Not quite apocalyptic

I've been reading Don DeLillo's White Noise lately... probably not the best thing in light of my many apocalyptic dreams, but I'm really liking it. I have a feeling that traces of it seeped into my dream last night though...

I was back in college (again), and the school year was just starting. I had kind of a peculiar living situation, you might say. I lived in a dorm room with seven other people. Our beds were precariously lofted and all conjoined to create one strangely shaped sleeping area... and virtually no personal space. We had been getting situated (my seven roommates and I), and then we heard of some sort of dangerous toxic mass in the hallway on the way to the dining hall. Yeah, it was kind of creepy, but we had trains that ran on tracks through the hallways, so we didn't think it would be too big of a deal. We got on the train, and looked out the windows, curiously, from the safety of our airtight train cars. It looked almost like the scene below the now abandoned stop under the World Trade Centers. Eerie, suddenly abandoned but dusty and dirty. Then, to our horror, the train started slowing down in the middle of this disaster zone. Everyone shielded their faces in desperation to stop the harmful vapors from getting in, but the doors opened. We were all exposed. I struggled, trying not to breathe. Maybe if I didn't breathe, I wouldn't take in the fumes, and everything would be ok. The doors closed and the train rattled down the track. Later, when I went back to my room, no one else was there. But the school was trying to keep the whole thing a secret. Their reputation was already in question. They didn't want to rock the boat (especially after that embarrassing Swine Flu outbreak). I looked outside my window. Students seemed to be going about their business as usual, cavorting across the quad, unknowingly walking right toward the disaster zone...

You were there, playing in the surf and harboring a terrible secret

She clutched the warm, freshly laundered sheets tightly against her chest as if embracing a lover after awakening from a terrible dream.

The specifics of the nightmare? Well, she'd rather not say this time.

Apocalypse by water take two

For some reason, we all knew when the world would end, but no one knew how it would end. (It turns out we were actually one day off, and initially celebrated only to find out that it was really the next day).

Some people thought the sun would suddenly become so overpoweringly hot and bright that it would melt our retinas and we’d all just somehow disappear in this blinding white light. This way wasn’t so bad really. For some reason, there was no melting involved, no worrying about the extreme heat that would inevitably accompany the sun. People ran around on the beach, wearing these huge, dark glasses, specially made for the occasion.

Other people had other theories.

At one point, we discussed that it was strange that no one really seemed to be espousing the religious apocalypse thing. There was no big deceiver and surprisingly, little panic about religion or about anything really.

I was at the ocean’s shore when I saw it—a strange site. So many ducks in the water, rolling towards us in a breaking wave. Mallards. In the ocean. It struck me as strange because of course mallards are fresh water ducks, but I didn’t have much time to think about this since I quickly realized that all those beautiful ducks, rolling towards us at a disturbingly fast pace… they were all dead. Every last one of them.

"Oh no!" someone shouted. Anyone. It didn’t matter who at that point. We were all thinking it silently in our own heads as he pronounced the words, ‘It’s not the sun at all. It’s the sea! It’s full of death, and it’s coming towards us to claim us, too.’ As he said those words, the odor hit us in the face. The odor of millions of dead animals, and the water started lapping impatiently at our ankles.

“Run!” someone shouted. We were on the beach front of Fripp Island where my grandparents lived for many years in South Carolina. We picked out the tallest beach house (as if that would make a difference) and took off. It was the one with the elevator in it. We bounded up to the top floor. (I remember being surprised that Leslee from the Strand could run so fast).

We could see the water rising. I asked if we should try to find higher ground, but this was struck down. The water was level with the windows now, and it was starting to leak in. There was another family next door on the roof of a house: a mom, dad, and little boy. The boy was sobbing, so I walked over to him (the roofs were connected) and tried to comfort him before I launched my own tirade of, “We’re all going to die. We’re all going to die.” Over and over.

Then I woke up.

(Note: This is pretty much what I wrote down in the middle of the night, but I left out the references to NPR people - interestingly, I was mostly surrounded by NPR people in my dream.)

Looking on the bright side

Twice this week, I've had these odd, self-affirming/optimistic dreams. It's strange how my psyche seems to be trying to build me up. I appreciate it--though I'm not sure if it means I have low or high self-esteem at my core.

Dream #1:

Working my butt off at Savory Cafe (where I held a brief stint as a part-time barista on the weekends.) There was a long line of customers, and people were getting kind of pushy and annoyed with my slow service. Instead of allowing this to get me down, however, I focused on the song that was playing in the background, which had the horribly cheesy/elementary lyrics, "Isn't this so wonderful?" repeated over and over... and not in an ironic way.

Dream #2:

Stepping out of a bathtub in the middle of a large open room and taking my time getting dressed and drying off only to later realize that someone (actually a fellow NPR intern, and a female) was sitting in the window sill ledge, casually peering over her book at my naked figure. Once she admitted to this voyeurism, I remember trying to remember if I had done anything embarrassing, which is strange--trying to remember within a dream. Of course, I was pretty mortified that she had been there the whole time, but then, she said, "No reason to feel ashamed. You have a beautiful body."

The other day,

I woke up with the last part of the Humpty Dumpty nursery ryhme in my head. You know, the part that goes:

"All the king's horses
and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty
together again."



Can't remember if the phrase actually pertained to my dream or not, but I thought the rhyme was pretty indicative of the current situation.

My apocalyptic dream

Two nights ago, I dreamt about the end of humanity. This is what I wrote in my notebook when I woke up:

Because I have seen how the world will end. Over time, water takes over the land--continents disappear, and the beasts of the sea start growing. It's kind of like that thing with goldfish. Sure, they stay small when kept in a tiny bowl, but give them space, and they'll soon swell to enormous proportions. Eventually, one mammoth fish assumes the role of leader of the whole world. He is huge and hulking. All the remaining people have long been subjected to the sea--they float around in a glass ship, watching the sea creatures swim by until one day, they see him--the beast of the sea. He swallows the whole ship... and with it, the rest of humanity.




a possible explanation
I recently was taken by a song called "Whale Belly" by a band called Autopilot is for Lovers. The lyrics were as follows:
"If they ask you tell them we got swallowed up by a whale. If they ask you tell them... tell them we wish they were here. If they ask you tell them that we found a city in his belly and a forest inside of his chest, and his heart is our grandfather clock that beats out the hours like the fist of God. If they ask you tell them we're not coming home. We are home."

Resurrection, take two

Stuck in a cabin in a remote part of the woods with only the remnants left by the previous visitors to cook with, I flavored the soups/stews I made with the ink from scented markers, but I worried we would soon run out of flavors or that we would all surely begin to show signs of sickness from the toxic (but tastey) exposure.