Well, here we go on another trip through the fucked up world of my subconscious, in an attempt to figure out just what the hell is going on in there, or at least, take some pictures on this weird safari so we can show the folks back home just what a long, strange trip it’s been.

Things had been relatively peaceful in the old cerebellum lately, with a slowdown and a lowdown in the usual amount of hyper-dreaming fireworks roasting my noggin, so I suppose I should not have been surprised that I got a double whammy of it today.

But I still was. You can’t really be ready for things like this. It’s not part of the shape of it all.

The first whammy was actually pretty cool, except for the beginning point, because the first thing I remember of the dream is definitely not the first part of the dream. My memory tape definitely begins part way through the festivities, and most maddening of all, the first thing I remember from this dream set is thinking “Wow, that was completely awesome. Oh, hey, what’s this new thing?”

So I really, really wish I remembered what the heck happened before that. I am sure there actually was more before that, and that I have forgotten it. How very annoying. Oh well, moving on.

So the dream starts with me looking down into a small playing field to see a bunch of fresh faced young boys in the style of an early sixties band playing their girl pleasing somewhat Beatles-esque tunes, with the bleachers packed with teens of that era digging on all the crazy sounds, and what looks like a radio DJ and some record studio types nearby, at the other end of the field.

All of that would be cool enough, but the really trippy and wigged out thing is that it all looked like it would look if you were watching it on a black and white TV of the era. It was like the whole universe had been reformatted to that style, so everywhere I looked, things were in black and white, and slightly static-y (because this was long before cable, of course).

In fact, the first thing I remember in the dream is watching this happen, watching the black and white effect flood over my reality from the previous hyper-saturated technicolor. It was almost like a video filter being applaud to my entire universe.

And in the dream, apparently, this was no big deal. My reaction, in fact, was to say to whoever I was with “Oh, I see, they are going for a kind of early sixties television look. I wonder what this is all about. ”

And then I notice that the event we are watching is sponsored, I swear I am not making this up, by Portal 3D. And I say to my companion, “Oh, OK already, we all know Portal 3D is coming out soon, there is no need to get us all excited about it. ”

This suggest that I was basically participating in a reality-level advertisement. Chilling.

So my companion and I decide to take a seat and enjoy the show, and that’s where things get quite tricky and strange. Because somehow in this reality, my companion seems to just sort of acquire a teenager to cuddle up and enjoy the show with more or less just by wanting it.

I can’t be any clearer than that, I am afraid. I really don’t recall that part of the dream well. But I remember looking over and being jealous, and then looking to the other side of me, and thinking “what the heck, it’s worth a try. ”

So I just sort of adopt a posture like I am already cuddling side to side with someone, and in my mind I see the girl seated a little ways off on the same bench as me highlighted, like I was selecting an object in a piece of software, and then I close my arm a little to, I guess, say “OK”, and just like that, there she is, cuddled up to me with her head on my shoulder and my arm around her back. Awww!

So we cuddle, and I stroke her hair, and we watch the band, and we talk, but I do not remember a single word of the conversation. I think it was, in fact, the sensation of conversation without the content. That kind of thing can happen in dreams.

Eventually, my companion and I decide to go, and the first thing I say the moment we leave is “I want one. ”

I seem to have decided, in the dream at that point, that what I had just been cuddling was some new form of hyper sophisticated android, and I wanted one for myself because it had all been so warm and pleasant.

Also, at this point, I am getting into a car with this whoever that I am with, and I think the idea is that we are an X-Files type investigative team, and when I talk about how awesome that android was, this whoever kind of Marge Simpson growls, suggests she(?) is jealous.

And that’s the end of the first whammy. I wake up, I wander out, I watch the Daily Show and Colbert with Joe and Julian, Joe and I have a mild bit of verbal static because he’s feeling tired and ill and grumpy, and then I come back to my room and go back to sleep.

Then the second whammy hits, and it’s far less pleasant.

In it, I have had some kind of massive blowout argument with my mother and my brother. I don’t remember the argument. I am fairly sure the dream began with this big argument having already happened.

So there I am, in this very plain, Spartan motel room, crying my eyes out, super upset and freaking out about this whole big deal argument and trying to calm myself down. I am crying so hard, I can barely see, and just sort of wandering around the four small rooms of my motel room because I am too upset to sit still.

Then, just as I am about to settle down and phone them to get them to come over so I can apologize, they show up, bearing food and inviting me out to dinner.

So I sit them down at the crappy sort of kitchen table in the motel room, and I start to try and apologize, but them my brother makes some kind of sarcastic comment, and I ask him, can you please refrain from doing that for just a little while?

And he says “Oh, I don’t know, that’s going to be pretty hard.. ” and I say “It’s that hard to stop picking on me for five minutes?” and he says something about him having the right, and I lash out at him because what he is doing is really hurting me, and lo and behind, I blow up again and they leave and I am back to square one.

So now I am REALLY upset, and feel incredibly stupid and guilty for freaking out yet again, and I am once more alone in the motel room (really, more of a mini-apartment) which for some reason smells like waxed paper.

I manage to pull myself together long enough to find the phone and try to dial the number to call them up and once more try to apologize, but for some reason, it’s really hard to dial because the dial on the phone seems really far away, and I have to sort of fling my finger in what looks like the right direction and hope it hits the right number.

It’s like trying to dial a phone by throwing darts. Oh well, this is Dreamland, which supports all kinds of completely illogical interfaces.

I mean, they invented that whole never ending hallway where no matter how hard you run, you never actually get to the end. Whose crazy idea was that? Oh right, the collective unconscious.

Man, the zeitgeist doesn’t know shit about interface design. Am I right?

Anyhow, that was the end of whammy 2. I woke up from that one even more fucked up that usual from my hyper-dreams, because it had been emotionally exhausting as well as trippy.

For the record, I have never had any conversation like that with my brother and/or my mother. Nobody behaved like themselves in that dream, least of all me.

Although I feel like I now have a glimpse into what it would be like to be a far, far more emotional person, and one with anger control issues to boot.

It was all pretty upsetting, honestly. I don’t like the idea of being that out of control of myself. I value self-control highly, and being able to respond out of rational and measured choice instead of being at the mercy of whatever emotion is dominating at the moment.

I wonder if I take that too far, though.