Dreams I've Had Recently

Lots of travelling. Sneaking through high tech facilities. Just... walking on my own.

Once it was summer, then it turned into winter, a sort of nuclear winter, as war erupted across the earth thanks to some kind of supernatural threat that had only been alluded to in an indie viral podcast. I remember embers, tanks, creeping through ashy burnt buildings. Then I was on the moon, on a research facility, and they had turned James Franco into a lethal lizard-monster determined to wipe out humanity.

Not everything is so fantastical. I've been dreaming about being downtown a lot lately. It's not Toronto, never quite Toronto, more like Toronto of the future. The shops are bigger, the traffic is busier, the subways are more complicated (more like The Tube), the PATH is even grander than before. But there's still endless construction that drives us all nuts, and the street meat tastes just as delicious.

Reality affects my dreams. Right after Pride weekend, I dreamed that my straight BFF had decided to date a girl instead. I was judgey, not for the obvious reason one would suspect, but because this other girl was an interloper to our circle and quite frankly not good enough for my BFF.

I still dream about going back to school, but after so many years and due to unflappable logic, my brain has realized that I can't seriously buy into being in high school when I am 35+ years old. So I've started dreaming that I am a teacher at the school, or a teacher's aide. I'm wandering halls keeping the peace, or I'm helping the school band, or I'm coaching the kids in the school play. Sometimes I go back to university, which is a lot more reasonable, except for the part that in reality I wouldn't physically go to the school, not when we've got online classes and continuing ed.

Sometimes it's just fragments of scenes. I'm getting dressed for a party, shoved into a tiny little stall. I'm trawling through white wedding gowns, hoping no one notices my nostalgia. I'm trying to navigate of maze of escalators in a building that's on fire.

It's harder for me to remember my dreams as I get older, they fade away faster, the details aren't as bold and bright when I wake up. But just trying helps, being aware helps. Here's to hoping there's more compelling tales to come.