No Plot, No Point… No Problem?

Dearest Rachel –

There are times when I don’t know why I’m filling this space with the scenes I see at night. Most of them don’t have a story to them, and the ones that do leave me wondering if they were supposed to mean anything, and being unable to come up with any reasonable explanation for them. So why would you be even remotely interested in them?

And yet… it’s the sort of thing you would tell me about, if we were both awake in the morning, before I had to take off for work, or as we would be getting ourselves put together for church of Sunday or what have you. So I’m left to assume that – now that I’m able to concentrate on them (probably from not having to rush off to work, or anything like that) – that the ones I’m seeing would be of interest to you. Granted, we can’t have any sort of conversation as to what they might be about, nor can we play any sort of game of ‘can-you-top-this’ with them, which you would usually win. But here we are.

***

Anyway, so Wednesday night involved a layover at an airport (which, with its relatively small size and metal-and-glass exterior, had Dream Me immediately exclaiming to the others that we must be in Basel; given my last experience there, I’m surprised to have been so excited about it, but then, for something that one is expecting to be unfamiliar to be recognizable, I must have seen that as some sort of victory), with several ‘friends’ – two guys and a girl – whose faces I almost immediately forgot upon waking up. Suffice to say, you were not the girl, but I don’t think any of them were anyone I know in real life, so don’t feel too bad about that.

What you might feel bad about was what we were given to get ourselves around the airport, and apparently the surrounding city (which, by the way, was decidedly not Basel, but somehow, Dream Me wasn’t terribly concerned about that). These vehicles were a cross between a golf cart – insofar as they could hold all four of us fairly comfortably – and a bumper car – in that it was frighteningly low-slung, leaving us sitting mere inches off the ground. This was significant, because our route through the area – I couldn’t tell you if it was the airport or the city, as both have their share of storefronts and restaurants – took us up and down various stairways as well as regular roads, and I mean to tell you, we could feel every one of those stairs along the way.

We were also each given a computer, presumably to track our connecting flight, but also, I might guess, to entertain ourselves during the extended layover (as if this crazy vehicle wasn’t entertaining enough, in its own way). However, when I say a computer, I mean a computer, not some portable little tablet. Nope, these were full-size towers and monitors, and you can guess they were insanely awkward to lug around, in addition to our own gear. Somehow, they all fit in the vehicle – and, through the power of dream logic, they functioned within it despite not having any means to be plugged in – but every bump we hit got me worrying as to whether they would be damaged from the shock. They never were, to my knowledge, but that obviously didn’t keep me from worrying.

The dream pretty much ended once we got to the gate of our connecting flight, leaving me to wonder when I woke up about all sorts of little details. Where had we come from? Where were we going? Why were we stopping here to make a connection (especially since I know from experience that Basel, being a relatively small town, is not a connecting hub for anything)? Who where these people, and how did I know them? None of which were going to find answers if they weren’t dispensed throughout the course of the dream.

***

Thursday night, I recall having a dream that, while not exactly lucid, I was clearly aware of it being a dream, and thinking to myself that I really needed to take note of what was going on, so I could remember to tell you about it later like this. Needless to say, that was a virtual guarantee that I would completely forget about it – although it was not helped by the fact that another, less interesting (at least, in my opinion) followed it, wiping my memory of the first one.

Still, in that second dream, I was being pursued – somewhat deliberately, as I’d gotten its attention for reasons that will become clear in a moment – by a, well, I couldn’t necessarily say ‘monster’ accurately, because even as I’m attempting to recall it, I can’t remember what it looked like, apart from being vaguely humanoid. That, and it had been terrorizing the area recently, although how, I couldn’t say. Was this a serial killer, a lycanthrope, or just a really ugly girl who’d been latching onto one man after another for all this time? I’ve no clue, even now.

What little plot there was to this dream involved luring this monster into a house with a number of rooms, and leading it on a merry chase through those rooms filled with obstacles and partitions and whatnot. Essentially, it was a modern take on imprisoning the minotaur, in that the labyrinth here was simply to slow the antagonist down so that I could escape from the last room, lock the door from the outside, and wait for authorities to arrive to more properly arrest and confine this creature. Pretty standard stuff; now you know why I wish I could remember the earlier dream.

***

Finally (for now), last night’s dream was unusual in the fact that I don’t remember much in the way of visuals, but there certainly was a storyline behind it. I do recall one image, though; that of a brilliantly carved and painted bird – probably a parrot? – that either you were I had fished out of the trash.

The bird – and its fate – were basically what the story revolved around, in fact. I didn’t know the guy who was the main character (so to speak), but I got the impression that he was one of the many friends you made through the course of you and Daniel attending various MLP conventions without me (which would explain why I didn’t know the individual). He had apparently been planning on studying art, and had specifically applied to the major universities in New Mexico, of all places – both UNM and NMSU – in pursuit of a girl living out there who he was sweet on. Upon thinking he had been rejected by her, all those plans had been discarded, much to your dismay. You pointed out that she had simply not said ‘yes’ to him, which is apparently not the same thing as saying ‘no’ outright. And I guess you, being a girl yourself, would know better than most.

As a sidebar to this whole dream, you expressed a measure of disappointment in me for having given up on going to VidCon this year, and no longer pursuing my dream of a channel. And while I suppose that’s a fair criticism, the main point of it seemed to be that you had really wanted to go to it yourself, which, even in the dream (which was already starting to fade as I began to wake up), I knew was impossible for you, for reasons that were obvious to me, but you still seemed oblivious to.

I woke up wondering how you would feel about my decision to stop going to Anime Iowa. Somehow, I think you would really be quite upset about it; then again, if you were still here, I wouldn’t even consider not going. But here we are.

And so, my waking life begins to intrude on these dreams, and I might as well package this daily journal and send it off to you. None of these really make any sense, but since when were dreams ever required to? I hope you find them interesting – and that you aren’t too disappointed in my choices these days.

Until next time, honey, keep an eye out for me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.