I had a few dreams

The cold still lingers--perhaps it's a particularly virulent, bird-based strain--which means sleep is fleeting.

Which means last night's dreams were doubly weird.

1. My family is hiking in a strange forest, dead trees stacked like cordwood along the trail, a sun and alpine lake glowing red like cranberries. The path descends into an abandoned Forest Service cabin full of bunk beds.

2. As I'm emptying a dryer at a laundromat, the clerk behind the counter flips a switch. Bulletproof glass rises and armor plating swivels into place. "It's a hit," the clerk shouts, and some dude comes busting through the front door, gun blazing. The clerk whips out a .45 and shoots him in the chest.

3. I'm on the roof of some kind of mall, sniper rifle aimed at some dignitary who's sitting at a table at an outdoor food court on a lower level. Quick, clean kill. He slumps over. My radio squawks, "Get the Kennedy team in place." Moments later, a group of dark suits with walkie-talkies wheels out the corpse on a gurney.

4. Having landed an interview for a "president" position at a law firm, I'm beside myself with excitement, so much so that I've forgotten to wear a suit and tie. I walk into the office, chatting up the secretary, who seems surprised that I haven't learned anything about the firm until now. "Here," she says, and hands me a yearbook. "You'll be our student body president if you land the job." Confused, I look at a picture of some feathered-hair golden boy, the prez from decades past, and see that the salary is only $6500 annually. I am stricken with disappointment.

5. I live in a bizarre house with wooden floors that can be removed, like trap-doors, to reveal extra storage spaces. In one, a disassembled wooden pipe organ sits, and I decide to try and put it back together and see if it works.

two dreams, two ties

My debate-addled mind has been inventing bizarre dreams again. Last night, two, coinciding with the (late) ties featured.

In the first, I am shot in the stomach by someone wielding a plastic, almost toy-like gun that uses magnetic rail technology to rapidly disperse tiny, yet lethal, bullets. My assailant, though he drops me, does not kill me. Which is bad for him when I come back with a higher caliber.
In the second dream, I'm living in Elma again. When I leave my Chevy running in front of the house, a stranger steals it--then, miraculously, drives it through the front door of the neighbors' house, presumably to hide it in the living room. As I wake up, I am jogging, gelatinously, toward him.

[Ties found here.]

summertime

The weather doesn't think so, and neither does the calendar. But school wrapped up today, and, even though I'll return once this week to clean up the rest of my junk, I'm done. Let my sustained intellectual ferment commence.

Bonus: two tacky ties for the end of the year.

Double bonus: last night's stress-shunting dream concerned travel, but the night before last's was the year's topper. In a dystopian landscape patterned after Soylent Green, I'm trying to flee a soccer match, barreling my way through a crowd of thugs and miscreants that marches in concentric circles around the stadium. Just when I think I've made my escape, finding an open door in a low-slung building, the futuristic police arrive, truncheons in hand, to administer a beating and get some information out of me. (My mistake: shutting the door on a cop's foot.)

The room goes dark, and a woman in a black dress says, "I think there's something wrong with my foot." It's turning into a pink slime mold, glowing like it's underneath a UV lamp.

I wake up soon after.

our long National Board nightmare is over

Almost. I still have to take the six computer-based assessments, which count for 40% of my score, but for some reason I'm not worried. I guess I'm one of those people who, perversely, enjoys testing.

Last night I must have tossed and fretted for about an hour, going over all the ways I could have improved my portfolio. I then fell asleep to bizarre and wondrous dreams, as I often do.

In the first, my wife and I fly to Africa. I do not mean we fly in an airplane. No; we grasp an umbrella and catch the jet stream and fly to Africa. (I must have been recalling this commercial.) We land in a thinner part of the jungle, and walk to a house, poking around inside until we meet the inhabitants, a family of Korean immigrants who, miraculously, share our surname.

They take us in, and we stay there for a time--weeks? months?--becoming our bosom friends. One day, we decide to leave. For some reason, my wife and I take separate transportation. My plan is to depart from the post office. I stop to check the mail, and somehow end up in a storage room where thousands of games and toys are stashed, collecting dust on row after row of massive shelves. Furious that the postal employees have been hoarding others' goods, I demand that they give these toys and games to their rightful owners. "It is a crime against humanity!" I shout at one point. "You have stunted their development! It is a crime against learning!"

When all is settled, I am finally able to leave, walking toward the shore in my windbreaker, willing the breeze to catch me and carry me across the Atlantic to New York. The dream ends as the alarm rings at 3:32, waking Melissa for her Starbucks shift.

After more mild fretting, I dream again.

This time I find myself as Keanu Reeves' character in A Scanner Darkly, hiding underneath an ever-evolving disguise. I walk out to my truck and take off my disguise, when a coworker stops by in his Camaro, saying he has tickets to the Texas-Memphis game. I hop in, and he proudly shows me the customized interior: the dashboard, with all the controls except the steering wheel, is along the side.

We drive off. It's a muggy March afternoon here in East Texas, and we're zipping along the freeway outside of Dallas when a 1976 Ford F150 comes screaming up beside us, swerving into our lane. I grab a gun from the glove box, and wave it toward this crazy driver. My friend jerks the wheel and we skid off a nearby exit. The truck, driven by some sort of assassin, crashes into a car and explodes.

We blithely continue toward the university where the game is held. I get out of the car, and, in the sweltering calidity, scramble up a steep slope, grabbing roots and trees to propel myself upward. "Watch out for heat ants," my friend warns. I ask him if he means fire ants, but he doesn't. "Heat ants don't burn as much as fire ants," he explains.

I somehow lose my friend and arrive at the arena alone. The game is close. At the end of the first half, the shot clock malfunctions, giving Memphis 1.2 extra seconds to make a three-point shot. The refs don't notice, though, and Memphis goes into halftime ahead by two.

I awake to write this as quickly as I can, before the memory disappears in a dream-vapor.




[Tacky tie posted here.]

conscience doth make cowards of us all

Since Josh is practically begging me to tell the tale, I suppose I shall describe what, in my dream life, passes for a slightly unusual occurrence. (In your dream life, it'd probably be worth a trip to a therapist.)

This is a dream. I repeat: this is a dream.

In a church-like building with a large glass window facing the street, I am sitting in a pew, beside fifty-odd people who cower in terror before Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. We have been rounded up for some unknown reason, and the not knowing only adds to the terror. Hitler stalks the rows, stopping to interrogate his prey, who splutter out answers, fearing for their very lives.

And then he comes to my row.

He sits down next to me. Two thoughts jostle in my brain: I should think of a way to get him off his game, and, From here, I could probably snap his neck over the back of the pew.

Trying desperately to sound calm, I ask, "So, Adolf, what was it like growing up in Austria? How do you think your upbringing influenced your later life?"

"Actually, I was born in England," Hitler replies. A wave of nostalgia crashes over him, and tears form in his eyes. I could just... I think. But the guards...

"Pardon me," Hitler says. He gets up, strides to the door, stands outside, where, even through the glass, it is obvious that he is shaken up.

A kid sitting next to me gasps. "You made Hitler cry!"

"Shut up!" I whisper. "If anyone finds out, we're all dead."

I made Hitler cry, it's true. But I didn't take the chance to kill him. My dream self is a coward.



[Tie featured here.]

lose sleep, lose your mind

I'd say my experience as a teacher and coach confirms this.

Feeling cranky after a bad night's sleep? Now there could be an explanation. Brain activity associated with psychiatric illness has been observed in healthy people who missed a single night's sleep. As well as shedding light on why sleep deprivation makes us feel so bad, the study could change our thinking about mental illness.

By 8:00 Friday morning, after a week of sleep deprivation, students are at their most lethargic. By 5:00 on a Saturday evening, after a short night and a 6:30 bus ride, they're at their most hyper--just before the crash, a phenomenon I call "retrorockets."

But it's not just about adolescents. When I'm sitting on roughly five or six hours of sleep per night, little things change. I try to put the toothpaste cap on the toothbrush, or the oatmeal in the refrigerator. I forget where I placed something, or appointments I've set. I can also feel my emotions amping up--not just in the face of, say, distressing news, but even in my dreams.

Some of this week's themes, brought to you by chronic undersleep:

I'm trying to sneak across the border into Mexico, where a gigantic Y-shaped electrified tower-bridge-fence-thing stands in the way. I discover a subway-esque tunnel underneath--but here, parts of the floor are electrified, leading to one tense trip.

I'm sitting in the front passenger seat of my car. Out of the darkness, rabid raccoons begin assaulting the vehicle. I fight them off by slamming the door on their heads.

In yet another, I'm dealing with a troublesome student. He's pestering his buddy, and just as I'm heading over to quell the disturbance, he punches his buddy in the face. I physically have to drag him to the office, where we meet with the administrators. Since the Dave Matthews Band is coming to CHS for a concert, and the kid's a huge DMB fan, they decide he can go if he promises not to do this again. My anger is immense.

In the middle of a different teaching day, word comes out that the United States is under nuclear attack and has retaliated in kind.

I'm riding around on a boat in the middle of a flooded city, with all my possessions aboard. A fellow teacher, driving, goofs around and ends up capsizing the boat. Most of my tacky ties are seemingly lost. Later, when the water has receded, I find some of them under a bed, damp and somewhat discolored.

Real life is better, as my first batch of debaters, half novices, took home several trophies at the Gig Harbor intro tournament, and now I get to see wife and family this afternoon before heading back to another crazy week.

dream trio with a tacky tie duet

Some of us, unlike Josh, have strange and wonderful dreams all the time.

1. I'm teaching a class of students I've had before. In the middle of calling roll, I realize that I can't remember one girl's name. She becomes furious, and I lose it: I begin weeping, begging for the class's forgiveness.

2. My wife and I are driving somewhere in a rental car with a CD player. She wants to put in a No Doubt disc, even though I'm happily listening to opera on the radio. I can't get mad, though, since when she enters the CD, the player magically fuses both. "Sunday Morning" needs an orchestra mash-up to go from good to genius.

3. My parents buy me a new (used) car, and slip a $50 bill in an envelope on the dashboard, with a note that says to "get frequent oil changes." No time like the present, so I take it to a shady $9.99-per-change establishment on Olympia's west side. I meet the owner in a barren side office, where he promises to personally handle the work. I pace throughout the lobby, waiting for a change that never comes.

[Ties featured here.]

today, today

1. Awoke from a dream featuring PZ Myers in a debate with no-show William A. Dembski, wherein the esteemed biologist kept being interrupted by guitar-wielding folksingers. This was followed by a nightmare battle with an ax murderer. (I was armed with a butcher knife.) I can always tell I'm sleep-deprived by the quality of my dreams.

2. Since Melissa's off ethnographizing on the Long Beach peninsula, the house was quiet and the bed was cold.

3. Drove to school at 7:00, discovering on arrival that the network was waffling. I got there early enough to squeak through a couple papers and make a mad dash for the copier. For once, no one was in line before me.

4. I taught. It was good.

5. I'm quite pleased with the quality of this year's new debaters. They are loaded with talent--strong voices, kooky and brash ideas. They're fearless. Combined with our old guard, they should do some damage in the region.

6. Home at 4:00. Time to update the homework blog and cook dinner. (Thanks, Melissa, for posting that fajita recipe like I asked.)

7. Back to school at 6:30, preparing for a presentation to the CHS Parent Organization, who politely listened to my sales pitch for Debate and Improv. Also, they sent me home with cookies. No surprise, really, since most of the parents there are moms.

8. Now I am home, wrapping up tomorrow's plans, typing this, missing Melissa.

what dreams did come

In a night of recovery from a weekend spent camping with friends, strange visions and omens visited me. I describe several below, and leave them for you to interpret.

I am touring in Eastern Washington, looking out at a vast expanse where a highway, one I have traveled in the past, leads to the peak of a mountain. I have brought my digital SLR with a hurking telephoto lens, and furiously snap pictures of the landscape. Then the assault on a nearby peak begins, and as I ascend, the scene shifts (as it does only in dreams) to a luxurious Florida resort. I continue shooting photos of colorful hotel interiors, sunbathing palm trees, confused tourists. However, now I'm accompanied by a second professional photographer. He keeps stumbling into my shots, bumping me as I shoot, tripping me with his tripod.

* * *

I am shooed out of a dark gymnasium, where I have been searching for Real Madrid's locker room, hoping for a post-game autograph. (In real life, I don't know a single Real Madrid player, nor do I follow soccer.)

* * *

Cautiously driving a couple friends to school in the snow, my car hits a patch of ice and, inexplicably, flips over. One companion and I are unhurt, but the other is knocked unconscious. We take him to the hospital. Later, when I arrive at school, I stand in the gymnasium as the candidates for student government are announced, to raucous cheers. When my name is not called, I am told that I have been disqualified because I was not present to turn in my paperwork at the morning deadline. My excuse--that I was in a car accident--is not accepted.

I head to my classroom, where I have turned from student to teacher. As I try to start class, a returning student, trying to establish his class clown stature, starts interrupting. I send him out on a mission to find a custodian, since another student has suddenly taken ill and vomited on her desk.

It is later that evening. As I walk the streets of downtown Elma-Olympia (two towns twenty-five miles distant, for you non-locals), I wonder if I should visit my friend in the hospital. I see that my sister and brother-in-law have scored a reservation to Trinacria, which (in real life) is open only at the owner's whim. Despite the bitter cold, every restaurant patron sits near the window, looking out as I pass by.

what dreams usually come

School starts September 6, but summer's already done with the coming of the first anxiety dream, a prelude to this morning's meeting at Oly. Today is a "LID day," redundant like "ATM machine," a Learning Improvement Day. So, last night, I dreamed I was teaching--in Elma, where I used to live--and it was the first day of school, which started at eight. Half past seven, and I'm staring at the closet, trying to match a shirt with slacks and a tie. Nothing goes. Pink Dockers and a pink striped shirt? Green khakis and a navy oxford? Jeans and a red polo? My mom and sister are yelling at me, claiming that I'm purposefully wasting time because I "like to be late," and I'm screaming back, "What do you mean? I hate to be late!"

The strangest part comes when I'm trying to take off a long-sleeved shirt, but remove the polo--yes, polo--underneath it instead, as if by magic. I start throwing clothes around, frantic as the time draws near. Thankfully, I awake before having to arrive late to my first class.

Like an egg on a skillet, summer's over easy.

I'll see you in my dreams

Normally I would reserve great skepticism for a woman claiming to have foreseen her watery motorcycle dive off a Highway 520 offramp.

No problem, because Reid says she saw the whole thing two weeks ago in a dream.

"The whole thing was that I'd already see it happen to me, and I don't know how to explain it, because I saw myself go over twice. I'd already lived it once. It's like I know I'm going to make it because there is a reason and a purpose," said Reid.

I'd be skeptical because, among other reasons, I have trouble remembering dreams from two weeks ago--and I've been keeping a dream journal.

But maybe there's something to the whole dream prophecy deal. So, I shall cast aside my skepticism and offer prognostication instead.

Here are the woes, both mine and yours, that you can expect in coming weeks, based on eighteen dreams recorded over thirty days. (As Dave Barry would say, I'm not making this up.)

1. I will attend a spaghetti dinner that will magically transform into a pancake breakfast, after which I will spectate a playoff game in Elma, in frigid weather. Later, I'll head to a warehouse, where a group of students filming a class project will be stalked by a knife-wielding maniac. In the ensuing class discussion, I will be confused for a student.

2. My uncle John will die in a bizarre accident, breaking his back while windsurfing off the coast near Westport. Remarkably, this will not upset my aunt Sherry. His coffin will be measured with a saxophone.

3. My wife will become pregnant, and I'll tell her she's cute.

4. Instead of reaching the summit of Mount Rainier by climbing, I'll tunnel up through winding caverns. Then I'll pick beans on a gigantic farm that transmogrifies into a school building, and get lost looking for a particular row of beans / desks. A nearby man's face will melt and bubble like a burning marshmallow. Somehow, mysteriously, this will be my fault.

5. My car will crash into a lake, and I will be mostly preoccupied by recovering sunglasses from the dashboard.

6. I will go to Disneyland with my older sister Cathy and brother-in-law Jon. After dining in a Thai restaurant where the owner feasts on Chinese food while ordering his employees to make more sourdough bread, we will finally reach the Magic Kingdom, only to be turned away when Jon's credit card is rejected. A trip to Ross (dress for less!) with my parents will devolve into an argument over whether I appear to be shoplifting.

7. I will give various speeches at school assemblies on sundry topics, and will sing songs of some kind.

8. While playing drums with fiber-optic brushes, one will break and slice through my fingernail, revealing a tongue-like appendage underneath. The nail will heal itself. Later, I will grow hair as long as my wife's, and will debate whether I should cut it or grow out my beard to match. (I'll look quite good with long hair.)

9. Behind my high school, I will discover a fellow English teacher raising nettles in the school's raspberry patch "to keep birds away."

10. Driving to White Sulphur Springs, Montana, in a pickup truck, I will be saddened to learn that the town is a shell of itself. Distressed by the ruination, I'll crash into a vehicle parked behind me, and cry when explaining the situation to the police. Later, a rainy-day trip to a mountain in northwest Washington will be interrupted by technical support crews who offer computer assistance to a room crowded with alpenfolks.

11. In a postapocalyptic future, I'll set up a rebel camp in an abandoned building or parking lot or something.

12. Back in that same rainy northern Washington locale, my wife and I will be busted for breaking and entering when we try to take a photo of a photo of Mount Rainier, because the real Rainier is obscured by clouds and we just want a photo. The police will not be sympathetic.

13. I will witness a couple breaking up as I walk through a suburban landscape. Then, playing touch football on a hospital lawn, I'll get in trouble for accidentally clocking a doctor with an errant pass.

14. When a great flood destroys most of Olympia, I'll help people rescue their pets and possessions by climbing ladders made of firewood.

15. James Bond will finally meet his match as I track him down and shoot him up pretty badly. He will need face transplant surgery, and will be forced to talk by making gurgly noises with his throat, which only his nurse will understand.

16. While Goodwill hunting for classic books and clothes, a little girl will pester me, after which I'll be dragged out into the desert and thrown off a cliff, ending up in a museum in Montana. My eternal fate: stuck in the cafeteria, drooling into a sink.

17. I will become a deejay at a local radio station, although a computer will mix most of the tracks. Running for president, or being president, will be stressful to the point that I'll have to take a shower. The drain will be blocked by my pocket watch.

18. I'll skip class after storming out of a "knowledge bowl" round where the judge makes a bad decision which costs our team victory. Why I will be back in high school, I'm not entirely sure.

Don't blame me, blame fate. The future is set.