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So, it’s been almost exactly four years since I’ve written about dreams on my blog. By the way, for those of you reading this on the Facebook RSS feed and not on my actual website, I have a category called Dream Journals which I was planning to use to post a log of my dreams regularly. Turns out I didn’t.

Anyway, while I don’t have an actual dream to write about today, I do want to say a few words about my dreams in general. Back in this post, I said that “My dreams usually involve flying, people from my high school who I haven’t seen or thought about in 12 years, and infant children who think and speak like adults”. In the 4 years or so since that post was written, that’s still generally true. I still fly a lot, I still see people from my high school far more often then I think about them in waking life, and while I don’t dream of infants who speak like adults very often, they still sneak in there now and then.

One thing I don’t experience often (dream-wise) is nightmares. I could not tell you when the last time I woke up scared from a dream was, although the last time I can recall right now was probably sometime in the junior high stage of things. But the closest thing I currently experience to nightmares (and this comes up a LOT in my dreams) is dreams involving bathrooms.

I can honestly say, without exaggeration, that I experience a bathroom-related situation in my dreams about 3 nights per week on average. That’s almost half my dream-time. And usually it’s not a pleasant bathroom situation. Usually it involves having the urgent need to visit a bathroom, only to find that its facilities are horribly disgusting, completely non-existent, or (worst of all) out of order due to the fluctuating nature of the fabric of reality in dream-land.

Usually it goes something like this. I have to pee. I locate a bathroom. I start to pee in a urinal, only to find that it suddenly contains a banzai tree, and is causing horrible splash-back due to stream-ricochet and the awkward angle of the branches. Or the stall I’m using is suddenly right in the middle of a restaurant. Or that I’m actually peeing into a garbage can, or a sink, or onto a counter with a small drain which I can’t seem to hit because the counter is slightly too high. It can be very traumatizing.

Now, it makes sense that one would often dream about peeing. After all, aside from eating, what other activity do we do so regularly every single day of our entire existence? I’m sure that if you added up all of the time that I have spent peeing over the course of almost 35 years, the number of hours (or days… or weeks!) would be mind boggling. So certainly I won’t begrudge my brain the semi-regular occurrence of this activity finding its way into my dreams.

But why does it always have to be so weird and traumatic?! Why can’t I dream about having a really amazing peeing experience, the same way that I might dream of having a really good kiss with someone from my high school, or a really interesting conversation with an infant?

I believe that I can identify two major causes for the constant recurrence of scary bathroom situations in my dreams. First, and most obviously, is the fact that these dreams often come when I actually need to use the bathroom in real life. It’s like my subconscious (or unconscious?) brain is saying to itself “if presented with the options of letting this grown man wet the bed or informing him of the need to pee through freakin’ wacked-out bathroom situations in dream-land, I’m going to choose the latter.” And I appreciate that (although I don’t appreciate having to drag my sleepy butt out of bed to use the toilet at 3am).

The other cause, and the more deeply psychological one, I believe goes back to my childhood. You see, sometime when I was very young (probably about 6 or 7 years old), I remember being taken to Roller Gardens (a local Hamilton rollerskating rink that, sadly, no longer exists) for some sort of special occasion. I want to say that I was being babysat by my aunt. Which doesn’t seem so special, now that I think about it.

At this roller skating rink, I ended up in a bathroom stall with the need to take a pee. I don’t remember actually peeing (although I’m sure I did), but what I do remember was that when I flushed the toilet, it vomited all over the floor. I don’t mean that the water slowly rose up until it overflowed – I mean it practically exploded. And as a 6 or 7 year old (who by this point in his life had a fairly good “handle” on how to properly use a toilet) I was completely overwhelmed by the fact that a toilet COULD EVEN DO such a thing. It was this incident that created in me a slight fear of flushing the toilet.

I very clearly remember that, for many years as a child, whenever I had to pee at night, I would finish my business, push on the flushing handle, and run as fast as I could back to bed so that I wouldn’t need to see if it overflowed or not. This fear only happened at night – I had no fear of daytime flushing – and I’m fully aware that not seeing it overflow had no bearing on whether or not it actually did. But it was SEEING it overflow, like I saw it that day in Roller Gardens, that was the terrifying part of the operation.

Of course, as I grew into adulthood, I came to trust that toilets usually flush as well at night as they do during the day. But while my rational, logical mind was able to cope with my childhood toilet fears, perhaps my subconscious mind is still wrestling with suppressed nighttime bathroom traumas. And so these fears haunt my dreams.

I should mention that even now when I get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, I usually don’t flush the toilet (I flush it when I get up in the morning). But it’s not because I’m afraid. I just don’t want to wake up Larissa with the flushing noise. Yes, that’s it! HA HA HA! That’s exactly it.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these, and tonight I only have about 10 minutes to post before I have to head out. So, I hereby present a dream I had on November 7th, 2005. I’m transcribing it verbatum from the notes I made as soon as I woke up. Enjoy!

I’m working on theatrical version of Lord of the Rings. I am a stagehand (backstage right), plus I have some small acting parts and lines. Then the play ends up being something like Les Mis instead.

I’m looking for a large bag (which looks like a golf bag) that contains costumes and backstage props. I can’t find it anywhere, and I think the play starts in 10 min. I realize my watch is on upside-down, and after I flip it, we actually have 3 hours till showtime.

I find my bag on the back of a forklift, and pull out two huge jugs of some purple juice. Then I think that I need black clothes to be a stagehand, and there are none in the bag. I realize that I’m wearing a black t-shirt with the Chinese symbol for “love” on the front of it in white. I decide that I can just turn it inside-out.

Then I realize that I don’t know my lines, or my cues to enter and exit, or my stage directions. All I remember is that at some point, I’m supposed to point and yell “Sauroman!” in an authoritative voice. I start asking people if anyone has a copy of the script. Before I can find one, some young guy with a French accent starts telling me that I don’t need a script, since I’m just doing bit-parts. I try to explain that I actually have some important lines, but he won’t listen.

We’re interupted by someone explaining how the video-camera setup is going to work. I notice that there are 4 or 5 video cameras set up backstage. The guy explains that “This camera will be on Chuck, that one on Sean, etc…” I’m wondering how they can film people from backstage with a large curtain in the way.

The stage is huge, and is two levels high (as if it had a balcony). There are ramps and staircases connecting the levels backstage. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be backstage on level 1 or level 2. I wish the director had given more thought to stage directions. Then I realize that there’s a fridge full of pop backstage on level 1, so I decide to stay there.

At this point I woke up.

Freakin’ heck! Just when I thought that my only addictions were Web Sudoku and getting my weekly Battlestar Galactica fix, Julie has to go and get me reading Questionable Content comics. Of course, I’m going to have to read every one of them now. Oh, I almost forgot – I’m also addicted to reading Calvin and Hobbes every time I poo. I’m working my way through the entire collection. Of Calvin and Hobbes, that is. Not of poo.

My latest snack food of choice is Vegetable Thins. I only eat the “original” type, which I’m happy to say contains zero grams of trans fat per 20g serving. They’re also “baked with real vegetables”, which I’m assuming means that there are real vegetables in the crackers themselves, and not that they are simply baked together in the same oven.

So earlier today, I was doing a meter-reading route which involved almost entirely driving, and very little walking. I spent my day navigating around potholes in long farm driveways, and trying to see how much mud I could collect on the underside of my car before rendering it undriveable.

At one point in the early afternoon, I found myself getting sleepy, so I pulled over to the side of this country road I was on, and put my seat back for a quick 20 min power-snooze. I found myself dreaming about driving on country roads, navigating around potholes, and looking for electric meters. When I woke up I thought to myself “I’ve essentially been doing in my sleep what I should be doing in real life, except that when I do it in my sleep, I don’t get paid for it, and my workday ends up being longer.” So I started my car and got back to work. It seemed like the only logical option.

At least I wasn’t having those Sudoku dreams again. Those are brutal.

I’m back with another dream journal entry for ya’ll. This one comes from five years ago, almost to the day.

There was a period of time, starting in November 2000, that I began writing down my dreams as soon as I woke up. I kept a notepad beside my bed, and would record everything I remembered about my dreams the moment that I realized I was awake, and was conscious enough to make legible use of a pen.

Sometimes what I wrote down was in point form, sometimes it was complete sentences. Sometimes there was almost a coherent plotline, most often there was a tangled mess of ideas and images. Most of the time, I could remember 3 or 4 different sections of a dream, but had completely forgotten how each section transitioned into the next.

This dream journal was from a single night, and is recorded in 5 different sections, represented in 5 paragraphs below. (That’s one paragraph per section, for those who aren’t too math-savvy). I have transcribed my notes exactly as I had written them down originally, and my own present-day commentary is inserted in [square brackets]. Enjoy!

Dream – November 17, 2000

Explaining to a woman that I do arm curls with 20 pound freeweights. Explain how I used to work out. Looking for weights at a gym, but can’t find the right ones – all are wrong weight or design. [I wonder what kind of design I was looking for? I mean, are there really that many variations on dumbbell shape?]

At a school? or class of some sort? outdoors by a lake. See large explosions. Remember its just the Stelco smoke stacks. [Stelco is a major steel manufacturer in Hamilton, where I live.] Water level rises, and I want to swim across small area to reach friends on other side. Don’t want to get wet, though. Justin from “Ever So” is on other side, afraid he’s trapped by water. [”Ever So” was a short-lived Christian rock band that my brother played guitar in for a while. I did the photography for their 4 song CD. Justin played bass.] I show him dry place to cross.

Playing a video game like Asheron’s Call. [This was an early online role playing game that I was into for a few months after being pressured to try it out by friends who were married and had no need to appear non-geeky to the female population.] Shooting many creatures who won’t die. One in particular drains my magic by hitting me with a blue ball of yarn. I get the ball and use it on him, but he says his magic is far too high for it to have any effect (lev 7000). [I have no idea why I would remember his exact magic level from my dream.] At this point, I’m in the game, in a large cavern. I was hitting them with little white dots shooting with a crosshairs target.

[I need a new paragraph to comment on that last sentence. Does anyone else have the problem of not having their weapons work properly in the dream world? You want to be shooting lightning bolts, and instead it’s wimpy white dots? Or you’re holding a laser gun, but whenever you try to shoot it, you just end up making laser-noises with your mouth and hoping the people in your dream will take it seriously? Happens to me all the time!]

I’m carrying a newborn baby into the front doors of Philpott for a couple I don’t know too well. [Philpott is the name of the church my family attended for the first 18 years of my life. It’s always been a common setting in my dreams.] I’m thinking of how good I am at carrying babies, and remembering to support the head, and I see the baby can hold up her own head already. The baby starts making babbling noises, and when I make a noise, she imitates it. I’m laughing as she copies the different sounds I make. I give her back when we get inside. [Babies are also common in my dreams - see this post for my first mention on this phenomenon.]

Two teams of techies at war? or competition? Something about tapping into phonelines and recording conversations. Tap causes slight static on the line, so our team is a little worried.

There you have it. Five different scenes of random bits of my subconscious interacting during my nocturnal slumber. I welcome your interpretations in the comments section.

For the last few months, Larissa and I have been in the habit of telling each other any dreams that we remember from the night before. My dreams usually involve flying, people from my highschool who I haven’t seen or thought about in 12 years, and infant children who think and speak like adults. Larissa’s dreams mostly involve her workplace. I’m not sure which one of us is more normal, in this regard…

Anyway, I decided that from time to time, I’d post dreams that I remember on this blog. Some will be amusing, some will be disturbing.

Last night I had a particularly disturbing dream. I rarely have nightmares, and even when I do, I just wake up feeling creeped-out, not “afraid”. Last night’s dream was creepy. Here’s what I remember:

John Campea was landing a fighter jet vertically (like a helicopter) on the sand of a beach where I was chatting with a friend, and when he got out, he was sweating like a chess-club geek at prom. I remember thinking that he rented that jet from one of those “fighter-jet-rental-companies”, and that I should take one out for a spin too. Then I thought “Wait a sec, there’s a good chance that I could kill myself”.

Okay, so seeing a sweaty John Campea wasn’t the freaky part. The next thing I remember, I was reading a comic book about a hospital in Algeria, and a doctor in the comic contracted some horrible disease that was causing parts of his body to melt away. This was very graphically displayed in the comic, and it was told over the course of 3 or 4 pages, until he was a puddle of blood and liquified tissue. Then his secretary started melting as well. I started asking myself “Who would make a comic about this?!”

After that, all the people who had melted were in Hell, and not looking much better than they did earlier in the story. At this point in my dream I thought to myself “Why are the characters in this story ending up in Hell?”, so I flipped back a few pages in the comic to see if I had missed an important plot point. Then I woke up.

I think the lesson to be learned from this story is: If you have a dream involving John Campea, you might as well just wake up and start your day early, because the dream is only going to go downhill from there.