was trying to remember where I had put the stuff. Then I remembered it was on my nightstand. It was a nondescript tube of Crest toothpaste, with the big red stripe going down the length of it. But, in big white lettering in the top right corner, it said "For Women".

Tiny homeroom, assembly smokers, and first class

I was at a high school on the first day of classes. I had spent a little time in my homeroom, which looked like a bite-sized science classroom. There was just room for the teacher's desk and two large, black-painted tables around which maybe 10-12 total kids could sit. The classroom was a step up from the hallway, and there wasn't really a front door, or, for that matter, a fourth wall.

From homeroom, I went to an assembly, which for some reason I showed up pretty late to. The auditorium was all white. It was as wide as a movie theater, but from where I stepped in (on the left side of the middle level), the stadium-style seating stretched very far up and down. At the very bottom was a stage. I started making my way up a stairway towards the top/back row.

As I walked up the stairs, I passed two or three people who were standing on the steps. The girl in front was, just then, telling some anecdote or testimonial to the entire crowd, as part of the assembly. Her Biff-style boyfriend standing behind her was trying to light a cigarette, so I kind of pointed at him and went "Ah-ah..!" as I walked past. Other people nearby noticed too and told him to stop.

As I reached the top tier of seats, I noticed Caitie R sitting in an aisle seat to my right, smoking a cigarette. I lifted my hand up (turns out I'm wearing white velvet gloves) and tried to put it out with my knuckle. But I guess it didn't work (and Caitie didn't seem all that bothered).

I reached the very back row, which was practically empty, and sat next to Jeremy C. The assembly was just wrapping up, and he asked me if I was interested in getting a bite to eat. I said yes, but then I realized I had classes to get to during all four schedule slots that day.

THEN I realized that I didn't know what any of my classes were, or what rooms to go to. Plus I had already forgotten where my homeroom was. Jeremy walked with me as I went looking for my homeroom. Luckily, it was the second room I passed in the first hallway I checked.

My homeroom teacher was there. She looked like my algebra teacher, Mrs. Williams, but was a lot less sardonic. It turned out that she could bring up my entire schedule on her computer and print out a neatly formatted card on a blue sheet of paper. She handed it to me, and then we got into some conversation (I remember her saying something about "when she decided to get married"...), but as much as I wanted to hear what she had to say, I was trying to politely get moving so I wouldn't be late for my first class.

I looked on my schedule card and saw how the classrooms were listed. They had a classroom name, and then the "cross street" they were on (really, they weren't streets, they were hallways). My first class was called something along the lines of "EMOND" and the cross street was something like "Georgia Avenue". It was only a couple hallways up from my homeroom.

EMOND ended up being another hallway behind a doorway, perpendicular to the cross street. It was a tall, wide, L-shaped hallway, sort of an internal entranceway to the classroom itself, which was kind of a band/orchestra room. As I approached the bend of the L, Vanessa came walking the other way, wearing an outfit featuring a knee-length skirt and tights (not unusual), all a faded navy blue color. I was surprised to see her there (and uncertain why she was walking out), and I kind of pointed at her and went, "You!" But she seemed not to notice I was there; she was looking spacey and a little melancholy, and continued walking past me.

I rounded the corner, and without so much of a transition, I was at the orchestra room. A crowd of maybe 12 or 15 people, mostly girls, were standing, facing away from me, singing something informally as a chorus, but I don't recall what it was. I walked up to join in, then I woke up.

Smanblue. Another (almost) lucid dream.

I was walking around some kind of a huge, open convention center/department store with Calbert and Jared G. As we walked through an open lane, I was mentioning something to Calbert about what I was dreaming about earlier, and even mentioned something about "this dream".

Of course, at this point, I went, "duh", and started paying very close attention to what was going on around me. I knew that previously when I had realized I was dreaming, my pulse would start racing and I would have a very hard time staying asleep. This time, however, I felt somewhat calmer.

Still, I was trying to come to terms with my surroundings, so that I would have a basis for what was in the dream before trying to consciously mess with it. I glanced all around... I remember seeing extremely tall shelves, like you would see in a BJ's or Sam's Club, but even taller; but the walls and ceiling were white, like a department store.

I caught sight of a box that Calbert was holding, and written on it was the word "smanblue". I repeated it to myself, loudly, a few times, desperately trying to stay attached to my surroundings. "Smanblue. Smaaan...bluue... SMANBLUE!!"

Then I woke up. I think. No sleep paralysis this time.

Another lost song :\

I had a dream where I spent what felt like several minutes composing, singing, and mixing three or four measures of a new song, which sounded pretty catchy, although the lyrics seemed a little trite. The drums and vocals were snappy. Wasn't a sound that I typically try to create. I think Greg was listening along with me. Then I woke up.

And two seconds later (before I even had a chance to try running the song back through my head), I already had an Air Supply song stuck in my head, effectively dispelling my recollection. Blergh.