MeghanIsMe

I typically go years without remembering dreams, but since moving to Amstelveen it's happened nearly every night. They've been intense and often disturbing, but this one is actually keeping me awake here (it was about 5:30 in the morning when I woke), and that's atypical.

It started with a company making a movie that was clearly inspired by the situation of Gary, Indiana, to the point where they'd done interviewing of residents. But the movie focused almost entirely on the past and ignored the real, present experience of the city. I was really upset and ranted at several people I knew about how they should be donating "at least 10%" of their profits to the community. Then I found out they'd just put all of their confidential interviewing materials, like tapes and notes and things, out in the trash. I was livid; I don't remember the last time I was so upset. I rescued all the material and asked my undergrad advisor how to go about filing an ethics complaint with some kind of watchdog organization.

(The fact that this movie is metaphorically similar to my own earlier ruins photography does not escape me. Is there some anger at myself in there?)

The dream took a really dark turn, and the continuity is difficult to explain, as happens in dreams. A male serial murder and a female lover/accomplice were luring women into their home, getting them really intoxicated with multiple substances, and guiding them into delusions that led them to kill themselves while in that altered state. I awoke with a vivid mental image of one victim cutting her wrists open because she was convinced there was some kind of arcane symbol on them that needed to be removed.

I just woke from a dream in which my mouth was filled with shards of something like broken ceramic or glass from a dinner plate. I felt one in my sinuses too, sharp and invasive. I rinsed my mouth out gently with water, over and over, spitting out small white shards, but there were always more. Awake, I ate some party leftovers, trying to get that feeling out of my mouth, but everything I ingest, whether chocolate chip cookies, pastry, or soda, feels like its somehow about to split into hundreds of hard, sharp little shards.

I had the most detailed and disquieting dream I can remember having for a long time last night. When I remember dreams, which is rare to begin with, it's generally in bits and pieces. Or they are are the rare brief and intense nightmare that I fly awake from in a panic. This was less acutely intense, but perhaps longer lasting.

The narrative was immediately post-apocalyptic. I'm not clear about what caused it, but long-distance communication was down, which meant that cell phones, land lines, debit cards, and similar would not work. There was electricity for the moment, but it would soon be gone. I was in Kenosha with most of my family and loved ones. Danae was there, but Lisa was not; she was somewhere to the west, maybe in Madison. I was deeply worried about her, but didn't know how to ensure she was ok.

I drove my car somewhere nearby, maybe to Racine (the next town north) to get to people and bring them back. On the way, I saw a couple of cows who had gotten loose from their pasture wandering at the side of the road, but few people. Eventually, a group of us was together and we managed to get to where Lisa was somehow. Or maybe it was just me going to get her with the plan of bringing her back; I'm not sure now. She was living in an upper floor of a building; climbing a rope was necessary to get to her living space. I was explaining that we had a wagon (I'm not sure how we were propelling it) and were going south, but she seemed hesitant to come with.

I'm sure I see the connection between some of these things and recent events. My feelings of isolation and distance here. My going to Naomi Klein's talk and thinking of the consequences of climate change and peak oil. When I was a socially incompetent elementary school kid who had no interest in real world events and was happy to be entirely absorbed into an array of fantasy worlds, I thought it would be great to be alive at a crisis point in history. To be able to live through something vast and exciting, seeing it play out in front of me or even becoming a part of it, like an adventure I might have in one of those fantasy worlds. Now, all things being equal, I'd far rather be living in a modern global equivalent of the Pax Romana; a period of peace and calm in which to pursue individual and public goods. (Not, I realize, that the Pax Romana was so simple or so quiet as all of that.) I wasn't convinced, back then, that "May you live in interesting times" was really the curse that it was claimed to be. At this point in my life, I no longer doubt it.

I dreamed that I was going to some kind of important event at a rented venue, maybe a hotel. I borrowed a suit from Samii Tiger. Which is funny, because I'm quite sure we don't wear the same size.

I don't actually own a suit. I'm a little envious of people whose taste in clothing actually has some crossover with things that society thinks are formal and attractive. When I spend a large amount of money on clothing (which probably hasn't happened since I was going to ren faire), I end up with things that are pretty limited in terms of appropriate venues. Formality is a matter of context. While being at ren faire with a bunch of friends in garb while wearing street clothes would feel informal and a little embarrassing, that doesn't mean I get to wear my thigh-high leather boots, velvet tights, and satyr horns to a wedding or an award ceremony.

Sadly.