DREAM: I Don't Eat Squirrels and Kittens!

More bizarre symbolism in the realm of dreams continuing...

I dreamt I was at the grocery store and standing at the counter for, I think, a bakery section. Next to it was the butcher section. Somehow my order for whatever I was getting from the bakery got mixed up with the butcher and he started talking to me as he chopped something. I could see that it was the limp body of a squirrel. He chopped off the legs, the head, and the tail so that there was only left this horrible, gray, wet tube of a body. He started cutting up a second one. I started to intervene, but the butcher was so clueless and thinking he was being so nice to make it all wrapped up for me... so I just smiled and tried to be polite. (NOTE: that would never happen in waking life. I would have said something immediately.) I just kept thinking, Well, I will get my stuff from the bakery and take what this butcher gave me, but hand off what the butcher gave me to someone else who would want it. The butcher had struck up conversation with me and I was politely exchanging with him, wishing I could just hurry up and get out of there. He had said something about kittens and I took it as an opportunity to speak up about how much I love animals. The butcher said, "Well, let me see... I think we have some around here," and he started sliding open panels behind the butcher case. He smiled all big and said, "Oh. HERE!" and pulled out a limp kitten. Before I could even realize what he was doing and what he was holding, he had chopped off the head. The body kicked. It had still been alive! He then reached under for another and pulled out a second kitten! He said, "I'm really sorry, but this one is feral. It might be a bit tougher." My mind was having a hard time wrapping around what was happening, He struggled to hold the kitten as it spit and clawed and fought him. The butcher's rubber gloves gripped the kitten by the ears, pulled them back so that the eyes were all stretched out, and he maneuvered the kitten to be on its side on the butcher block. That's when I finally freaked out. I screamed. I wailed out. I could barely scream out my words intelligibly, but I was screaming, "Oh my god! WHY! Why do you do this! How can you people eat these animals and hurt them like this!! If you don't understand how insane this is, you ARE insane!!" and on and on and on... until I woke up.

It was really intense and upsetting in the dream, and so NOT how I would have handled it in waking life, but it was cathartic and disturbing.

Now, I know I have phases when I dream things that are graphic, horrific, and bizarre, but I have yet to really grasp WHY! I mean, these are so weird!!

NOTE: I had watched part of ZODIAC, the movie about the "Zodiac Killer" of California's past. When detectives got a warrant to investigate a suspect's trailer home, it was swarming with squirrels inside. The imagery was striking, so I think part of my dream was influenced by that.

Mostly, I think this dream plays out my undercurrent of frustration for being forced to be polite, kind, and enduring around people whom I love, but who do not grasp the true horror of what they do when they eat animals. I don't realize it, but I imagine this forces a difficult skew within me as I accommodate the majority of apathy and ignorance for the suffering of animals, while living in a constant tortured state of wishing I could abolish all forms of cruelty and exploitation. I suppose this dream was helping to release that which I cannot in my waking life.

DREAM: Watching You Watching Me

I seem to have continued this bizarre theme from LAST TUESDAY...

I dreamt that I had my laptop in my bed with me and had fallen asleep with it on my nightstand.  I had been using SEESMIC earlier and involved in various video conversations, so I had left the site up and the laptop had gone into its "sleep mode."

Suddenly the laptop burned back into life and lit up the room.  Because the room was so dark, I couldn't see beyond the array of light from the screen. Seesmic was still up in the browser and a new video had refreshed in to a conversation I had been in earlier and it started playing... one of my Seesmic friends was laughing and saying, "Okayyy, Troy, what was THAT about?" and from my half-sleep I thought, I don't know, what is she talking about. Then another video refreshed into the conversation and another Seesmic friend said, "Uhh, Troy, did you leave your camcorder running? Ha ha..."

So now I sat up a bit and pulled the laptop to me to see what they were talking about...  In the video thread of conversations I saw that there were two videos posted by me in the past 10 minutes, but I had been asleep!  I played the first one back:  it was just a 2 or 3 minute video of my empty chair at my office desk.  I thought, wow, DID I somehow leave the cam running? But then, how did it post?

I played the next video: Now the camera dismounted and it wobbled to show movement.  Still no one in the video, but the view was the camera being carried away from my desk and toward my bedroom door.  That's when I became slighly paralyzed with confusion and panic, but before I could really consider what I was seeing, another video refreshed into the timeline on Seesmic and it was another post from "me!" I clicked to play it: this time, I was IN the video... sitting in my bed, lit only by the light from my laptop screen. 

I cannot express to you the terror that coursed through me as I realized what I was seeing! I looked up from the laptop and toward my bedroom doorway... my eyes had to adjust, but as I strained through my panic to see what was there, I finally made out... a blinking red light from my camcorder, being held there, recording me... and I could only barely make out the silhouette of someone just standing there... holding it. 

Before I could react, the video timeline refreshed and several videos began playing, each person saying, Oh My GOD Troy, GET OUT OF THERE!  GET OUT OF THERE!!  I had no idea where to go, how to run, or what to do...

And I woke up.

YIKES!!

DREAM: I'm Only Here To Love You

For some of you who actually read my blog, you know I have wild dreams and often they are bizarre and even apocolyptic and dark.  Such a contrast to my daily life, which is like a mix of high-comedy skits and cartoon antics laced with I Love Lucy moments.

Well, last night I had one of the strangest dreams I've ever had and I have a feeling it was prophetic in some way, so I am archiving it here.  I've discovered over the years that peppered throughout my journal are near-LITERAL dreams that I find only years later had some serious relevance to my daily life.  The most recent being, of course, my dream about wandering around in a foreign country, looking for my heart/love, and feeling a state of anxiety I likened to suffocation/drowning... fast-forward 4 years into the future and I am living in The Netherlands because I followed my heart for love and I am dying in a hospital bed from Pnuemonia!

So my dream last night may have some significance, though I have a feeling it might be more symbolic in the end... but you never know, so here goes:

I dreamt I was living in a home from my past, during High School, back in Indiana.  I woke up in the middle of the night and the experience was desperately-vivid, lucid.  I was awakened by the realization that SOMEONE was in the room with me.  I was still for a moment as I tried to figure out what to do.  The panic was controlled, but it was like a terrifying short-circuiting and it was blinding.  I had no idea what to do... so I suddenly LEAPT from my bed, throwing back the covers and grabbing a netting I had been working on from the floor. 

(In the dream, this netting was some kind of project I had been working on and it was made from recycled materials; sort of like the plastic circles used to hold six-packs together, woven into a large net). 

I grabbed up the netting and just started swinging it hysterically and screaming out for my mom.  I ran from my bedroom, through the living room, and into the kitchen just outside of my parents bedroom, screaming for help.  My mom casually stepped out into the dim glow from the windows and asked what the hell was wrong with me.  I know I was speaking, but having a hard time expressing that I knew someone was in my room.  She said, hold on, calm down, let me help... and she grabbed a pair of scissors from the kitchen counter; meat scissors. 

At first I thought she was going to go with me back to my room and help me confront this intruder, but then I felt a tug on the netting I was carrying and I glanced down to find she was holding parts of it and CUTTING IT APART! I remember feeling completely lost and abandoned by her not taking me seriously and only using the opportunity to do something hurtful (which is clearly a fragment of memory from the abuse I did endure from her).  I tugged the netting from her and, shaking, stepped back toward the living room toward my bedroom, trying to ignore my mom's laughing at me and dismissing my terror. 

As I stepped into the living room, lightning flashed from outside and cast shadows for several seconds... long enough for me to see the silhouette of a man cast onto the wall outside of my bedroom!  The shadow of the man was holding a shovel.  For some reason, I lashed out again hysterically, swinging the net and rushing toward my bedroom doorway, entering, and slamming in to the guy standing there.  I just kept swinging this net and hitting and banging in to this guy.  He grabbed my shoulders and said, "Calm down, CALM down..." he said this in severe whispers, pressing his mouth close to my ear.  He shook me and said to LOOK at him... I calmed down enough for him to say, "I LOVE YOU. I've always loved you.  I've been following you and I finally found you. I just wanted us to be together and tell you I love you." 

I stayed calm long enough for him to say all of this... and then he kissed me.  The kiss was soft, electric, and melted into me.  He stood for a second and looked at me while I tried to make sense of what was happening.  He smiled as if he knew I would understand... and then I freaked out on him again and started screaming and flailing and hitting him and swinging the net at him, so he dashed to my window, straddled the window sill, and smiled back at me, disappearing out into the darkness. 

I ran over to my window and slid it shut, pressing my face up against the glass to see if I could see where he had run off into the rain...

Then I sat on my bed and realized the shocking mix of deep recognition of this person and the absolute, soothing effects from his whispers and his kiss, with the terrifying idea of someone finding his way into my personal space just to prove something to me.  I sat for a long time, completely at a loss as to what to do or what to feel, but kept playing that kiss and his trying to calm me down, over and over in my mind... until I fell asleep again. 

The sun was shining into my room when I awoke and for a brief moment I realized that I must have been dreaming the experience from the night before... until I saw my cut-up netting lying sprawled across my floor.... and then realized that I had an arm holding me from around my waist from behind, with a body spooning warmly against me. 

I shot out of the bed and slammed my back against the door to look back at my bed and see this man had come back through my window in the night and had crawled into bed with me, holding me.  Again, I felt the rush of pure satisfaction and recognition, mixed with the horror of this happening at all! 

Before I got a chance to scream or freak out any further, he got out of my bed, straddled the window sill again, and was smiling patiently at me, looking back at me and saying, "You shouldn't be scared. I'm only here to love you." He played whimsically with a flap in the screen where he had apparently sliced it, and said, "Sorry about the screen. You should just leave your window open next time."  And he slipped away...

And I woke up in my "real" room and sat up, looking around at my windows, walls, doorway, listening, and adjusting to the dark and shadows and sounds... and feeling that same mix of horror and the warm remembering of a love I almost forgot, but that hadn't forgotten me, and had found me again.

The symbolism in this dream is rich, but there's something prophetic about it, too... I can feel it.

We'll see...

VLOG: What I Saw Tonight (parts one & two)

Tonight, my friends Priscilla and Nick and I went to le Poisson Rouge for a last-stop performance from MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND and CLARE & THE REASONS. I was only a peripheral fan, but I was moved by the flawless ebbs and flow between playful dances and dark pleasantness. I fell in love with both bands and am now a permanent fan.

This is what New York is all about... I am so happy to be able to swim in the aural bliss of such creative people from our world.

VLOG: What I Saw Tonight (part one) from CocteauBoy on Vimeo.


VLOG: What I Saw Tonight (part two) from CocteauBoy on Vimeo.

VLOG: 120108

VLOG: 120108 from CocteauBoy on Vimeo.
Just an update about my MRI and XRAY results; my new PONCHO!! and an encouragement toward more video exchanges. The end credits cut off a letter, so they should read "share" and "cocteauboy."

http://seesmic.com and http://tokbox.com

Search for CocteauBoy on each and add me!