we three dreams
I was just doing dishes, because friday is my night to do dishes. there were a lot of them, there are a bunch of people in my family and they eat a lot. So while i had my hands dipped in soapy water i kept my mind occupied, and i began to remember these dreams. I'm not a big dreamer, my dreams NEVER make sense and although i love good dreams and i always go to bed at night hoping i might get a good one this time, i rarely do. but there are three dreams i've had in my lifetime that really stuck out. i rarely have lucid dreaming, but these three i remember were so detailed and so real it felt like i was there and i could reach out and touch things around me. it's weird that i'm only comparing them now, because they sort of strike me as similar, now that i've thought about it.
i think i was eleven or so when i had the first one, i was going through puberty anyway, and it was the first dream i ever had that had kissing in it. I remember i was standing with a fair haired man on a bridge at night time, i was wearing a white dress and he was wearing a sort of grey kimono/tunic type suit. i was watching the scene from the outside, yet i knew i was the girl. but they were adults, so it was weird. i remember it sort of went on and on and on, the woman was crying and begging the man not to go somewhere, although i wasn't clear where he was going. It felt like war though. It was very much one of those scenes from the movies, like princess bride, or some WWII movie. it was sappy and romantic and intimate, but oddly haunting. It was sort of a never ending tug of war, he'd be on his way, she'd cry and kiss and pull him back, he'd try to go, she'd try to detain him. It never really ended, i woke up feeling anxious and strange because it seemed so real and confusing and unlike anything i'd ever dreamed before. almost a nightmare to an 11 year old. (later, in my waking hours however, i realized that the couple bore a strange likeness to Luke and Leia from starwars...lol...which you have to find kind of funny. it was most likely influenced.) To this day i've had flashbacks from that dream and it's always felt creepy like a memory more than a fantasy.
the next one i had in grade 10. It was somewhat more gory and disturbing. Actually, the most disturbing dream i've ever had. There was an enormous room the size of a school gymnasium with walls made of stone and dusty eaves way above our heads. A whole crowd of people were packed against one wall and there were officers on the other side standing next to the doorways leading outside. If i could use one word to describe it i have to say it felt very much like the holocaust. all the people flocked against the wall were dressed ragged and they looked sick and starving and unhealthy and terrified. they were all wearing old fashioned clothes too, the women in skirts and aprons and long hair, and the men were sort of dressed like loggers, with high boots and flannel shirts and suspenders. Then one of the officers called out to us all and said we had to make lines towards the doors. They told us we were captives and that we would be set free, but first they were going to cut off our hands. We all had no choice, so we all lined up to the doors and one by one, we put our arms out on a table and they took this enormous blade and chopped off our hands, some of us at the wrists, others closer to the elbows. I remember when it was my turn, they brought the blade down about midway between my wrists and my elbows. I remember leaving the building in shock and looking around to see where we could get out, but there were these big tall fences made of barbed wire. Everyone was wandering around aimlessly and confused with stubby arms, and the sky was dark and it looked like there was blood everywhere, all over the ground and all over people's clothes, waist down. i even remember seeing small kids there, but they weren't crying. I kept wandering around and bumping into people who were panicking, and then i found this pile of hands and arms sort of against the outside of the building, this huge gory pile towering over my head. And i started digging through them to find my hands, and then i found them, and i gathered them up in my apron and took off to find someone who could sew them back on. I felt like i was in a maze, and then i suddenly found myself apart from everyone else. there was a fence and i looked on the other side and i saw a man pretty far away. he had one of those light coloured grey kakhi 40's trench/detective coats on, and he looked kind of lost. he also still had his hands, and i tried to yell out to him to get away, but he couldn't hear me, so i ran along the fence and tried to find a way across. but i just got more lost in the maze, and then somehow i found myself back at the building and i went inside back to all the people with hands, and then i saw the man again, so i pushed through the crowd until i got to him and i told him they were going to cut off his hands. He told me he was an artist, and i told him to take my hands and put them in his sleeves so that when he got to the table they would cut off my hands and he would have his, and he could pretend he didn't so they wouldn't catch him. so he did, and i watched them cut off my wrists and then he left the building. i tried to follow him, but he was walking away and i could see the back of his head far across all the zombiestumpies, and i tried to follow him but the closer i got, the further away i got, and then i woke up.
the third dream i had when i was living at siobhan's house in grade 11. this was the most BEAUTIFUL dream i've ever had. It started off where i was at my old art teacher's house from when i was a kid, on mount washington. (he had this long stream/pond at the back of his house where i used to catch tree frogs. it was lined with a huge collection of irises that he used to paint) in my dream i was walking through the pond barefoot and i had a handful of iris seeds. iris seeds are about the same size as those rocket candies you get at halloween, small, flat cyllindrical. usually a reddish orange colour. these ones in my hand were all different colours, the reg. colour but also yellow and saltandpepper and roan and white and some blue and some purple. i guess i was sowing the seeds, throwong them into the water and on the bank. it felt like the palm of my hand was a neverending handful of seeds, i threw hundreds of them. then i found one in my hand that didn't look like the rest, it was jet black and shiny and glassy. i was mesmerised by it and i didn't want it to get mixed up with the rest, so i went to the house and found a pot and planted it. then i went back to the water and as i got closer they started to grow. and they kept growing and the closer i got, the more they towered over my head. and then i got there and i realized i WAS an iris. and there were all these other people wandering around, and they were the irises too. they were coloured like irises, and wore vibrant gowns, and they were really radiant. I realized i was in a city, it looked like rome or venice or something, and the leaves of the plants around us were all bent into archways and halls, and woven. it was GORGEOUS. it was very much like a fantasy epic kind of thing though. i don't remember what i did in the city, but then i remember this old man found me and he said he was time, and he had a staff, and his shadow was shaped like a skeleton, and sometimes the shadow would be on the ground or the walls, and sometimes he would be a figure standing next to us, but he was still made of that material shadows are made of, all smoky and dark, and he looked like a dark ghost. he was really really eerie. the old guy, 'time' was accompanied by a beautiful young woman who was a yellow iris, she was all glowy and looked like a flame and her hair was as yellow as yellow gets. they said they were looking for me because i was supposed to lead them to the 'black iris' who was apparently some huge prophesized figure. they said that winter was coming, and that there was this frost army or something, and that it was headed toward us, but that this legendary black iris was supposed to rise up and be a warrior to lead some iris army or something. for some reason it took me a while to catch on, and they kept asking me where he was and i didn't know. and then i did know, but i didn't want to tell them. then eventually i took them on some journey (and it was a freaking long journey, totally unnecessary in a dream. it felt like fucking lord of the rings or something, we had to go through the forest and mountains and stuff) and then we got to the 'flower pot', only it wasn't a flower pot, it was this tall tower with winding stairs. and we found him, and ok, he was SO GORGEOUS. drop dead beautiful. i swear, the sexiest man specimen i have ever ever seen. he had long long black hair, all silky, and big black eyes, and he was lean and thin with a thin face and nose, with pale skin, and he was wearing a white robe. he was so peaceful and gentle looking. he was very soft and dovelike and quiet. and we told him why we had come, and he said he couldn't go because he was too afraid. he'd lived in the tower his entire life, he'd never seen another iris before, and he didn't even know anything about this iris water city. He said he didn't know how to fight, and he didn't want to lead an army. i felt really guilty for some reason, because i knew it was my fault that he had spent his entire life in the tower, but i didn't tell anyone, so none of them knew. i didn't want him to go either, i wanted him to stay in the tower but the other three told him he had to. and after tons of persuasion, he finally agreed. and we dressed him in black silk and armour. then the 'time' guy said that the black iris had to have no hair, and that he had to cut it off. and i got really angry and told them they couldn't, but then he said he would. i remember i cried a lot, and the yellow girl and i took daggers and cut off his hair, and it was really sad and weird because the more hair we cut off, the less he looked like himself, he looked sallow and tired and weak and strange. and then i was scared he would die. then he walked to the window sill and sat on it and jumped off, and i thought he was going to fall and die, but then he rose up and flew, and i ran down the stairs as fast as i could and when i got to the bottom, i was in a strange place, i was surrounded by a prairie field, and the tower was an old ruin, and the others were gone and i was alone and back to my normal size.
and that's that. those three dreams. i think about them all the time, and i'm always to frustrated that i don't dream like that anymore.