I dream that I’m trying to hijack a building with my cousin and the whole thing feels like a deja vu. We ride up to the 45th floor, then pose as workers and hang posters on the elevator saying it’s broken and to use the other one. So far so good. We get in the elevator and my cousin pushes a button. “We’re supposed to be going up, not down,” I say. “I want to see the ocean,” she replies.
On the 44th floor there’s a vast open space covered in luxury swimming pools, it’s a sight to behold. The residents are all over, laughing, playing, swimming. We pass a waterfall, it’s artificial but it feels like the real thing; we keep walking, and I say, “Where are you going? We’re on a rooftop!” My cousin silently points at the stone path we’re walking on, and indeed we’re somewhere different. It starts raining.
I dream that it’s the last week of school and I’m doing an internship in a really big building, almost a skyscraper. I don’t really like the job, it’s a bit too corporate and heartless, but my cousin is there of course and she’s not letting me go home until I clean my room; my own bed is indeed on the ground floor.
That night I play a videogame set in the same building, I find a secret room full of pizzas but my HP bar is full and I don’t have much use for them. The morning after I’m determined to find the same room in the real building, but I find a long line of sick people waiting outside the main doors. I’m not wearing a mask so I cover my face with both hands and beg to be let inside because I’m an employee. The ground floor has turned into a hospital and I can’t find my room anymore.
I need to leave the house in a hurry: I signed up for some classes and I’m late, but I keep forgetting something and having to come back. At one point I realize I even forgot my underwear, and there’s even a pretty girl laughing at me. My building is a maze (that’s another recurring dream of mine) and I can’t find my way back.
Eventually I’m ready and running through my town; the streets are more colorful somehow, people are wearing summer clothes and palm trees are greener, I feel like I’m in California. There’s a giant papier-maché head peeking out from a roof, it’s bright pink and I want to take a picture of it. But I’m late! And what’s worse, I suddenly remember I need to go to work, so I have no choice but text an excuse to my classes’ group chat. They all rage against my job, they say my boss is overworking me and paying too little.
Turns out I’m a baby sitter, my charge is a little boy named Marcus, son of a rich, somewhat bossy couple. I show his mother a painting on my notebook, tell her Marcus made it. She’s skeptical though, so I have to admit it’s actually by my friend F. But Marcus helped!
My sister is being insufferable as always, to shut her up I turn her into a cat. And not just any cat, but my very own black, grumpy kitten. I put this creature that is both my sister and my cat in her carrier (she bites me through the bars) and bring her to the vet.
I meet my friend F. there, he tells me it’s not much, but he put some free menstrual pads aside for me. I thank him warmly. As I’m sitting in the waiting room though, two men steal my pads. I confront them with all my wit and sarcasm and humiliate them into giving my pads back.
My breakfast toasts are wrong: instead of mozzarella, they are filled with slices of pale, unripe pumpkin . There’s also a bread roll on the table, it has peanut butter sticks inside; my brother grabs it and takes a bite, I yell because the sticks are actually cat food, but it’s too late, he has eaten the bread.
It’s time to walk to school! I’m running through a meadow because I’m late. On my way I meet two unnamed voice actors and their dog, I explain to them I’m going to “phone school“.* I finally reach the building and it’s not my IRL High School: it’s a ~technical school that I apparently decided to transfer to. Inside there is a massively high ceiling and a lot of stairs moving and intertwining, a bit like Hogwarts but much more airy and modern.
My class is in the upmost right corner, I hurry up the stairs and I’m very relieved to realize I’m only five minutes late. The teacher pops his head from the door, he’s my usual philosophy prof but there’s something different this time: he has a big smile, like he’s enjoying himself, for once. He gives me a pair of scissors and tasks me with cutting out the tags from his sweater. But wait, all my classmates are teenagers, I realize with a sudden jolt. I’m an adult in my 30s! How am I supposed to get along with them!?
Back home, I boot up The Sims. Since I have all the expansion packs, I find some oriental clothes and objects. I create two Sims, an old Chinese woman and her daughter, give them musical instruments, and listen to them playing in the snow for a while.
*My new job is indeed at a phone store, but of course I’d still be stuck in high school in some way.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 