Last night, I had an incredibly odd dream that involved a lot of things happening at once. It began at my cousin's house, where he was relaxing and watching the Disney Channel for some reason (something he would never do aside, I could tell it was Disney because I glanced at the TV and they were playing some sort of commercial for a new show about Hannah Montana, which I'm fairly certain stopped being relevant to their plans years ago, although maybe it was some sort of revival? Who knows!). Anyways, I went out into the hallway and I saw a giant, lego-esque mechanical wasp of some sort. Like, it looked like it was made from all sorts of various building toys but it was alive and in what I could only assume was "attack mode".

SO it chased me into the bathroom, which was now a luxurious balcony that lead outside via a screen-door (isn't that a wee bit of a bad idea for a bathroom of all things?) and a country side that I've never lived next to in my whole life. After deciding it was safe to come out again, things got a bit blurry but now I was at the front door, looking near our driveway and noticing where we usually parked the car nobody can use was several cars all carrying college students. Me being as suave as humanly possible (and maybe a subtle reminder from my subconscious about my own positive socializing happenings lately), I confidently walk up to them and start to mess with them all by pretending to be one of them for no particular reason.

For the most part, it seems to work. But then all of a sudden it started raining... while the sun was clearly out. That's not the weird part, the weird part was it was raining while the sun was out while there were *no clouds whatsoever*. I make note of this immediately and go back inside, where my little brother is in the living room watching not-TV (as in, he's in front of it, doing nothing else, but the TV isn't on). I ask him if he notices that it's raining without a cloud in the sky, and he confirms that he sees it too. As peculiar as it is, I had a much more worrisome problem at hand: the robotic lego wasp from earlier had spawned a group of REAL wasps, and they chased me into a spider web outside where I struggled for a bit until my brother helped me get out and could see again (because whenever you walk into a spider web in real life, it's always so nasty and bleh and it temporarily blinds you? I hate that). After that, I ran down to my house and sat on the porch swing. I looked up to the clear sky, no longer raining, and just briefly thought about how my life is a mess.

Most dreams tend to be very confusing and nonsensical, but I vividly remember that ending and how it felt to almost kind of redundantly think about my life in a fantasy that could have been anything. It's especially jarring since the rest of the dream was more or less typical dream-antics. I've had a lot on my plate as of the last month or two, so it might just be extra stress that seeped into my subconscious at such a random and inconsistent moment.

Hm.

Last night I dreamed that I was at some kind of festival downtown, similar to Jacksonville's One Spark. Unfortunately, I badly needed to do that certain thing that humans have to do several times a day, and there were no facilities in sight. Finally, I found a bathroom from the lobby of a random tall building. It was a gender-neutral handicapped bathroom hidden behind the security guard's desk. (This probably violates several provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act.) It was not a very nice place - the toilet was basically a cross between a bedpan and a water fountain. Also, people could see you from the upper floors because of some poorly-positioned windows. I was happy to get out of there, but the dream ended shortly thereafter.

Most of my dreams consist of random elements spliced together from random people, places, and phrases that crossed my mind during the previous day. As usual, I can clearly identify where each aspect of this dream came from, although it's not terribly exciting self-psychology.

Two nights ago, a serious oddity happened: I had two dreams that I could recall after I woke up.

In the first one, I was walking down a rural road for some reason, and I came face-to-face with a mysterious man. At first this man was not very friendly, and he was about to shoot me with his slingshot. However, he calmed down, and we had a nice conversation. I later found out that this guy had escaped from prison.

Later, I dreamed that I was on some kind of "American Idol"-like show, and I was somehow one of the final eight contestants. This show tried to differentiate itself from "American Idol" and "The Voice" by including a community service component. This community service involved spending all night remodeling the garage of a handicapped senior citizen. I remember thinking that I'd probably get eliminated before reaching the final of the show, but I woke up before I could find out. (Note to self: Don't do this.)

A few nights ago, I dreamed that I met 1996 Formula One world champion Damon Hill at another One Spark-like event in Jacksonville's downtown. He was lambasting the state of modern driving (the kind of driving that regular people do) and said that former Formula One stars were also bad drivers off the track. He was telling some guy about a new product that was being marketed to truck drivers, cab drivers, and police officers that was designed to help them write (by hand!) while driving. For the record, this hazardous product was not being showcased at this event; it was some product he had read about.

I've had a bunch of short, mundane dreams lately, too. Several of them involve me talking briefly to random people I know in real life. I also dreamed about setting up Microsoft Outlook to manage some of the e-mail accounts that I don't check frequently.

Earlier this week I dreamed that I was about to fly to Puerto Rico, except I forgot to bring money. I only had $50 in my wallet, and I didn't bring a debit card or anything like that. Whoops.

bibby: something you may or may not have known is that, in rollercoaster tycoon, renaming a park guest to damon hill will make him very fast if he gets on a go-kart ride.

i had a dream where i met this girl who, for some reason, i interpreted to be an ex of mine. i started making moves on her and it turned really steamy really quick, to the point where we snuck off and she let me take risqué photos of her on my phone. before i could actually get with her, though, i said something or did something that made her say "forget this" and abruptly leave. i'm not trying to censor it when i say i forget what i could have done that'd make her react like that. i then remember complaining to some friends about how inept i was with girls and how this always happens.

i don't know if the subject matter of this dream is inappropriate for this forum, but it seems like my dreams involving romance or sexuality are always abstract due to my dearth of experience

A couple of weeks ago, I dreamed that I was watching the end of an LPGA golf tournament on TV for some reason (the actual reason stems from me checking the PGA, LPGA, and Senior Tour money leaders in the newspaper earlier in the day). The two golfers went to a playoff, and on the first playoff hole, they both landed just off the green. Instead of using an approach shot or chip like everyone else, one of the golfers decided to try to throw the ball into the hole. To her astonishment, the ball rolled into the cup, thus "winning" the tournament in a fabulously illegal way. The other golfer attempted the same feat, but her ball missed, and she had to settle for second.

(Yes, this does violate the rules of golf. Big time.)

Last night I dreamed that I was going through old family pictures. I flipped through a stack of photos from 1994-1995 of people that I had no recollection of ever meeting. One of them was a little black girl with the unusual name of Ethos.

I had a similar dream not long ago, although most of these characters were older than Ethos. Basically, it boils down to my long-standing fascination with historical "DLC" and interesting things forgotten by the winds of time - one of several recurring themes in my dreamy universe. Years ago I found a roll of pictures that had fallen behind a drawer, and it felt really cool to find all these interesting old things.

Last night I dreamed that I was going on a road trip with someone. Unfortunately, there was no room for me in the car, because this person decided that she needed to bring along several boxes full of automotive parts, including an oil filter. (This is another boring dream where I can tell exactly where each element came from.)

As for my April 18 post, I finally set up a Microsoft Outlook account to manage some of the e-mail accounts that I don't check frequently.

i haven't been very diligent on writing my dreams down, but many of them have been very mundane, and many of them have involved work, hanging out with coworkers, and talking about the sort of things i'd normally talk about with them.

i've had a few more romantically oriented dreams, but i failed to write them down, so i can't give juicy details.