I dream that it’s the first day of school, I’m already bored and I’m planning to go home at lunch time and skip afternoon classes; I’m going down the stairs with my jacket on and holding my umbrella, when I remember that next class is called “History of Visual Arts” and the teacher is very cute, so I casually go back inside and slid in my seat as if nothing happened.
We’re given a few tablets and gather together to watch a movie scene; there’s an actor and two actresses (Uma Thurman and Sandra Bullock, I think) engaged in a fight scene; suddenly overwhelmed with passion, the actor kisses one woman, then the other. I hope next the two women will kiss each other, and they do! And it’s long and deep, “That’s so hot,” I can’t help but whisper. The guy sitting next to me takes it as an invitation to flirt with me, he puts his hand on my hip and starts breathing down my neck. I push him away, go sit alone at another desk and keep watching the movie on my phone. The guy says I’m overreacting, one of the girls in front of the class says she saw everything and he was acting inappropriately.
“Why where you watching them and not the movie?” the teacher wants to know.
I dream that I’m a guest at a new school, an alarm sound and all the students get up and calmly go to their assigned exits, I’m not sure what to do. I finally get out of the building and I see Dolores Umbridge being walked away in handcuffs. I get home and now thousands of students are here too, I need to go to the bathroom because I got my period but they won’t leave, I’m yelling at them and feeling like an asshole.
I end up staying for a few days in an apartment with Jamie from Bly Manor; I fall desperately in love with her, but she ignores me, I have to leave soon and all she cares about is a little girl that she’s gonna adopt. Back at home, and now my sister is mad at me too because I’m eating risotto in the bathroom.
I dream that it’s the last day of school. There’s a young substitute teacher, I’m chuckling with my friends and he throws me out the classroom. Then he follows me along the hallway, trying to decide what my punishment should be. He said I will have to cook something, I lie and say I cook too much at home already. Now we’re inside an Ikea and he’s still following me, a security guard even asks me if I need help. I find my favorite blanket in a trash can.
It’s the last day of school again, I’m driving to class with my cousin, I tell her I’m gonna go work for our rival company and she says, do what you gotta do. The classroom is enormous and nearly no seats are empty, I finally find one right in front of the teacher. A girl offers me chocolate coffee, I refuse politely and immediately regret it. I notice everybody has Nintendo 3DS: why? Did I miss something? The teacher is a young woman with a blonde ponytail, I feel some obvious lesbian vibes. She starts talking and my alarm rings.
I dream that I’m randomly messaged by a nice older girl on a forum. We decide to meet up on the beach, she asks about art, what are my favorite paintings? I show her a kiosk selling street art: my favorite painting is all of them, combined, all the nuanced colors they create together. We sit together on a rock, cuddling. I think I’m in love.
The next day I’m at school, not interested at all in the literature class I’m attending. We’re reading the first book of a trilogy (His Dark Materials, maybe?), I didn’t even bring my copy with me. What’s the point, I read it so many times already. The teacher is annoyed by my attitude, the other kids are astounded. I’m so glad I’m an adult with better priorities.
Beach girl invites me over to her place so I can meet her roommates. Wait, roommates? Maybe I totally misunderstood her and she’s straight after all. Suddenly shy, I refuse to go and send my cat instead. I have to go to school and sit through a Harry Potter movie with dozens of TV ads. I’m again pretty annoyed and yelling my displeasure at the big screen. In the movie, the actors are digitally de-aged to look like children, it’s rather uncanny valley.
My cat gets lost on the way home. She finally arrives chased by five other cats, black and white like her. She’s so scared, and I love her so much and feel so guilty. The five cats are rattling the balcony window, we can see their silhouettes behind the white curtain, they’re terrifying.
I dream that I’m at school waiting for a teacher I apparently really love. I look impatiently out the window until I spot her, riding on a bike and carrying an easel. She grins and waves at me. She’s so beautiful and so smart. Later she asks me to translate two words on the blackboard, I know the translation is “Bare Feet”. I’m so flustered I instead write,
I am familiar with my bare feet.
I’m watching an old silent movie about a young woman fighting an evil orphanage headmistress. They climb a building, the visual effects are really good considering the time period. I can clearly sense the homoerotic subtext.
I dream that my mother and I are taking part in a horror tour. It’s night when our bus arrives at a haunted old mansion, we get inside along with all the other guests, cheering and laughing.
The mansion is haunted alright, but I soon figure out the ghosts and other scary presences (mostly dead girls, pale, bleeding) cannot be touched and can’t harm us in any way. I feel relieved, amused, even. There’s something else about the house though, something odd: it seems to be able to read our minds. I can think about anything I want, anything at all, and the house makes it happen.
I want to buy a souvenir. I see a dish set hanging from the wall, beautiful golden and white plates. As soon as I think it the set flies into my arms and the money leaves my bank account, just like magic. I ask for the check and it’s projected directly into my brain. I say out loud I’d rather have a paper copy and a young maid brings it to me. She says,
Thank you, these numbers will help me win the lottery, back in 2005.
I go back to the bus and realize my mother is nowhere to be found. As I’m starting to worry she finally runs out from the main door, looking frantic, screaming, her face contorted with fear. A waiter is following her, his white shirt covered in yellow puke. I have a moment of terrifying realization: this cannot be my mother. She would never act like this. This is a ghost trying to escape, and my real mother is still trapped inside.
Everybody begs me to stop, but I’m already running back. The doors close behind me, the tour bus leaves, and with a shiver I realize I’m the one being trapped here. Just like the house wanted.
I wake up and fall back to sleep. Now I’m at home, waiting for the police to arrive. A man with round glasses has showed me the future, I know I’m wanted, I know the police will seize all my favorite pens (I hide them, just in case), and I know that my mother will be arrested as well.
I see a police car and a van arriving and parking outside. As I open the door I tell my parents to stay calm: surely it’s all a mistake, if we explain ourselves we can avoid any trouble. I open the door and dozens upon dozens of officers pour in. Most of them go directly to my bedroom (my poor pens!) but their chief stays to interrogate me. She’s a blonde woman, tall, extremely beautiful but there’s something cold in her eyes, something not human. I realize in a moment she’s one of the ghosts from the hunted house, and she wants to steal my body and give it to one of her ghosts friends.
Years later I get out of prison. The beautiful blonde chief is waiting for me and we kiss passionately. Am I still me? Am I a ghost? I cannot tell. Flash forward a few more years, I’m on boat on a stormy ocean. The boat sinks and I wash ashore on a beautiful island. I lost my memory.
I dream about going to see a doctor. I go inside his office and there before me, wearing a white coat, is my coworker, S. I’m really surprised, how can he possibly have time to practice? He’s at the store every day! Says he,
I use my lunch break.
He’s somewhat dismissive of my symptoms and it gets me somewhat mad.
I go home and find out a neighbor wants to sue my family for very petty reasons. I invite her over so she can see we’re not so bad after all. She’s in her forties and too uptight to be beautiful, but I still think she’s hot.
The next morning I need to get to school and I’m late, but I’m also suspecting I’m dreaming, that must mean I’m actually early, right? I walk in town with no rush and I waste some time riding a roller coaster at a local festival. Yes, it must be a dream because I’m not even scared.
I walk for a bit in the snow, and it’s really time to wake up and go to school for real, I think. I slap my face, hoping it will do the trick. Then I throw myself down a cliff. Nothing. I yell for my dad, hoping he can help me. I hear a loud whistle in the gray, snowy sky. That sounds more real than the rest of my current reality, so I follow it.
I wake up as a little white and brown dog. I go explore the city again.
I’m going to school with a girl on a wheelchair; she’s absolutely beautiful, with big brown eyes, and I know I’m gonna fall in love with her. Along the way I describe the churches and monuments we pass by. Is she blind too? I honestly don’t know. Maybe I’m just showing off.
I dream that I’m in an arcade with the child version of my neighbor S. He’s looking up city names on a computer and the arcade owner, an old man with a kind face, asks if he’s interested in those cities’ football clubs. S. replies that no, he’s actually into train stations.
And so the old man offers to drive us to see actual trains. On the way we pick up two old women that look like regular Miss Marples. Together we sneak into a garden where a group of armed guards attack us.
We escape easily and one of the guards even join us. She’s a woman in drag with short blonde hair and a fake mustache. Now I’m watching her on… an East European TV series? It was filmed in the 2000s so all the boys have frosted tips. Mustache girl is the love interest of the only other girl in the group, but the series is canceled too soon and I never find out if they got together.
I’m watching a movie with my parents, it has lesbians and it’s a bit too graphic, I’m embarrassed and I pretend to be so bored that I fall asleep. I can always finish streaming it on my own later.
Now “asleep”, I dream in my dream that I’m a beautiful older actress on set, I’m filming a scene where I have to go down a magnificent marble staircase, but I keep forgetting my lines.
I wake up from the dream in the dream, I’m at a theater with my cousin and another girl, we are watching the same lesbian movie from before. But it’s too long and we sneak out after the first three hours: we tell each other that we can always stream it.
As we walk home I explain them my dream about being an actress, and they are incredulous: they both had the same dream, isn’t that amazing!? Surely a great scientific discovery.
We reach the very same movie set and sneak in a private dressing room. It belongs to Cate Blanchett, and a minute later she walks in with her child. We make up an excuse, say that we just wanted to leave a ring for the little girl; indeed I have a tiny ring with a pearl in my pocket. Cate Blanchett smiles sadly and reveals that she’s being bullied.
The little girl is now asleep in a castle made of ice. We want to rescue her, we search in every room and come across one that is filled with beautifully crafted wooden cribs. You see, the Ice Queen had so many children, but they all died.
An old custodian walks to us. The little girl tells her that she’s a long-lost princess, and we tell her we are wizards. And then my alarm rings and I wake up from the dream for real.
DECADE DREAM JOURNAL 