Man, I do not feel like writing right now. Anyhow, on with the show.

I have mentioned my recent sleep issues before in this space. Briefly, they consisted of shallow and unsatisfying sleep that left me feeling tense and restless.

Well, the drought has ended, and ended, of course, with a cloudbursting storm. I swear, it’s like life in the desert. It’s either no rain, or bloody Biblical.

Maybe I should start gathering two of every animal.

I’m going to need a bigger boat.

Anyhow, thought I’d try to jot down some of the weirdness that my dream soaked sands have disgorged today in my sporadic attempt to make some sense of all this crap.

Let’s see. At one point, I was at the taping of a show about some average folks who get drawn in this weird seaside carnival afterlife. They are not sure if they are alive or dead, or if they are in Heaven or Hell or somewhere in between. And there’s a lot of swirling line of blinking neon lights. Those I remember quite clearly. In lines like lightning, floating in the air and shimmering and swaying like heat distortion.

Then, as often happens in my dreams, what starts off as something I am watching become something I am living, although in some tense, it’s still a show and I am still watching it, just from the inside. It’s like an experience of total immersion into a television show or movie.

I guess maybe that’s the sort of dream a writer who was raised by the boob tube would have. One on which you are fully immersed in a narrative which you are also writing. That is every writer’s dream, really. The ultimate writer’s fantasy is to move in to the world of their own writing, where they control everything and everything is exactly how they want it to be and they are, in essence, God.

That’s right, faithful readers. You have been following me into the realm in which I rule all this time.

And I just have to say…. hey. Thanks.

Sadly, I don’t remember any more of that particular dream thread, which is too bad. It seems like a fairly interesting premise. I remember being a sort of backstage spectator to the show, possibly from the point of view of someone who had written it but now was just watching people bring it to life (now THERE is a fantasy!), Then, with dreamstate fluidity, I was a character in the show, and I remember feeling an enormous surge of emotions, trepidation and excitement and wonder and an intensely energizing sense of possibility, as I faced the prospect of having to explore this bizarre and enticing new realm.

I suspect some of that vibe came from the book I am reading, Weaveworld, by Clive Barker. It also features a wonderful magical realm filled with possibilities. Barker has a real talent for vividly dreamlike imagery and dealing in the stuff of dreams, both pleasant dreams and nightmares.

Anyhow, that’s where the thread of that dream ended, at the threshold of possibility, in the arms of mystery, with no way out but further in.

One and a half dreams later, the premise was that my friends and I, in the dream, had gotten together to find an inexpensive rental property that we could use as a clubhouse of sorts. Just someplace we could get together, hang out, relax, shoot the breeze, play video games, and be ourselves.

Sounds pretty good, honestly.

So we find a place, and it’s a small office in an out of the way neighbourhood downtown. We find a place, find out it’s going for a ridiculously low $1378/month, which is well within our budget (there’s around eight of us in total), and make the deal. At this point, we’ve only really seen the place in the dark, with the lights out, but whatever.

Then later, I am in the area and decide I feel like relaxing, and so I go to the clubhouse-to-be, let myself in with my newly acquired keys, somehow completely fail to notice that all the lights are on, and flop out on a second hand medical cot I had put there earlier.

I am just beginning to mellow out when I just happen to notice there’s a nice lady behind a desk who is looking at me. Slowly, I begin to realize that this is still an active office full of people.

I am a little embarrassed. Given that this is all a dream, I supposed I should be glad I had my clothes on.

But I smile at the nice lady and turn on the charm and tell her the story about how me and my friends wanted a clubhouse and so on and so forth. As I talk to her, more people appear from other parts of the office and gather around the cot to listen to me. Meanwhile, I am keeping up the charm offensive and gingerly trying to figure out what the hell happened.

Am I in the right place? I must be, my key worked.

Did they not know the place had been rented to someone else? Were they um, planning on moving out soon? To a new location, or…?

That’s roughly where that dream ended. Weird, huh?

Oh, and the weirdest part : I was woken up by the feeling I was experiencing light suction on my bare back, like someone was playfully poking me with an active vacuum cleaner hose to wake me up. So I wake up, and there’s this incredible sense of reality dysjunction when it’s like the world is snapping back into reality jarringly, and I realize that the sucking sensation was actually the usual blowing of air from the little fan I keep on my bed. My dream addled brain had somehow reversed it.

That’s right, space cadets. She went from suck to blow!

My brain continues to come up with new weird ways to mess with itself.