Middle of the Week Madlibs

Well, it is the middle of the week and I could use some fun and games. If you're feeling the same way, grab a coworker and enjoy my Madlibs below, inspired by a dream from a while back.

He   (verb)   as I came into the room. At least I think he did. It’s hard to tell with specters, what with them lacking real   (body part - plural)  .

“Welcome. It’s so   (adjective)   to finally meet you.”

Maybe for him. I’m still not too   (adjective)   about the whole dying thing. Especially since I found out I still have to   (verb)  .

“Now, let’s talk about your application.”

“I didn’t send you an application.” I definitely would have remembered doing that before the   (noun)   accident.

He smiled   (adverb)   and looked upward. “I get them from the higher-ups. Anyway, you have some impressive skills. Two years of   (verb ending in ing)  , a degree in   (educational field)  . Too bad about the early ending.”

“That did suck.”

He doesn’t pay much attention to my comment. “So, why do you think you’re qualified to haunt the   (adjective)   School for   (adjective)   Children?”

“Other than the being dead thing?”

“Exactly.”

“Well…um…I…” Have no idea. Okay, gotta say something right? “I am a   (adjective)     (noun)   with a strong interest in   (activity)  . And I think I could really bring a sense of   (adjective)  to these hauntings.”

Can’t quite read his expression. Guess that wasn’t what he was expecting.

And now he’s not saying anything.

Finally, he smiles again. “I think you’re going to fit in well here.”

Hope you enjoyed! Feel free to leave your answers below. I'd love to know what kind of school you're going be haunting.

Inner Glow

So, it was a big dream weekend. Every night, my head hit the pillow and I found myself in bizarrely vivid dreams. Which for someone who used to try to rewind movies in her head, so she could watch she while she slept, is a nice state to be in. Makes the whole sleeping thing more interesting.

There was however, one aspect of every night’s dreams that was a little bit disturbing. Three mornings in a row I have awoken with memories of glowing eyes. Both people and turtles with glowing eyes, always either red or green. Now, they didn’t have glowing eyes for the entirety of the dreams, but at some point during my mental stories, their eyes would suddenly flame with color and light. And then they’d go back to normal and I was the only to have noticed the change.

Each night’s dreams were wholly unrelated with the exception of this one strange aspect. So, I figured might as well look up what other people think such things mean. Here’s what I got:

Site One: “To dream about a glow represents a realization that fresh information or perspective has been cast upon a situation. You have found a new perspective, and this is positive.”

Site Two: “To dream of glowing green eyes means that you are trying to fight off your enemies. To dream of glowing red eyes means that person is a very dangerous person.”

Site Three: “Something glowing eerily can represent a person or force with unknown intent.”

Apparently, my subconscious is cluing me in that I’m in the midst of a fight with my enemies and bad people, that I have new and positive perspective on a situation, or that I’m facing something with unknown intent. So, basically, good, bad or otherwise.

Glad that’s all cleared up.

It is also entirely possible, I guess, that my subconscious is trying to succeed in my lifelong goal to recreate the music video of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” 

I’ll let you know if folks/turtles with the optic glow start wearing choir robes and flying. Or if, you know, I suddenly have feathered hair or something.

Dreamstate

I go through periods where I have particularly bizarre dreams and I appear to be smack dab in the middle of one now.

It began the other night with a doozy about Michael Phelps asking my sister to swim one of his races for him. She did swim the butterfly in high school, so he could have made a more illogical choice – me, for instance. Much like Fezzik, I only doggie paddle. – but still, it was strange.

She took gold though, giving her the distinction of being the most winningest athlete in my dream Olympics.

Anyway, since then, it’s been weirder dream after weird dream. There have been murder mysteries, close encounters with the third kind, track & field events, and one instance where I’m pretty sure I got stuck in a TV set.

I could be wrong, but I think my subconscious might want me to sleep more and watch the Olympics and Mars landing less. But since that’s unlikely to happen, I’ll just have to embrace the bizarro dreams.

To that end, today I present five fun dream related TV episodes:

• Nightmares (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) – It may not be one of the standout episodes of the series, but the scenes between Xander and the clown make it well worth a look.
• Sleepless (The X-Files) – Creepy super soldier program leads to man who can kill with dreams. You’d think after Bruce Banner’s issues, people would realize these “building a better warrior” experiments always go sideways.
• Conscious (Alias) – Possibly the trippy-est episode in the series, but at least you start to get some answers as to what the frick frack is going on in season three. Plus there’s an awesome scene between Dixon and Lindsey. Plus Will Tippin!
• Noche de suenos (Eureka) – Dream sharing may be horrifyingly awkward…but it’s also pretty funny. Except, you know, for the part where it might kill you.
• Chuck Versus the Tooth (Chuck) – The Intersect may be slowly killing Chuck’s brain, but as a consolation prize he get’s to have terrifying dreams with real life implications…so, there’s that.

On second thought, maybe I should be listening to my subliminal messages. If there’s one thing that these shows illustrate, it’s that if you tick off your subconscious, it will most likely use dreams to kill you or those in close proximity.

Guess I need to get more sleep…for everybody’s sake.

And the strange dreams continue...

This one, though, was not nearly as fun as my ghostly employment opportunity.

In the dream, my sister was possessed by a candle. The best way I can figure it out is that the candle acted in the same vein as a horcrux. The longer she was in proximity to the waxy thing, the more evil she became.

I knew that destroying it was the only way to get my sister back, but every time I tried to, she would thwart me. Thinking back on it, she was kind of acting like the little girl from The Bad Seed.

In the dream my sister also had the crazy eyes that this young lady is sporting. 
Plus, those bangs? Straight out of old family photos of the little sis. Except hers were shorter. 
Which is really more terrifying than anything else I’ve discussed here.

But, finally, I was able to get rid of the thing, but by that time, she had done some evil magic on a can of paint. So, the horcrux-ish nature of the candle was now in the paint can. And the paint can was on a wall of paint cans.

I was just getting ready to start the laborious process of figuring out which paint can to destroy (destroying all the paint cans never occurred to me, for some reason), I woke up.

Now, I don’t know why my dreams have been particularly vivid lately. Roomie has accused me of having the weirdest dreams of anyone she's ever known, but I think that's an exaggeration due to the fact that her craziest dreams generally have to do with being late to work or picking out which shoes to wear. Riveting stuff. She did once dream about walking down a street where all the trees were on fire. That was kind of cool. She blamed me for it. Not entirely sure how I caused such a mental wandering, but I'm happy to take credit. (One of the earliest signs of my zombieist tendencies.)

Anyway, back to my recent dreams. They’ve had Harry Potter elements throughout. The only explanation I have for that is that I haven’t read any HP books or watched any of the movies since last summer and maybe my mind is rebelling against that and once I read the books again, the weird dreams will disperse.

Or the candle one could have just been my sister getting back at me for all the times I was a dream jerk to her.

Regardless of the reason, I’m going to steer the sister away from candles and paint for the time being. You know.....just in case.

Possible Future Job Opportunity

So, I had a totally awesome dream last night.

I was in what can only be described as a Hogwarts-esque castle and had just been informed that I’d died. Which doesn’t sound all that awesome, except for the fact that I was also told that I was going to be employed as a ghost for the castle. I was pretty pumped about that. I’d be a great haunter.

I was also allotted a certain amount of ghost magic to use in the aid of those in the castle worthy of such a boon. However, I was warned that if I used the magic for my own personal gain, not only would it blow up in my face, but I would become corporeal and visible to everyone around me for a few minutes, so that they could all know who was causing the problems. I’ll be honest with you, there was one point in my dream where I decided to test this and it ended exactly as I was told it would – poorly. Weirdly enough, at that point I was in the part of the castle that the Jetsons were apparently inhabiting. They weren’t cartoons, but real live versions of these characters. Can’t really remember what I was trying to do for my own personal gain in the Jetsons’ wing, but odds are it had something to do with stealing flying car plans.

What I do remember was that Judy was arguing with her parents about not being able to go to a concert. Which makes sense, ‘cause Judy was pretty much always talking about going to concerts. Anyway, I used the magic and everything went to hell. Also, I apparently had roped Roomie into going on this mission with me and she was not a ghost and therefore, fairly visible from the get go. Probably not my stealthiest move, even if the magic had worked. In the ensuing fiasco, I somehow ended up being pushed off a balcony and falling three stories to the ground. As I was punished with corporeal-ness, that kind of hurt. But I shook it off and went back to my job, sufficiently chastised for my selfish actions. Not really sure what happened to Roomie (sorry, buddy) though she did turn up again later in the dream, seemingly no worse for wear.

Other than the celebrity appearance by everyone’s favorite space-age family, all the other people who I ran into in the castle were either family, friends or generic strangers. I could stop and chat with them whenever I wanted, which is totally something I’d want the ability to do if I were a ghost. And I could be visible to people and impact the physical world whenever I wanted, if I really, really concentrated on it. Also a plus. I remember throwing books at people in the library, a classic ghostly pastime.

All in all, my short time as a ghost wasn’t really all that different from my life now. I just had magic and a really kick ass job. Sure, it’s not a job that I have any desire to be eligible for at this point in time, but I hope it’s one that actually exists. Because, oh, I don’t know, maybe eighty plus years down the line, I'll probably be looking for work. And I think I’d really enjoy this career path.

Until then though, I’ll just think of the dreams as a training course.

The Return of the Recurring Dream

Why does it seem like my body and my dreams sometimes conspire against me?

I know everyone has experienced this. You’re having a bad dream and you finally manage to claw your way out of it. There’s that momentary wash of relief and then your body says, Ha, ha….got you!, and sends you spiraling back into an unconscious state. Once there, of course, you find that the monsters were just on a smoke break and are more than ready for your return.

Of course, if you’re having a good dream – for instance, you’re just about to cut Mr. Dewey’s class to go to The Max with the gang – and the alarm goes off, not only does it pull you from the dream, but you’ve never been that awake in your life. You try to fool yourself, pretend you’re still sleeping (See, mind? I’m still asleep. It’s okay. You can send me back to the dream. Send me back! Please?). But no matter what you do, there is no way you’re getting your geometrically decorated cropped shirt and scrunchie back.

Then there’s the recurring nightmare. Not only does no amount of waking up actually help you escape it, but you know what’s going to happen before it does and you still can’t convince yourself it isn’t real. As a child, mine was always the Wicked Witch of the West. Not surprising, since I knew she was sending her guards after me. Anyway, the dream would go like this:

I awaken in my darkened room, knowing something is amiss. I scan the perimeter from the safety of my top bunk. No one is there. I start to release a sigh of relief when I see her. Standing in the far corner of the room, the moonlight glints dimly off her malevolent eyes. I would know that green face anywhere. The Witch!

I don’t bother using the ladder. Time is of the essence. I jump from the bunk bed, propelling myself to the door. I must warn the others!

I make it downstairs to my parents’ bedroom. For reasons that I don’t have time to figure out, my entire family is there. I yell at them to run. She’s coming! There’s no time for explanations. Just get out of the house! They heed my warning. I wait until the last one has left and go to follow.

A green hand shoots out from under the bed, grabbing my ankle. I scream and fall to the ground. Looking up I see that, it’s too late. The Witch stands over me. Her black robes flowing in the sudden wind gusts that are spinning around the bedroom. She cackles. Her hands reach towards me –
And then I’d wake up. Like clockwork. It never failed. I had that dream over and over and over again. No variations.

My sister had a strikingly similar dream, only her villain was a giant gorilla, which is very strange as she always really liked gorillas. Another small difference was that when she would yell at the family to run, I would laugh at her. Circling back to the whole me being a dream jerk issue.

Eventually, we both got past these dreams and went on to be (arguably) normal, well-adjusted adults. I realized that the Wicked Witch wasn’t really all that bad. I’d probably be ticked off too if someone stole the shoes off of my dead relative. I also came to understand that Glinda wasn’t all that good. Not only did she facilitate the pre-grave robbing, but the whole “You wouldn’t have believed me” thing? You could have at least made the attempt, lady. Saved everyone a whole lot of trouble. But no, you and the wizard were too busy conspiring to make Dorothy into a pre-pubescent hit man. Not cool, Glinda. Not cool.

Not that any of this is the point I’m trying to make here. My point is, I got over the nightmare….or so I thought.

Last night, for the first time in over fifteen years, the Witch came for me again. And it was exactly the same. Same bunk beds, same yellow paneling on the wall, same hand reaching out from under my parents’ bed.

Twice I woke up and twice I was sucked back in to where it was apparently playing on loop. And let me tell you, adult me is no more calm, cool and collected, than kid me was.

As a side note, though, pretty sure I was wearing footie pajamas, proving that there really is a silver lining to every cloud.

Apparently, Dream Me is a real jerk

When I was a little kid, waiting at the bus stop with my sister, it was not uncommon for her to refuse to speak to me. Now, for the most part, we always got along really well. But I lost count of the mornings where we would stand there, waiting to go to school and she would shoot me angry looks. The reason was always, invariably, the same. I had done something really, really mean to her…..in her dream.

I’m not sure why Dream Me was always such a constant jerk (maybe because Real Me was at times an inadvertent one), but I do know that ended up apologizing for her shenanigans more than once. After it was all sorted out, I would remind my sister than it hadn’t really been me who did all the mean things and she would respond that she knew. But her cute little, scrunched face would still have the lingering traces of suspicion.

I would like to say that over the years, Dream Me became a more well adjusted, kinder dream personality (I mean, she can fly if she wants to. Change her clothes with only a thought. What’s she got to be all angry about?). Sadly, this is not the case. She’s still out there, wreaking havoc in the subconscious of others. And not just my sister anymore.

I was told that just the other day Dream Me and Dream Dad ganged up against my mother. In an attempt to stop our meanness, my mom apparently told us that when my sister got there, she would be on my mom’s side. Dream Me responded, “We’ll see about that,” which, let’s face it, just sounds ominous. Mom woke up before she could find out what Dream Me had planned. Probably a good thing.

I know there are more people out there who have problems with their Dream Thems, but Dream Me has just gotten out of control. So, at this point I would like to offer a blanket apology to anyone who has been the victim of Dream Me. I don’t know how many of you there are. What I do know is that she is a loose cannon. I will try to talk to her, get her to behave more appropriately, but my efforts have been for naught in the past. My best advice to you is that if you see Dream Me taking a walk through your sleepy reverie, run. Run as quickly as your little dream feet will take you. However, if it turns out to be one of those nightmares where you try to run and instead find that your feet have turned into blocks of cement and you can only move in slow motion…well…just try not to listen to her.

Quick message to Dream Me, if you’re reading this – Stop getting Real Me in trouble or I'm going to come looking for you.

**Squirrel Menace Update: This may be where their animosity for humans began.**