Categories
Dream Journal

Dino Toys, Bison Charge, Elixir Monument

Amongst a nameless store of long aisles, I’m surprised to find myself one aisle over from a large pile of new-old-stock Jurassic Park toy boxes, both velociraptor and dilophisaur. Obviously I wouldn’t have seen these for sale in retail box since I was a kid, mid-90s. I find myself wondering if I should stock up. I hear a lesbian couple discussing them, unseen, in front of the pallet. I hear them speculating aloud about the toys’ abilities, and unknown to them there’s a tramsmit functionality. Without saying a word, I move a walkie-talkie (previously hanging on its strap in my aisle) in front of them both, on top of the toy box pile. So they can now hear their own voices as heard by the toys.

I’m picnicking under a scenic tree, a blissful naive youth on a sunny noon. I hear from inside the nearby building the struggles of a group of people with a huge animal, though I’m generally unconcerned. Suddenly it breaks through the doors, a paleolithically large bison, never seen since ancient times. Without pause it charges directly at me. I maintain my gaze and observe as its horn catches on a tree, throwing off its momentum. It untangles itself and charges away a different direction. But I know it would’ve got me, that it could sense that I was just another of those animals that would eat it’s kind if I could. Leaves me thinking of the old megafauna… how strange it must have felt living around them.

I arrive and depart my friend Sarah’s house via freeway (normally I walk there so this is a bit of an exercise). I’m too early for whatever I came for, and there’s just her, a floor made of large wet pebbles, and a table with the TV on it. Sarah continues mostly paying attention to the TV as I promptly realize I don’t have anything to do here for now, and should cut my losses.

At a yoga retreat in an old open-air stone construction. It’s brisk and I’m running naked in a circular path — exhilarated. Who knows if I can do this, but I’m getting away with it. I discover a small standing monument that is simply a pipe stuck vertically in the ground, with a little plaque bearing a recipe for elixir. The plaque is obscured as Bud Light cans have been left on it from sloppy guests. I gently flick them away.

Categories
Dream Journal

New Friends at Race Checkpoint, in Mexico

Running in a jogging race in Mexico. Doing well on position, I’m last before a drawbridge goes up, and have time to notice Rudy Giuliani in the front on the other side. I drop my drawers to moon my ass, to him especially. I catch up to my friend ahead (Mickey? Robby?) and I explain this, though I mention that maybe dropping pants more complicated than I thought. Smack his butt as we run along, though I normally wouldn’t perform such a bro-y gesture.

Further on, there’s a check-in space in the small courtyard of a fancy hotel that maybe looks like a Pueblo. Make quick friends with the checker.

Soon though, the dream is taken over by evil clowns — like something from the show Legion; time demons or the shadow king. I keep calm and just pay attention to the experience, allowing it to pass over me and simply be what’s happening. Eventually the moment passes; maybe they got bored of us.

I agree to stay on until the checker can leave. We talk about the coast of Mexico, the shoreland of Cancun which I view on the map as somehow on the west coast. Reminiscent of other dreams, the craggy coast of ancient Greece or rural northern California.

While waiting on my new friend, several of us start feeding guinea pigs chunks of baked potato. One is adorably an order of magnitude bigger than others, which is terribly endearing for all of them.

I end up staying on longer than expected. I ask how much longer My checker friend thinks we need to stay, as it seems all participants have passed. I don’t remember the answer, but it strikes me now how he reminds me the kid I knew in Middle School and haven’t really thought about since: Ted Takahashi. (Hm… a character from deep storage I suppose.)

Categories
Dream Journal

Boban Vervinsky

My wife and I are sitting in our living room when a sudden noise shakes the wall overhead. A 4-in nail has popped through and knocked off one of the top row trading cards, the same like the arrangement in our apartment’s hallway art gallery. My landlord has been renovating the apartment next door for weeks (this is waking-life true, actually). I angrily walk down the hall to give him and his crew working next door a piece of my mind. He opens the door and as soon as I start describing what happened he pretends to act like they did it on purpose — despite one guy down the hall yelling “hey I’m sorry”. In response I act like I’ll helpfully go measure exactly how many inches of nail are sticking through the wall, so they can measure it from their side, possess an accurate perception of wall thickness, and not do it again.

While we stand outside on the balcony, an older sickly-looking interloper shows up who starts stealing the conversation away, acting like they’re trying to empathize but only talking about their own problems. They’re abruptly standing in the apartment next door while my landlord is standing in mine. Normally I suppose I’d be sympathetic, but instead I turn to my landlord and ask “who the heck is this?” He just says “someone annoying” and I’m simply inclined to agree. There’s nothing to do but let this energy vampire drone on and try to avoid them.


I’m standing in a long winding line on the street here in my neighborhood, the Mission District. I went out to buy a case of beer, Pabst Blue Ribbon, for like $23.99. The line moves surprisingly quickly, but it’s split up into a few sections that complexly join into one. The lines’ purpose is labeled only at the penultimate merge, so of course it appears I’ve gotten in the wrong one and should be in the $19.99 and above line. Right about the final merge I look and see the entrance to the store, just another neighborhood corner store that happens to handle particularly high volume right now. The place only allows one or two customers inside at a time, and it’s upstairs through a single doorway — the place I think is called Boban Vervinsky. Exasperated, I realize in this unnecessarily crowded line that I’ve had my mask around my neck the whole time.

Some unannounced blonde attendant (who’d otherwise be pretty cute) starts blithely giving me instructions from behind my back, that I can’t hear, don’t understand, and don’t want. The stress and crowding involved are too much and I give up, throwing my items on the ground toward to store, flipping off the clueless unhelpful attendant on the way out.

This leads to a short back and forth where I’ll see someone I know on the sidewalk giving the middle finger, like Courtney K., and I have the great timing to give them the middle finger back. I’m getting in flipoff doubles, at some point I feel like I’m physically throwing flipoffs… all in a cinematic-quality slow motion montage with scenes bouncing one to another to another. (It reminds me of another dream, where I first learned to double-middle-finger the whole world around me like Rick Sanchez on Rick and Morty.) But the chain is broken when there’s a girl, Morgan or Megan, with long dark hair over her eyes who doesn’t see me gesture to her.

Not about to stop acting free, I set off running down the cracked asphalt streets of my neighborhood. I run like a big cat, galloping on all fours. While doing this it’s like I’m narrating my method to some unseen flirting female observer riding along with me. I start running on just my hands, floating my legs up for more speed and maneuverability. It’s at this point the observation strikes me that this is the kind of locomotion I’d choose to do if I were dreaming. The dream rapidly breaks down; I wake up with a sharp inhalation and a beating heart.


A search of the name “Boban Vervinsky” has no results at time of writing.

Music in my head upon waking up, Eydie Gormé, “Blame It on the Bossa Nova” (1963)