The Time I Was a Member of a Thief Trio

I was member of a trio of theives--one guy (Tom Jones) and another girl. We stole from some bad guys and then they chased us through Philly. Hid in mattress. Little fold-up electric motorcycles that could be unfolded as you rode them. Didn't go fast enough. Bridge. Airport. I found I was running instead of riding the motorcycle, and I thought, "That's because you're only dreaming, so you're really running. The motorcycle isn't real." I tried really hard to believe in the motorcycle again so I could ride it. One bad guy had his gun on me and I waited on the guy in my group to save me because "Someone always saves the heroine just as she's about to be shot." He wasn't coming fast enough, and then I woke up.

The Time I Visited an Island Full of Fruit-Wearing Monkeys

Last night I dreamt that I was studying abroad in London, and it was time for the weekend trip. A few people I'm not too excited about and I decided to take RyanAir to the island of Vanuatu. (I'm not actually sure where that is.) We left London and landed in this little open-air airport. Then we piled on the back of a truck with all our luggage and I kept wondering why everyone brought so much luggage for four days, especially when they had to pay by the bag.
On the truck with us was the tour guide's pet giant Rhesus monkey, which was about 5'6" and wearing a giant piece of fruit around his torso like people wear barrels in old cartoons. The tour guide showed us how he'd taught the monkey to say some English words, which was freaky considering the monkey was standing upright and human-sized.

Finally we arrived at the beach, where we were to watch the mating rituals of the giant monkeys wearing giant pieces of fruit—giant squishy melons with stripy yellow, orange, or green skin with cloyingly fragrant red pulp. We saw the monkeys lining up to pull the fruit over their heads, bursting through the top, with the females on one side of the beach and the males on another. Then the males started running towards the females, who scattered in all directions.
Some of the women watching with me decided to pull on some giant fruit themselves. I was thinking, Are you crazy?! but then I also wanted to fit in. I finally decided against donning a fruit because I knew I'd probably have an allergic reaction to all that plant material running down my skin. As my comrades tugged on their fruit, the male monkeys caught their scent, and then we were all running, running, running with the female giant monkeys, leaving a trail of super-sweet juice behind us.

The Time My Mom Was Kidnapped Next to the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María

Last night I dreamt that I lived in Europe and that Europe was being terrorized by a Cockney gang that would ambush people in their cars, kidnap them, demand exorbitant ransoms, and kill the abductees whose ransom wasn't paid. They always made sure that one other person was in the car when they kidnapped someone so that there would be a terrified witness.

I had this dark, mysterious guyfriend who really liked me but never said anything who had some kind of connection with the gang. He made them swear never to abduct me. However, the leader of the gang resented my friend's power over him, so he abducted the passenger in my car not once but twice. I was so scared of them.

Then my mom came to visit me, and we went to Spain to tour the replicas of the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María. They were docked in a beautiful harbor and the sun was shining. Then she and I spent some time in a building where the typical dream-stuff happened: I felt like I wasn't wearing enough clothing and then when I tried to change clothes in the women's restrooms, all of them had super long lines with a few men in the lines so I felt intimidated.

Anyway, then my mom and I finally got back to the lobby of the building where we'd been stuck and saw that not only was the sun setting, but a terrific storm had appeared. There was thunder and lightening and ferocious wind and some funnel clouds. My mom and I decided to run to our rental car in the parking lot and drive back to our hotel before the storm got even worse. The rain came down so hard, and when lightning struck I could smell it and feel the vibrations. We should have stayed inside after all, but by now we were closer to the car than the building.

My mom had the car keys, but I was driving. She unlocked the doors, but as we climbed in the car, the Cockney gang showed up and grabbed the keys from her. We got in the car and snapped our seatbelts, but the windows were partially open and they were grabbing at us. Since we didn't have the keys, I couldn't turn on the car and drive away. I got out my cellphone and tried to call my friend and tell him to tell the gang to back off, but I had no signal.

Suddenly the windows were the roll-up kind, so my mom and I rolled up the windows and decided to stay in the car like that until the Cockney guys went away or were struck by lightning. I think I did get a hold of my friend, or he heard from someone else what the gang was up to, because he contacted the gang and told them to stand down. However, they were tired of listening to him, so they decided that if they couldn't kidnap my mom, they'd dump our car in the harbor next to the Niña. A couple of them went to get a crane.

I pulled some wires out from under the steering wheel and tried to hotwire the car, and then I woke up.

The Time My Lion Friend Helped Me Fight Injustice

Last night I dreamt that I went to an old, traditional college. Most of my classes were in two historical buildings—the Big House and the Little House. Both buildings were about the same size, but all the doors inside the Big House had been cut larger than normal doors, and all the doors in the Little House had been bolted shut and had new, tiny doors cut into them. The doors were so tiny that to get through them I'd have to scoot sideways along the ground.
The mascot of the Big House was a lion that we kept fenced in behind the building. He was an adult male, but he had a scraggly blond mane so that he looked like a lioness. I never told him that, however. After class I would go visit the lion and feed him huge chunks of raw meat. I was experimenting with different animals to see which ones he liked better—beef was okay, but I think he liked pork even better. (Of course, I was worried about trichinosis, so I didn't feed him pork very often.) I'm fairly sure the lion never spoke, but he did communicate telepathically with me. Mostly he just said "Hi, what have you got for me today?"

Anyway, one day a bunch of my friends and I got very tired of crawling on the ground to get into the Little House, which was run by a severe Victorian matron. We gathered some pickets and posters and decided to protest. Our protest marched across the quad and into the Little House, where we confronted the little doors, chanting. Then I pointed out the hinges to the larger doors in which the tiny doors we cut would still allow the large double glass doors to swing if we broke the bolt. Some of the other protesters pushed and pushed on the doors until the bolt broke and the doors swung wide.
Then we freaked out and scattered out of the building before we could be arrested by campus police for destroying campus property. Later, however, I was watching campus television and saw a report on the protest. There I was, right in front of everyone in a distinctive t-shirt with a turtle on it (which I was still wearing when I saw the report), running in front and looking like I was the leader even though I really just wanted to get away badly. The report also suggested that our protest was some kind of feminist march, since all of the protesters were women. I was worried that I would be arrested at any moment, and then I woke up.

The Time Jim Broadbent Embarrassed Me at Church

Last night I dreamt that I was at church. I'm not sure it was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but a bunch of people from my real church were there. I was in front of a room full of people on folding chairs. (It was either Sunday School or a fifth-Sunday lesson like we had last week.) The problem was that I was being really inappropriate and talking about movies that I have no business watching and gay-culture lexicon that I have no business knowing. Everyone was really uncomfortable. I decided to leave the room in the middle of the lesson, but of course the meetinghouse was like a maze and I couldn't find my way around. (I've been stuck in this same church building in other dreams.)
Anyway, I was in the cultural hall when I realized that I'd forgotten to get my purse. It was still on my chair in the classroom. I couldn't find the classroom. I was down in a trench in the floor of the gym that was lined with green velveteen. Then Jim Broadbent showed up with my purse and an armful of everything that used to be in my purse. He dumped it all on the green velveteen shelf at my chin-level. One of the things that had been in my purse, apparently, was a box of Yaz birth control pills.

"I want to take your picture for the church newsletter," Jim Broadbent said, pulling out his SLR.

"Um, you probably don't want these in the shot," I said, trying to shift the Yaz box out of the frame.

"No, leave them where they are. We need to show the congregation that a good Christian girl could be taking birth control pills for other medical conditions."

"I don't think I'm your best example right now," I argued again. Besides, he was standing so far above me with that camera that I was going to look weird no matter what. And my hair was messed up. I wanted to just run away, but I was afraid he'd take the picture as I climbed out of the trench with my skirt hiked up.

Jim Broadbent said he didn't care, and then I woke up.

The Time Nathan Fillion Joined the Education Program and Some Other Men Invaded My Personal Space

Last night I dreamt that my education college was having a required end-of-the-year dinner for everyone who was completing the program. It took a while for me to find where the dinner was, and when I did walk in to the auditorium where it was held, I was almost hit in the face by a dancer or a juggler or something. I guess the dinner was on the stage in the auditorium, but something else was scheduled on the floor.

Anyway, I finally got there, and my favorite educational psychology professor was still setting up folding chairs around round tables. I helped her out. I was also glad to see that I was seated at her table because she's cool. I realized that most of the people at my table were extraordinary in some way—they'd won a scholarship or done a special self-directed project or something. I wondered why I'd been assigned to the table.

When it was time for the dinner to start, only half the people were there. I sat about a quarter of the way around the table from my favorite professor so that she could see me. Then this physics guy I know (name withheld) sat down on my right, and a guy who, in my dream, had been bugging me for dates sat to the right side of Physics Guy. Nathan Fillion, star of Castle, among other things, was seated to that guy's right. We started eating, and Physics Guy started leaning on his chair sideways so that only the left two feet of his chair were on the ground. Guess what he was leaning on? Me!

"Stop it," I said, pushing lightly at his shoulder. He just ignored me and kept telling some weird story over-loudly to the whole table. "Get off," I said, pushing harder. He anchored his right hand to the table to put more pressure on my shoulder. Luckily, Physics Guy always underestimates girls. "GET OFF ME!" I yelled, shoving him so hard that he fell into the other guy who liked me. I jumped up from the table as Physics Guy tried to rock back onto my shoulder. He had to catch himself.

Then I looked out at the table. Everyone had gone quiet and was just staring at me. Even the people at the ordinary table were quiet and staring at me. Physics Guy started saying something like, "On seven prior occasions, I have leaned on you without such violent repercussions." The other guy who liked me said something rude too. He was mad Physics Guy leaned on me when he couldn't.

"Get up," I ordered Physics Guy while waving him up with my hand. "Get up and move down. I'm not sitting by you again." He moved into my old seat. "You too," I said to the other guy. "Move down one so I don't have to sit by Physics Guy." Groaning, both guys moved. I plopped down next to Nathan Fillion. People eventually started their conversations back up.
"Sorry about that," I whispered to Nathan Fillion. "That was super embarrassing."

He smirked and whispered back, "Well, you're right. It was the most embarrassing thing that could ever happen. It was much worse than if you had fumbled a football during the final play of a game against our rivals in front of 25,000 people."

Now that really should have made very little sense to me, but I smiled, then giggled, then laughed outright. "You're right," I whispered back, "that's much worse!" Then our paper plates were there, already filled. In the top left corner was a small piece of yellow cake layered with cream and strawberry slices—eep, in the top right third was some mixed rice pilaf, and on the rest of the plate was something covered in gravy. I picked at the side of the rice pilaf that was farthest from the strawberries.

I was just about to whisper to Nathan Fillion, "So, what takes you to the education program? It can't be the money," though I was worried he'd hate me if I mentioned his celebrity at all, when a large arm came swinging toward my head and I had to duck. I looked to my left. The guy who liked me had been replaced (or at least made to move down so another chair could fit around the table) with a behemoth of a college football player in a burgundy and white jersey. The football player was talking with his hands, seemingly without noticing my presence. I had to duck twice more and once thrust myself into Nathan Fillion's personal space to avoid the beefy fists and even beefier elbows. Nathan Fillion was silently laughing at me. Then Football Player gestured with his fork, on which was a strawberry that fell off his fork and landed in the middle of my rice pilaf. I frowned and pushed my plate away.
"Ahem," I said to Football Player, "do you mind?" He didn't even turn to look at me. The next time his arms came around, I pushed the back of his hand around to his side with my flat palm. Football Player blinked down at me. "I know you're used to being king of your domain," I said, "but just for this dinner could you please pretend to be a girl and keep your arms and legs in your own little box?" I demonstrated by tucking in my elbows. Football Player turned away without reacting at all. He started talking to someone else, and his elbow was back in my face.

I fantasized about leaping out of my chair, throwing my napkin on my plate, and yelling, "This is what happens when you require people to attend a stupid dinner!" I was still getting up the courage when I woke up.

The Time I Just Wanted Peanut Butter and Jam

This morning I dreamt that my real friend Arynn and I went out to a corner grocery store run by an old skinny guy. Arynn had never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so I tried to tell her about them in Spanish to practice our Spanish skills. She wanted to try one for the first time.

However, the only peanut butter the guy had had m&ms in it and was waterlogged. He said he got a huge discount on his stock because water had gotten into the jars. I was like "No, thanks, Arynn can just use my peanut butter to make her sandwich," and Arynn started swearing like she does.

Next we decided to look for jam. I was overwhelmed by the choices. Some girl suggested sour cherry preserves, which sounded perfect so Arynn found an eight-ounce jar and took it to the register. It cost $7.56. Arynn said she wouldn't &$%# pay $@^& $7.56 for a #!%* jar of *&%^% jam. I said we should check in the display of one-and-a-half-ounce jam jars that the store owner probably stole from a mom-and-pop diner.
Most of the small jars were really old and the jam was separated. There wasn't any sour cherry, but there was some really old raspberry, some new marmelade, and some strawberry jam which I can't eat. There were also some slightly squished packets of flavored honey that looked like those foil-wrapped butter pats. I told Arynn she should get honey instead, but she didn't want @$#! honey because she wanted a pb&j sandwich. I needed to tell her that peanut butter and honey sandwiches are just like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

In fact, I was about to tell her when a very dirty guy about forty years old with worn clothes got in my face, introduced himself, and put out his hand for me to shake. I shook it, and he kept holding my hand. I yanked my hand away, and he looked very sad. "I know you're in a suit," he said to me, "and I've fallen on hard times, so I shouldn't be talking to you, but I wanted to meet you anyway."
"Um, thank you?" I answered. I was pretty sure he was going to ask for a handout at any moment, so I was debating whether to give him anything. Arynn frowned and sidled up to me. The guy looked like he was going to say something else to me, but Arynn pulled me over to the cash register so we could buy the old raspberry preserves. The tiny jar cost $7.32, and Arynn #$^&ing payed anyway because the dirty guy was shuffling towards us. We should have gotten the sour cherry after all.

The hobo reached us, and he started telling me in a low voice how his wife, Edna Mc______, was murdered a few years ago, and he hasn't found her killer. Arynn interrupted him and tugged on my arm. "Um, nice to meet you," I told him, and we left the store.

Arynn was walking really fast and swearing a lot about how I #&^$ shouldn't have !@&$ talked to him. "You don't @$^& have to #!$% go out with someone just to be *@^# nice!" she said.

"Ew, I know," I answered. "I wasn't going to go out with him! If he had asked me for my number, I would have just say no. I just wanted to be nice by talking to him." I thought for a moment. "He was telling me about how his wife, Edna Mc______, was murdered, but wasn't she an actress who was murdered like a long, long time ago?"

"Yes, in the 1920s. He's @#%$ delusional," Arynn said. And then I woke up.

The Time I Went to a School with People with Superpowers

Last night I dreamt that I went to either a boarding school or a small liberal arts college. In one wing of the school, all the students with superpowers hung out. They had their classes and dorms there, and most of them rarely went to any other part of the school. I was part of this wing, but I don't know what my superpower was. I may have been a squib, to borrow from J. K. Rowing.

For fun, my friends and I would jump around the stairwells. Some would even leap down the shaft between the stairwells and grab a bannister three floors down. One of my friends could almost fly and used the stairwells for practice. Some of us looked normal enough, like the stretchy guy, to wander out of our wing without arousing suspicion, but then there was a really tall girl, a bluish vampire, and a hairless guy with raised lines all over his body. They had to keep a lower profile.

One of the normal-looking superhero girls started liking a new guy at the school who was not a superhero. She even invited him to hang out with us, in our non-superhero capacities, once or twice.

Afterwards, the rest of us had a meeting to discuss him where we all sat cross-legged on the dingy, yellowish linoleum of our hallway. Half of us thought it was okay for him to hang out with us and perhaps eventually know about us, and half of us thought it was a bad idea and the girl should stop seeing him. We compromised by deciding to investigate him further before making a final decision. I was nominated to conduct the investigation. I was supposed to go to the normal wing of the school and talk to a girl whom we had learned through sources was his ex-girlfriend.
The ex-girlfriend, a small, dark-haired girl who worked in the student store, told me as she arranged pencils behind the counter that she and the guy had never dated. They were just really good platonic friends. I was suspicious and wondered what was wrong with him. Then she said he was a nice guy and that my friend should take a chance on him. I thanked her for her time and started walking back to my wing. The girl put her hand on my arm, and when I had gotten down the hallway to the corner, her hand was still on my arm. I looked back and saw her arm stretched all the way down the hallway. The other students in the hallway just walked around as if they either didn't notice or were so familiar with superpowers that they weren't interested.
I shook off her hand and retreated to my wing to discuss on the floor with my friends. Maybe my superpower was that I transfer superpowers from one person I touched to another. On the other hand, maybe there were people with superpowers at the school whom we didn't know about. Maybe that "nice guy" was a spy for another superpower-having faction.

Then a professor showed up and handed out transcripts. I was graduating, but I had holds on my transcript. I asked the professor about the hold codes, and she looked at my transcript with her brow furrowed for a while and then concluded that I must have not returned all the textbooks I checked out. She shrugged, "You know that health book, well, none of the graduating girls have returned that." I promised to find the books and give them back, and then I woke up for a little bit.

The Time I Battled Snide Comments about Islam

This morning I also dreamt that I was reading a newspaper article. It was a long article somewhere in the middle of the A section: "Indian Muslims Hold Services in Hindi". It included a large picture of smiling Indians wearing salwar kameez. Only some of the women covered their heads. The article also contained some Devanagari script, which changed every time I looked at it because I'm not familiar enough with written Hindi for it to stay the same. I think the script was supposed to be a symbol for Allah/God in Hindi, but again, I don't think it was accurate. Anyway, this whole dream would have made a lot more sense if the article was about Pakistani Muslims holding services in Urdu or something, but whatever.

I was in a large white room with folding chairs, and my mom was there too. I showed her the article. "Good for them," she said. Then she looked at my face and said, "What do you think about it?"

I shrugged. "Well, I'm not sure if I should have an opinion because people can do whatever they want in their own religion. I guess it's cool that they can understand the prayers and the Qur'an now because they're not in Arabic anymore. It's good that people know their religion."

"I'm glad that they're breaking away from their relationship with Arab Muslims," my mom said. "It shows that they are rejecting the terrorists in the Arab world."

I groaned and rolled my eyes at her, then I read more of the article: "When I asked the local imam about Islam, he continually quoted from the Hebrew Bible rather than the Qur'an, as if to prove his religion through mine," the reporter wrote.

"I'm not sure I like the tone of this article," I told my mom. Then my mom suggested that we invite an imam to talk to us about Islam for family home evening.

Suddenly it was family home evening. The imam looked an awful lot like the man who represented the Muslim Student Association at the Freethinkers' Society panel discussion: mid-thirties, clean-shaven, wearing a shirt, tie, and slacks. One of the walls of the room was now painted with that chalkboard paint. My dad was leaning back in his chair with his arms folded and his face ready to disagree with whatever the imam said.
The imam just started telling stories from the Qur'an that are also in the Bible to build common ground and also show us what the Qur'an can add to our understanding of the Bible: Joseph and Zulaikha, for example. During each story, one of the family would draw stick-figure interpretations of the story on the chalkwall with chalk.

My brother's turn to illustrate came, the imam told the story of Saul and Chemish. (No real story like that exists in the Bible or Qur'an, but that's not important.) My brother thought the imam had said "Sean", so he wrote "Sean" on the board and then asked, "Do you want me to spell Sean s-e-a-n?" I went up to him and said, "No, it's Saul, not Sean," but he was already off on his spelling obsession.

"I want you to spell Sean s-h-a-u-n!" he barked, writing "Shaun" on the board. "How do you spell Sean?" he asked me.

"Right now we're talking about Saul and Chemish," I said. "Could you write Saul on the board? It's s-a-u-l."

"How do you spell Michael? I want you to spell Michael m-i-k-u-l!" he yelled, blinking hard and writing "Mikul" on the board. "Oh, I wish it was spelled m-i-k-u-l!"

"How do you think you spell Chemish?" I asked.

He wrote a crazy bunch of letters on the board and muttered, "m-i-k-u-l."

I rolled my eyes, and then I woke up.

The Time I Realized I Don't Smoke

Things I've never tried.

Last night I dreamt I was talking about smoking with a woman who had just quit a pack-a-day habit. I told her that I know how addictive they are: I tried a cigarette once to test the theory that they relax asthmatic lungs. After that, I get a craving every month or two and smoke another one. "Does a pack-a-year habit even have negative health effects?" I asked her.

"Probably not," she said, "but how did you go to the temple yesterday [I actually did in waking life] if you smoke cigarettes every once in a while?"

At about this point, I realized I was dreaming, so I stopped talking the the imaginary lady and just had an argument with myself:

First-person me. Well, since I always mean to never smoke, I repent after each cigarette and I can go to the temple in between semimonthly cigarettes.
Third-person me. But you can't just kneel down and say, "Sorry, God, I won't do it again," with the Word of Wisdom! You have to confess to the bishop and stop taking the sacrament and stuff.
First. For just one cigarette?
Third. Yeah, the Word of Wisdom is included in the temple recommend interview. You have to report to the bishop when your status on those essential questions has changed. It's part of your temple covenants, remember?
First. But I just went to the temple yesterday! How did I go to the temple if I'm breaking the Word of Wisdom?
Third. Good question. Did you just lie to God?
First. No, I would never do that! Wait, maybe I don't smoke.
Third. Are you sure? I distinctly remember you smoking from time to time. I even remember the sour taste of an unlit cigarette in your mouth.
First. No, I couldn't have smoked because I've always been worthy in my temple recommend interviews. If I'm going to the temple, then I must not have that pack-a-year problem.
Third. Thinks hard over life memories. Oh, yeah, you don't! You don't have any real memories of smoking. I think you've just had dreams about smoking before, and your dream self's memories are your previous dreams, not your real life.
First. That makes sense. I've had dreams before when memories of previous dreams played a part in what happened. Maybe that's what's going on here. Even that taste is just what I imagine a cigarette tastes like based on the smell of tobacco and what I've read in thriller novels.
Third. Cool. I'm glad we cleared that up. You've never had a cigarette. I feel better about being you now.

And then I woke up very relieved.

The Time I Spent the Night at an Observatory

This morning I also dreamt that I was a white American teenage girl on an overnight fieldtrip to an observatory. This super cool kid in school—gorgeous, smart, artsy, shy, musical—performed something on the keyboard with his band in front of the class. He, of course, was in love with a popular cheerleader girl, and the bass player in his band, a nerdy girl, was in love with him.

We went outside to look at the beautiful stars stretching as far as the eye could see, and then we spent the night in the observatory. In the gray early morning, I found this super emo stud and tried to convince him to choose me over the cheerleader and the bandmate. Some other stuff happened, but I forgot them because I didn't write this down after I woke up.

The Time I Skipped Adolescence with Voodoo

Last night I dreamt I was a fourteen-year-old West Indian girl living in the eastern United States. I had a little friend, cousin, or half-sister who was like seven or something. Her hair was in those cute braids that stick out and have colored plastic barrettes on them. I lived with my dad in a small, dark apartment.

Then my cousin and I went to visit my aunt or her aunt or our aunt in London. The flight was long, but her place was much more open than my house and had wood floors.

The aunt was some kind of magic healer, and she gave us a spell that allowed us to travel through time. I decided immediately that my friend/cousin and I would travel five years into the future. I mean, being fourteen really sucks and it would be nice to skip it.
I had my cousin go first because she was littler. She spun around three times and repeated the spell after every full turn. Then she disappeared. The aunt nodded me on, so I spun around three times and repeated the spell after every full turn. I was a little late saying it on the last turn, so I was afraid it wouldn't work, but I blinked and there I was in the aunt's house with my friend, who didn't look any older, and things looked a little different. Some of the buses out the window looked sleeker and more plasticy, and a bright LCD billboard had been installed outside.

The aunt came in the room. She had more gray in her hair and was wearing a different muumuu. She said something like, "There you are!" I asked why we didn't look older, and she said it was because we'd skipped five years rather than living them out. I thought about it and was okay because even if my body was still fourteen, my birth certificate would show I was nineteen, so I could at least skip high school stupidity.

Then I thought about my dad. I had disappeared for five years! He must be worried sick. The aunt agreed with me. I ran out to go find him. First I went to the airport and used the magic powers that I apparently possessed to buy a $5000 ticket (inflation) to the US without money. But then the dream rewound a bit and I realized my dad had come to London to look for me five years ago and then stayed just in case I appeared there. He had been drinking a lot the last time the aunt saw him, and that was a couple years ago. I went to a scary part of East London to find him, afraid he might be dead, and then I woke up.

The Time I Met My Soulmate on a Plane and Ran from Generic Nefarious Characters

Last night I dreamt that I was flying somewhere on a plane. I sat next to this hot guy who I swear I saw on TV in real life, and we really hit it off. Next we met on our return flight. (I don't remember as much about the beginning of the dream.) Something happened, and we decided not to get back on the plane after a layover. We were running, running, running through the airport, which looked more like a Tokyo shopping mall because there were blinking, flashing red and yellow neon signs everywhere.

Finally we escaped the airport. Someone was chasing us. We were running, running, running up and down hills in a high-end beachfront Southern California neighborhood. I was so tired that I was starting to wheeze and my legs and feet screamed with every step. The hot guy and I found some college students who were sympathetic to our cause (whatever it was), and they agreed to carry us on their backs. The guy had a couple of these college guys link arms and carry him together. I had a woman carrying me, and we got so far behind the guy that we lost him.

The woman carrying me was so tired that my friend Brooke showed up to carry me piggyback. Since the bad guys were going to catch us anyways, I told Brooke to carry me to my house so at least I could rest before I was captured/arrested.
My house turned out to be a gigantic McMansion with crazy-bright 1970s yellow-patterned wallpaper. I started to rest, but then that hot guy from the plane showed up even though I never told him my last name or where I lived. He had doubled back when he realized he'd lost me (proving the power of love at least in dream situations). Then the bad guys showed up in a big black SUV and a lot of creepy scar-faced dudes in black leather piled out. Hot guy told me to hide, so I did. He was shot to death off stage. Hot guy's brother suddenly appeared and helped me escape to Mexico after lots more running.

Next I was floating down either a river or the Gulf of California in a black life-vest. The idea was that if the bad guys thought I was on a boat, they would look for me down the river days before I actually floated down there and give up. I finally got out of the water, remarkably unpruny, at a Mexican resort town for Americans. A little Mexican girl helped me get some clothes and food, though I still looked pretty bedraggled in a blue t-shirt, black puffy vest that was magically also a life-vest, and jean shorts. My hair was all tangled and my skin was super leathery tan. Magically I also started to speak Spanish with a convincing Mexican accent.
I went into the resort complex to get supplies. It was a big modern white structure with lots of blue ambient lights and fish tanks and soft techno music around restaurants and overpriced shops. Around nighttime, I saw the creepy scar-faced guy and his minions at the resort, but I hid behind a pillar so they didn't see me. I guess since I was rich in my dream, they thought I was a guest at the resort and not sleeping on the beach in a tent. I ran out of the building to hide under a white-painted deck and overheard them telling the Mexican authorities that I was a criminal looking for some papers. One of the minions dropped a couple copies of the papers, and the wind carried them to me. One was a pamphlet of HP printer instructions and the other was a small receipt with random words written on the back of it. I wanted to immediately jump back in the gulf and travel farther downstream, but I was afraid that the bad guys would see me from the picture windows in the resort that faced the beautiful beach.

I went back inside the resort to find a good place to hide until they left, but once I got inside I saw they'd left the deck. So they were someplace in the resort, and I could run into them or they could run into me at any minute. Panic! I checked the fancy Asian-fusion restaurant—they weren't there. I thought, Crap! Am I looking for them or running from them?

Then suddenly I ran into hot dead guy's brother. He tried to help me by showing me a way out of the resort where I definitely wouldn't run into anyone. I was glad that none of the bad guys had found me yet, though I knew it was only a matter of time.
In fact, just as I got out of the kitchen door, one of scar-face's minions caught my arm. He looked kind of like Wash on Firefly except scary—blond, Hawaiian shirt, sunburnt, muscular. He thought he was super charming, except he was disgusting. He said he wouldn't give me up to his boss immediately because I was obviously succumbing to his charms and would eventually have sex with him. I wrenched myself away and came to a small circular concrete pool filled with agitated green water. (It was nighttime, but there were enough artificial lights around to see it.) "This water is confusing," I told scary-Wash, "it disorients you." I kind of wanted to jump in and swim through the culvert to the gulf from which the water was piped, but I was afraid I would panic and run out of air.

Then the surreal dream part really got going: I jump in. I don't jump in. Brother talking to me again. Hot guy didn't die, but he faked his death so I wouldn't know he was alive. I could still find him! And then I woke up.

The Time I Started Going Blind and Almost Ran Over Some Pirates and Also There Was a Dragon

Last night I dreamt that my left eye, which has been all achy and red for a few months, got even redder and achier, so I drove to the Student Health Center. It looked more like a one-star motel with brown industrial carpet and a TV and double bed in each exam room, but it was the Student Health Center.
My doctor was a beautiful Ethiopian woman who smelled faintly spicy. She shone a light in my eye but didn't tell me much. She said I should come back if it got worse, and I drove home. On the way home, I saw some pirate day-laborers waiting at a bus stop by Morrill Middle School (San José, California).
Then something happened with my friends, who were something between Hogwarts students and young Camelot residents from the series Merlin. We had a dragon, who was sometimes like the dragons in the Harry Potter series and sometimes like the dragon in Merlin and sometimes like Dragon from the Shrek series. I don't remember much about that subplot.

Anyway, a few days later, I woke up in my Hogwarts/Camelot dorm room, and I could barely see. I had some sort of tunnel vision, except the tunnel was white instead of black. If I blinked and then concentrated really hard, I could see clearly for a second or so. I stumbled over some clutter to the mirror, got so close that my nose was against the glass, and did the blink-squint thing. My left iris had this thick white filmy ring around it that nearly covered the pupil, and my right iris was starting to get a white ring too, but it was only around the outside part of the iris. Needless to say, I felt a little panicky.
I went to my friends to ask them if I could have a ride on the dragon to the Student Health Center, but they were busy saving a kingdom or something. So, I had to drive myself, going blink-squint-blink-squint to gather intermittent information about the road and the cars around me. I prayed. A lot.
Somehow I made it to the Health Center, and I was called into the exam room by the same Ethiopian doctor. She ushered me in and asked me to sit on the edge of the bed like last time, but now there was a suspicious-looking wet spot on the worn brown cotton bedspread. The spot smelled like urine. I tried not to sit on it, which was hard because I couldn't see very well. The doctor examined me and told me I was going blind because I hadn't come in early enough for the original redness-soreness thing that is actually happening during my waking hours.
I got in the car and started driving back, blink-squint-blink-squint. I got closer to where I'd seen the pirate day-laborers before, but then I didn't blink long enough and I missed a cycle and when my vision finally cleared again, the pirates had moved onto the road and I was going to hit them. Of course, then my vision whited out again so I had to blink. When I squinted again, the pirates were all holding their arms up and shouting at me, "Are you blind?!" but they had moved out of the way of the car. I drove home as quickly as possible and curled up in my bed. That evening I had to tell my friends on the dragon squad that I was going blind and that my eyes looked all milky and gross, but I never heard their reactions because then I woke up.

The Time I Was Married to the Son of a Mafia Don

Last night I dreamt that I was married to the oldest son of an Italian mob boss. My husband and I lived in an Italian mansion with his younger brother and his wife and their parents. Even though my father-in-law was large and Italian and wore pinstriped suits, my mother-in-law was the real boss of the mob operation and of the house.

There was some kind of rivalry between me and my brother-in-law's wife. She had two children, and I didn't have any. She liked to wear shiny teal dresses.

One evening, after a big Italian dinner, my father-in-law called a meeting, which his wife conducted. The whole household sat on rustic-style couches in a whitewashed room decorated with bougainvillea and a stone fountain in the center of the red tile floors. My mother-in-law told us that since my husband's sister, Belisama (Thanks, The Sims 3: Late Night!), had moved out, she was giving her old room to my brother-in-law and his wife. My husband and I felt slighted because we should have gotten the room, as my husband was the heir to the mob family. However, my husband and I simply looked at each other and thought these things. I felt bad that I hadn't been able to get pregnant yet because my mother-in-law was obviously slighting me for it.

After my brother- and sister-in-law got the room, we all went to the room to check it out. It was beautiful. The room was connected to a courtyard that was full of gurgling fountains and vines and flowers. Looking up, I could see the clear sky filled with stars. I shivered and buttoned my cardigan—it was a cool night but not chilly. A large bed was under a wooden awning covered in vines. One could lie on the bed and fall asleep to the sounds of birds and bubbling water.

"What if it rains?" I asked no one in particular. Then I saw a little shelter with another bed and a door to a beautiful bathroom. This should be mine, I thought, and then I woke up.

The Time James Franco Pursued Me Romantically and Then I Decided Not to Watch an Anti-Semitic 50s Horror Movie

Last night I dreamt that James Franco, whom I really am kind of fascinated by since I first saw him in 1999 on Freaks and Geeks and then he disappeared and then he came back but now he looks more high than before, wanted to date me. We would meet in a small white room that made me think we were at church in one of the rooms they use for Sunday School or Institute. James Franco kept sidling up to me and saying flirty things, and I would always turn him down because I have a policy of not dating cocaine addicts. Once he stood very close to me and asked me out, and I looked way up at him and said, "Why do you even want to date me? I'm too short for you!" (I just checked IMDb, and James Franco is 5'10", and he was at least 6'2" at this point in the dream. My subconscious can't get everything right.) This was probably the first time I've actually been five-nothing in a dream. Usually I'm taller than I am in real life. Of course, if I ever dated a guy who wasn't too tall for me, he'd have a hormonal problem. No thank you.
Anyway, I couldn't understand why James Franco wanted to date me so badly when he could probably get much prettier B- or C-list actresses and models to date him. Maybe it was because I didn't want to date him. Once he got really close and started flattering me by telling me how smart and independent and different I am, and I almost agreed to a lunch date when this hot blonde Eastern European model named Sonya walked in the room. James Franco totally forgot I was there and, as if attracted by magnetism, stuck himself to Sonya for the rest of the night. I rolled my eyes and left. He apologized profusely the next time I saw him, but I wouldn't give him the time of day. He apologized more emphatically, and I started to soften up. Then I woke up, horrified.

It was just after four in the morning, and I had a raging migraine. I went downstairs and had some toast to quiet my stomach and some sort of ineffective analgesic and went back to bed.
Next I dreamed that I was in a university-type situation. Maria, who was in my TESOL classes last quarter, was there. We lived in a city which was a lot like London except there was no traffic and it was always either nighttime or twilight. We wanted to check out the movies playing in town, and it might have been because James Franco wanted to take me to the movies but I had to tell him which movie I wanted to see. I wanted to see something artistic, so Maria and I jumped in a London cab and went to the Barbizon (subconscious portmanteau of Barbican Centre and the Curzon Mayfair). It had a cinema called The Criterion Collection, which played old films. Maria and I stayed in the cab but used our eyes to unnaturally zoom in on the little poster giving detailed descriptions of the films playing that week. There were two. One seemed boring, but I remember every detail of the other film.

The title of the film on the poster was "The Cabbala (1921/1958; b/w; silent)". Since it had two dates, I was intrigued and read the description:

The first reel of this film was shot in 1921, but the production company, [a name I don't remember], folded, leaving the reel in a vault. In 1958 horror-movie producer [another name I don't remember] found the reel and decided to produce the rest of the film in the silent format using the original actors. Thus, after the first twenty minutes of the film, we see the title "37 years later", the time period in which the rest of the film occurs.

The picture on the informational poster showed a man in dark robes with his hands raised in front of a pit of fire. The flames created a distinct impression of two upward-facing horns. Anyway, I don't remember word-for-word, but the film's description went on to say that The Cabbala was a horror film about Satan-worshippers who conjure Satan and succeed in killing God the Father and Jesus Christ. They cannot kill the Holy Ghost, however, and are therefore unsuccessful as one member of the Godhead survived. According to the poster, the film was artistically interesting because it was shot silently in the era of sound and because the 1921 reel was so haphazardly cobbled in.

I decided not to see it because (a) the plot sounded creepy and (b) the fact that the film was called The Cabbala but was about Satan-worshippers made it sound vaguely anti-Semitic. And then I woke up.

The Time I Was Evacuated from Russia

Last night I dreamt that I was involved in a love triangle, except I was not one of the principals. One of them was Zoey from How I Met Your Mother except she turned into Aishwarya Rai towards the end of the dream. She was married and had a three-year-old son, but my guyfriend was in love with her.

Meanwhile, we were all in Russia, but we were being evacuated because of a revolution or a restart of the Cold War or something very Spooks-y. Another friend and I spent a long time hiking up the hills of an empty parking lot at the Moscow Airport in the middle of the night. (So many prepositional phrases!) Sulfuric light only partially illuminated the asphalt and the tall brick industrial buildings beside us, letting shadows pool in the valleys of the uneven street. When we finally got to the terminal, we joined the masses of people sleeping on the floor like those people at the Tunisian-Libyan border, waiting for a plane or a ship.

Aishwarya Rai was there. Her son was whining because he was tired and hungry. She wore black. My guyfriend pointed out her swarthy husband—"She could never love him! He doesn't treat her like I would treat her." Guyfriend wanted to go over to the object of his desire and persuade her to go to the US with him rather than back to India with her husband. I tried to persuade my friend to let it go, and then I woke up.

The Time I Was Mixed Up in the Regency Era

Last night I dreamt I was in some kind of Sense and Sensibility situation. It was summer, and my younger sister (who wasn't my real younger sister) and I (who wasn't me) were visiting our aunt on the seashore, which was like at Lyme or something (and that's from Persuasion). It was really fun to walk along the seawall and smell the sea air.

My younger sister was like Marianne, and I was like Elinor. (After I woke up, I realized it would be impossible to be Marianne. No one reads Sense and Sensibility and relates to Marianne. People like Marianne are only experienced by outsiders.) There was this Colonel Brandon character, except he was also like Edward Rochester (okay, not Regency) because he had rich skanks running after him, and he was madly in love with my sister but it was hopeless because he was too old and she was too depressed about something to pay any attention to him.

Anyway, my sister and I would stroll around town arm in arm, I pointing out everything I saw to try to cheer my sister up and she brooding and staring into the sea spray. The Colonel Brandon guy would ride his big black horse just beside and behind us. We went to a dance. The rich skanks made fun of our plain green (mine) and pink (my sister's) calico dresses. (The colors were the same as in the 2008 Sense & Sensibility, but the cuts were much simpler and had long sleeves.)

Another day, my sister and I got into a carriage accident or someone tried to rob our carriage or something and Colonel Brandon was there to save us. He lifted my sister (who was wearing blue) up on his horse to sit tight against him, and I (in sea green) had to ride in front of her, practically flung across the horse's neck. When we got into town, the rich skanks made fun of how my dress kept creeping up my legs when I sat in this awkward sidesaddle position. Some of the young men in the town also came out to laugh at me.

My sister was embarrassed and depressed and decided to go home by herself without telling anyone. She boarded the stagecoach, which inside looked like a short charter bus. Colonel Brandon found out and ran onto the coach to find her. During all of this, I'd developed a crush on Colonel Brandon mostly because he was so manly and so devoted to my sister. No one developed a crush on me. And then I woke up.

An Addition to My Favorite Movie Lists

I can't believe I forgot to include Gone with the Wind in my list of the top ten romantic movies! I mean, I love this movie! It definitely beats either The Phantom of the Opera or Dear Frankie, which got on the list because of some weird Gerard Butler fixation I was experiencing last year.


The only question is whether to put Gone with the Wind in the romantic or serious movie category. Even though the movie is romantic, I'm not sure the romance is why I love it. I love it because it is like a Greek tragedy. I love how Scarlett's greatest strength—the determination that got her, her sisters, her servants, and the Wilkes family through the war and the immediate postwar period—also is her greatest downfall because she cannot show the vulnerability that comes with love. I love it because Scarlett acts as I acted as a girl and probably would still act if acne and a weight problem had not humbled me in my teens. I love it for the catharsis I experience when Scarlett and Rhett's failure to communicate rips them apart. I love it for how much it makes me wish I were Vivien Leigh—beautiful, deeply unhappy, and unhealthily attached to Lawrence Olivier. I love it because I both love Melanie for her own sake and hate her for Scarlett's sake.

I also really love the pretty dresses.

Egypt is Free!

BBC News video of the celebrations


Yesterday afternoon I sat glued to CNN, watching millions of people shout and sing and dance in the street. It was beautiful. I heard them shouting and catch a word here and there—kicking myself for losing my ability to speak Egyptian Arabic.

"But," the American commentators warned, "what if the government the people elect does not favor the United States as Mubarak did?" We had a good thing going with Mubarak, as we do with the Saudi royal family. For longer than I like to admit, I considered this possibility. Oh, no, I thought, buying into the worry, what if we lose our friend, the most populous country in the Arab world?

Then I realized—the United States was not the primary beneficiary of Mubarak's friendship, Israel was. My country supports Egypt's military not to protect ourselves from danger but in order to protect our overgrown child to the north. I realized this was what the CNN reporter meant when she said, "Israel, which has long been the only true democracy in the region, is very nervous tonight." WHAT?! WHAT?! How can a country that considers a huge portion of its citizens a "demographic threat" (Netanyahu, 2003) be democratic? How can a country that denies citizenship to four million people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip simply because Arabs would become a demographic majority be a democracy? Israel is a lot of things, but I would hardly call it a beacon of democracy. Oppression is oppression whether an autocrat orders it or a fairly elected parliament orders it.

So whatever, commentators. I hope Egypt opens its border with Gaza now that it doesn't have to do what my country orders it to do. And if Egypt wants to go further and put some pressure on Israel, I'm okay with that too. Israel kind of deserves it.


Let's just be happy for the Egyptian people. How many stand up to autocrats and win without a war or a coup? I'll end with something Alaa Al-Aswany (author of The Yacoubian Building and a 2010 book titled, roughly, Why Does Egypt Not Revolt?, among other books) said in 2005 about his vision of Egypt in 2055:

After living away, I go back to Egypt. . . . After praying at the mosque, people spill out onto the streets to protest. I see police and I ask someone, "Will they beat us when we get to the end of the street?" . . . He tells me, "No, they are here to protect us." . . . There is a picture of a woman without a veil. . . . He tells me, "She is our candidate for president. . . . Times have changed. Things were very bad, there was a leader who ruled for 30 years, but when he tried to make his son president, there was a revolt." "What was his name?" I asked the man, and he said, "it was such a terrible time, no one dares to utter his name." (Vivan Salama, Daily News Egypt, 8 December 2005)

Egypt is free!