Alex Lou's DJ/Workbook

[Alex Lou]

[Alex Lou]

I should have mentioned general life anxieties as well under my answer to the first question above.

Dream 1: Oversleeping FA Nightmare
I wake up and look at the clock.  It's almost 8:30.  My exam started at 8.¹  Plus I have some job that I was supposed to show up to as well.  My husband asks what's going² on as I jump out of bed and get dressed in a hurry.  I say, "I just failed out of . . . everything."³

Grab a banana from the kitchen, and I'm trying to call my instructor as I'm walking out the door.  I don't imagine that she'll let me make up the test, but I might as well at least try before accepting failing out of school.  She's not picking up.  I imagine her getting annoyed as her phone keeps ringing during the exam.⁴  I'll call one more time to leave a message.  Why didn't I leave a message the first two times I called?

I'll have to drive; no time for busses.  But my car if full of stuff.⁵  I open up three of the doors and start redistributing stuff from the front to the back seats.  A couple of credit card hippies⁶ come by and start picking up my stuff.  They think some items are cool and want to know if I really want them.⁷ I'm telling them to put the stuff down and go away, just go away, but they're not listening.  I don't have time for this.

Finally, in my car and going.  Everything's really colorful and I'm maneuvering this little squat character with a big belly.  I feel bad that I don't like this game just because of the controls.⁸  It really does seem like a good RPG, the kind I grew up with and used to like so much.⁹  But I guess it's natural that, now used to newer, better controls, I find this to be something I just don't want to deal with.  I like the games where you just hover your thumbs over the arrows and the controller senses the location.¹⁰  Two characters are interacting in some scene.  They bright and cartoony sprites, but appear to represent characters that are a combination of all the Greek war movies I've never seen.¹¹


Here's why I had this dream:
1. When planning my studying for the exam yesterday, I decided that I'd better sleep for a few hours earlier in the night if I was gonna sleep at all, because if I were to sleep later I might oversleep and be late.  I thought about how one of my classmates was late to clinical.  And although she was upset, it was a good time to oversleep; a test day would be much worse.  I also thought about how another classmate did sleep through the final for a previous class, but that instructor was a kinder individual that our current one and let him make it up.  I did end up oversleeping into my study time by 2 hours, during which time I had the dream.

2.  Thought about asking my husband or someone else to wake me up just in case.  

3.  When several of my classmates misunderstood yesterday that they were supposed to print out an assignment that was due the other day, I argued with my instructor about it, to which she basically said, "Too bad."  I was really upset that my classmates had lost 10% of their grades for something so trivial, jeopardizing they're status in the class and program.  I didn't know that our new instructor was such a hard-ass.  I almost cried.  And one of the affected students said, "It's a fucking boot-camp."  Also, several of my classmates failed the most recent math test (and by fail, I mean they got less than 96%).  If they fail a second time, they're out.  One girl was really upset and saying that she was done anyway, wouldn't take it a second time.  Thinking that my spirit is broken (and telling people such), noticing that I'm not as upset anymore when thinking about failing out or about others failing out.  

4.  My employer called me twice during a quiz the day before.  I'd forgotten to turn my phone off.  I imagined that it was distracting to my classmates and thought I might have to explain why I was being called.  My instructor didn't seem to notice, fortunately.  I also thought about how I'd called my dad during an AA meeting to ask for his WoW password a couple weeks ago.  And he was annoyed and embarrassed to be called during the meeting even though he answered his phone.

5.  I was talking to a homeless guy at the bus stop the yesterday and he said that his car had been stolen.  I imagined that he was living in the car before that happened but didn't want to ask.  Also, noticing the stuff on the floor around our bed, thinking about how my husband doesn't pick up after himself and I don't clean enough to make up for it, that we're just destined to be messy people.  My friend cleaning her apartment this last week in order to host a guest.  She said that she still hadn't unpacked from when she moved in months ago.  I still have a few items in my car from when I last moved.  Thinking about how I need to clean my car.

6.  My husband said the other day that if I fail out of school we can go live in the woods like I always said I wanted to do.  I actually had a plan to carry this out the first time I went to college.  I wanted to be a credit card hippie living in the woods.  This plan always involved keeping my stuff in my car.  And that homeless guy was very clean looking.  I was impressed and thought about all the resources homeless people have around here.

7. Locking the door as I get out of my husband's car.  Thinking that I aught to make a habit of it because he sometimes forgets to lock his car, and even if the driver's side is unlocked, locking the passenger's side would make it less obvious to someone on the sidewalk that the car is unlocked and reduce the changes of an opportunistic thief.  Telling my friends, that no, my sweater is not synthetic.  It's cashmere!  And therefore feels different from the fiber that's on my tongue from licking my own elbow.  My friends are like, La ti da!  To which I add that I got it at Goodwill, and one of my friends laughs at the irony.  Overheard conversation on the bus about some clothing outlet where you pay $1 for a lb of clothes, but you have to dig through the giant pile to find what you want.  Finding a rip in a skirt that I found on someone's lawn a few years ago and remembering where I got it.  Riding home on the bus in the evening and thinking about how warm my sweater is and how it's become my favorite even though the color probably doesn't suit me, and how much I love found clothes.

8. My husband bought Fallout 3 for PS3.  I was really excited even though I don't have time to start playing.  But he commented that the controls were different from xbox while playing.  That got me worried:  I don't want to learn new controls.  But then I remembered that in general I do prefer the PS controller, so maybe I'll prefer it even though I played Fallout first on xbox.  Thinking about how the PS controller is modeled much more after the classics.

9.  Thinking that it's a shame that I don't finish many games anymore.  Good ones even.  But considering how busy I am, I'd better really be enthralled by a game to spend my limited time on it.

10. My friend saying that what Nintendo makes aren't video games anymore.  Me thinking about Wii bowling and stuff as a result, which includes the Wiimote.  Deciding that he's kinda right.

11.  Watching some stupid video with that Sparta reference on youtube.  Actually, here it is.  Saw the video while trying to get "groundhog" in my mind for the monthly challenge.  And realizing that I did some task with a groundhog for DV a couple years ago.  In my dream it was all cartoony.


Probably worth noting that I'm not alone in getting nightmares from the program at school.  When I shared my dream with classmates, two of them also reported nightmares.  One woman said that she dreamed that there was thunder and lightning, and a flood in class, and we got carried away by the water one by one.  Sounds a lot cooler than my dream.

[Burned up]

I found this dream busy and exhausting to read.  So much going on in such a short passage.  Indeed from the word go - running late for an exam - it was like everything was so much effort because things weren't how you wanted them.

The fat character was amusing, though.

[Lucidbulbs]

This dream sounds stressful, feels stressful, it's the essence of stress! I can imagine you just barely being able to control harming the hippies with everything else built upon the other stresses in your dream. The car part sounds like you were able to ultimately calm down and forget about your stresses... After all games are the juxtaposition of work and school when I think about it.

[Sunshine]

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[Alex Lou]

Thanks for the comments.

I forgot that there was also a finch in my car in the dream that I'd forgotten about and neglected.  But it had survived by eating spilled seed that was part of the mess, and had layed eggs.  One of the eggs hatched into a full-grown bird. --> And this part came from me watching a show about eagles and watching them sit on their nests, and knowing that my lovebird is hormonal at the moment, wondering if I gave him eggs, would he sit on them?  But what eggs?  Finch maybe?  And remembering how I hand-fed some finch chicks a few years ago.

[mu]

Images
I don't want to imagine the first part of the dream.    I get wonderful, chaotic imagery when everything becomes a crazy car/RPG thing.  I'm *trying* to imagine what your dreams are like with the controllers and stuff.

Sensations
I could scream at the first part.  Whenever you start to become a little lucid, or see the dream as a video game, however, they start to take on a truly wonderful and unique form.  I sense a strange combination of both detachment and immersiveness with the controllers, sprites, etc..

Emotions
, but then  .

I'm drawn to say
You, more than anyone else, make me want to start playing a good RPG or something again, just to have this strange view of things in a dream.

Mood
The first part is thoroughly annoying SC nonsense.  Yours doesn't mess around.  However, I never lost hope because you always seem to turn things around.

[Vex]

There's so much going in in that dream it makes me feel tired just reading it. (but i'm lazy to begin with) Are all your dreams this hectic? I hope not. Dreams should be an nightly escape from some some of the pressures of the waking world.

[Alex Lou]

I found this dream busy and exhausting to read.  So much going on in such a short passage.  Indeed from the word go - running late for an exam - it was like everything was so much effort because things weren't how you wanted them.

There's so much going in in that dream it makes me feel tired just reading it.

I don't know, didn't seem all that busy to me.  Although it was a culmination of many of the sources of stress in my life right now.

I can imagine you just barely being able to control harming the hippies

Not at all.  I rarely have violent impulses.

The car part sounds like you were able to ultimately calm down and forget about your stresses... After all games are the juxtaposition of work and school when I think about it.

Absolutely right.  Honestly, I wasn't feeling all that terrible to begin with.  I've had much more stressful dreams, and this one didn't reach the threshold that makes me wake up or become lucid.  By the end I'd completely forgotten about school.

I usually know some of where my dreams come from, but it's amazing you can figure it all out!

It's just practice I think.  I guess I was a bit premature in my analysis.  I didn't know how the workshop would be paced.  But, I would have forgotten all those life details if I didn't record them right away.  I saw that The Cusp wrote that he knows where 99% of his dreams come from.  I think I'm around 25-40%.  There are just so many little things in life that we forget, or don't notice in the first place.  And small details in dreams that we may not think about or accept as filler.

Images
I'm *trying* to imagine what your dreams are like with the controllers and stuff.

I sense a strange combination of both detachment and immersiveness with the controllers, sprites, etc..

I hadn't thought about that.  I don't remember holding a controller.  I was fully immersed:  The scene was around me, not in front of me.  I was just thinking about the controls after having trouble with my movement.

Whenever you start to become a little lucid, or see the dream as a video game, however, they start to take on a truly wonderful and unique form. 

A lucid dream for me isn't necessarily fundamentally different from a non-lucid.  It is me that changes, my perceptions, not the dreams, usually.  The exceptions would be those dark ones I have.  My game dreams are mostly different in that I have little care for consequences and am violent.  Or in this case, they have old-school graphics.  They are certainly less unique since they typically closely copy something I've experienced in reality.  Sometimes they are fun though.

I'm drawn to say
You, more than anyone else, make me want to start playing a good RPG or something again, just to have this strange view of things in a dream.

Haha, I can't even remember the last time I played a strait-up RPG.

Mood
The first part is thoroughly annoying SC nonsense.  Yours doesn't mess around.  However, I never lost hope because you always seem to turn things around.

Can you even consider that SC?  I thought it was pretty C.  Maybe some of both, I'm not sure.  I didn't turn it around on purpose.

[Alex Lou]

Dark City
I'm watching my cat run in and out, and around in the pouring rain.  I don't wanna close the door all the way in case she wants to come in but some of the water's comming in.  I try to just stand in front of the door, block it with my body, but it's uncofortably cold when it hits my head.

It's so dark that I can't see the cars.  I try to turn on a street light (with my mind?).  It gets brighter and brighter, but then goes out.  Typical.  Why is there traffic inside anyway? I watch my cat running across the street and nearly getting hit.  I'm nearly getting hit too.  It's so dark.  Too dark for drivers to see us.

And I fly up into the sky.  Oh, yeah.  Since this is a dream I should see if I can get to the sun.  I think of finding MB, then think that I aught to look for the group, rather than just MB.  I have some thought of making her appear.

Looking out at the city from above, it drops off suddenly, ends in complete black in all directions.  So it's not part of some endless urban sprawl!  Maybe it's on the sun:  If it were on the sun with something to protect the city from the radiation, maybe it would be this dark.

I am my husband (Cool! I'm tall now.) who was apparently hanging out in some random building.  His body's all stretchy for some reason, and I stretch up into the air.  I think it's a lotta fun.  I decide to put on a wetsuit so that I'll be wearing something to match the stretchiness.  There are a bunch hanging on pegs on a wall.  I start putting one on physically, then try to put it on the rest of the way with my mind.  I put a wetsuit on some kid with my mind as well.  You just have to wrap it around and make it stick.  But walking, I feel as if the legs aren't pulled up all the way, as if my feet are in the legs and the extra length is flopping around.  I can feel the seams on the bottoms of my feet.  I start trying to pull the legs up with my hands before deciding that I really should be able to do this with my mind:  Maybe I can only convince myself that I've done it if I physically do it.  No, it shouldn't be that way.  Why would I have such sensations on my feet in a dream anyway?

I do wheel pose.  The center of my husband's lithe body stretches up and up.

I run past a bunch of other guys who are hurriedly putting on their wetsuits.  Haha!  I put mine on so much faster because I did it with my mind!  Out into the city, the darkness, and the rain.

: Influences • show

Watching, commenting today on my cat in the rain;  that she's the result of natural selection for what survived winters in the park.  Going outside to look at something and noticing that I didn't like the feeling of the rain hitting me in the back of the head, feeling like a wimp.

Possible J-walking today.  And thinking about how aggressive I am when I cross the street.  My mom giving me some advice about driving in the rain.  Driving in a city where I used to live the yesterday and thinking about how disgustingly heavy the traffic is.  You'd think that if you had to go 3 mph on the freeway on a regular basis, you'd figure out how to use an alternate form of transportation.

I think MB was in a dream I had the other day.  Thinking that I aught to tell her.  And that she takes on significance to my dreaming mind because she pays more attention to my dreams than anyone else in my life.

Watching a street light flicker like crazy the other day and thinking that it's worse than my own.

I think I had some dream earlier in which I planned to take my husband's body in order to accomplish something.  My reasoning was that it's taller and therefore more flexible.

Thinking today about summer and going to the beach in my wetsuit.  Thinking that it would be fun to do wheel pose in the surf.  Wondering if my wetsuit will stretch as far as I can.  Wondering how my backbends are shaping up; if they look all right.

On Saturday(?) someone was telling me for some reason that they didn't have much upper body strength, like most women.  I don't remember being consciously aware of it, but it must have reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend last week about how men have an advantage in wheel pose because of upper body strength.

Seeing some surfer kids crossing PCH in their wetsuits (today?).  Thinking that my brother was about their age when he started getting really into surfing.  And how I felt really left out, relating back to how much it sucked to be a girl.

Seeing some skater girl on the bus today who totally looked like skater boys always do: all long and lanky.  Wondering if the body type somehow makes one more encouraged to pursue skating.

Oh, and thinking (maybe two weeks ago) that all the women you see practicing yoga are so skinny.  And how I don't want to be that skinny.  But it is probably an advantage. 

Also, my cat was clawing at my bedroom door while I was having this dream.

[Burned up]

I took a look at the "influences" spoiler, wondering if that would affect what I write.  I don't think it affects my instinctive reaction to the dream but it does leave me thinking that you don't want to invite any symbolic interpretation of the dream.

I imagine most of all the darkness.  I can't even see the rain it's so dark.  And I imagine the cat is black too.  I don't get much in the way of emotion here.  Although I do sense you're eager to achieve something in this dream.  Maybe that's why you needed to be this superhero-type character (can I call your husband a superhero?  ).

If there's anything I can add by way of thinking, it would probably connect with the light.  Once you'd got the street light on, the dream transformed from a hopeless dark wet night to a day full of fun and success.  So I'm left wondering where that light is in your real life, or where you'd like it to be?

[Sunshine]

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[Lucidbulbs]

I found the dream to be interesting too! I also found it sadly... hard to connect with beyond a spectator's view.

I find it interesting that the references to darkness fade away the moment you are your husband... I imagine after reading this that you two are very close, after all you were so comfortable in his skin... but not his clothes? Clothes are a part of identity, but as to what it means for it to make you feel weird, maybe there are still some aspects of him you are still trying to understand?

Other than that, all  I see is a very nice dream... with some very interesting influences.

[Alex Lou]

I don't know why it took me so long to finish this up.   

Anyway, while falling asleep in the evening after writing up that analysis for the last dream, I was actually kept awake by all the memories of things that contributed to the dream.  It was all stuff that lead to me switching to having a male body.  I'm far too lazy to type it all up here, but it was at least 8 separate thoughts relating to different things in my life.  Most of it had to do with the physical inadequacies of having a female body.  And I realize that that dream was really about was my . . . resentment(?) that despite being athletic, I will never be strong or tall like a man.  It almost makes Freud sound right.  Except I do not want a penis, just the muscle. 

I don't think it affects my instinctive reaction to the dream but it does leave me thinking that you don't want to invite any symbolic interpretation of the dream.

I don't think that it really bothers me.  Though I'd be surprised if someone gave an accurate symbolic interpretation.

I don't get much in the way of emotion here.  Although I do sense you're eager to achieve something in this dream.  Maybe that's why you needed to be this superhero-type character (can I call your husband a superhero?  ).

It had the same emotional undertone that all my dark dreams have.  It's foreboding.  And I feel vaguely trapped and alone.  Although in this case, I think that my cat being there made me feel somewhat better.  I didn't feel particularly driven.  And if I had wanted to be a superhero, I'm positive I would have worn a superhero outfit instead.

If there's anything I can add by way of thinking, it would probably connect with the light.  Once you'd got the street light on, the dream transformed from a hopeless dark wet night to a day full of fun and success.  So I'm left wondering where that light is in your real life, or where you'd like it to be?

The light went out again immediately, demonstrating my powerlessness.  And the dream never really changed; it stayed dark.

I like how you looked for me.  (Call me next time, maybe I'll come!)

You've been in another one of my dreams since, too.  Probably because I wrote up the reasoning for looking for you in this one.  I'll be looking for you to just walk up and introduce yourself like you said you'd do on the sun.

I imagine after reading this that you two are very close, after all you were so comfortable in his skin... but not his clothes? Clothes are a part of identity, but as to what it means for it to make you feel weird, maybe there are still some aspects of him you are still trying to understand?

Yeah, I was almost a little bit embarrassed posting this dream because it reveals how close I am with my husband.  Lucidbulbs, you have surprised me in your ability to accurately interpret aspects of my dreams.  I wonder if it's because we're both female and of the same generation, or if you're particularly emotionally intelligent.  I don't know about the clothes thing though.  I didn't actively discard his clothes, so I don't think that's what the dream was about.  I have been wanting to find him a wetsuit though.