on dreaming

I had a very odd dream last night, or rather this morning.

I was taking art classes with the teacher I had as a teenager, in her living room, with a group of teenagers. I was seated on a sofa, when a girl with long dark hair walked in front of me, leaned over, and loudly stated that I may want to cover up, seeing as I hadn’t bothered to shave my legs. I felt the teenagers around me gasp. She collapsed into the other end of the sofa (there was already someone seated between us.) I rose, walked over to her, leaned over her, just as she had done, and loudly proclaimed that she might want to learn some manners. I heard teenagers oohing in approval.

At that point, I prepared to leave. As I spoke to the teacher about something, I saw from a reflection in a glass cupboard door that a sofa cushion was on fire. I turned around, and saw two more cushions were smouldering. Another student pulled out a fire extinguisher; as he aimed at one of the cushions, someone beside me (who may or may have been Pat) yelled in protest to his plan. Sure enough, the first burst of what should have been foam from the fire extinguisher was in fact just gas, or aerosol, and the whole thing turned into one big fireball that crept across the ceiling.

We calmly decided that evacuation was the best course of action. I turned to pick up a small child under the arms, but he was already covered in molten synthetic cushion material. It dripped off him, off the tip of his nose, like water. He barely seemed to notice. I put him right back down, afraid I would burn or melt my hands. I picked up Ti-Monstre (my big orange tabby), then Timmy (my blue-point Siamese), who were both calmly sitting on the aforementioned smouldering sofa. I made sure I had my USB key; I had everything – I was ready to leave the room.

That’s when I woke up. How odd. I can’t make any sense of it.

Of course, come to think of it, I don't really remember having non-odd dreams. That's what's so cool about them. I've always had two types of dreams: either doing normal stuff with abnormal people (I vividly recall watching Raiders of the Lost Ark and eating popcorn...with the guys from Metallica!), or doing abnormal stuff with people I actually know (like rescuing orphans in a tropical jungle with my ex-boyfriend and his now wife!)

Sadly, it’s been a while since I really vividly remembered a dream. No thanks to the alarm clock, I presume; and then there’s those whose storylines I would rather not repeat, for all kinds of reasons (personal demons, anyone?) I think back to the recurrent nightmare I had whenever I was sick as a child; I wonder if that’s what transformed into migraines at adolescence. I don’t remember dreaming when I’m trying to get rid of a migraine.

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