Gospel of the Leper Messiah/The Landlord Taketh Away

This dream played out like a movie I was watching. It was a horror film starring Jennifer Lawrence.

The villain was the Leper Messiah.

(It's apparent where my subconscious pulled this from.)

The Leper Messiah looked exactly like Hans Baldung's depiction of Death from his paintings The Three Ages of Man and Death/The Three Ages of Woman and Death.

(The only difference is the Leper Messiah had ice blue eyes.)

The Leper Messiah carried with it two enormous rusted screws — one a straightforward screw, the other a screw-in hook.

I remember none of the plot details of this dream expect one: the Leper Messiah fastening a silver crucifix bearing its image instead of Jesus' around J-Law's neck.

* * *

My sister and I were visiting one of her friends at his home. Instead of being where it is in reality, it was located on a cove, and he was leasing the property. The three of us were inside his house, playing on his N64. Deciding to take a break, I left to go for a walk. While wandering about, I collected points, as if I was in a video game.

I eventually made my way to the mainland, where I met my sister's friend's satanic landlord. He looked exactly like Ray Wise.

He wore a goatee, and his nails were long and manicured, coated with black nail polish. I don't really remember the details of our conversation, but he mentioned something about signing contracts in blood.

The two of us walked back to the cove. Once there, the landlord demanded his tenant sign a new contract or face immediate eviction. My sister's friend acquiesced, calling his landlord a "Pentecostal Catholic". Grinning, the landlord took out an enormous bound copy of the Vestus Latina dating back to the 4th century, wanting to sign the contract within its pages. As the landlord began signing his name with a fountain pen in regular ink, I suggested he use his blood instead. Agreeing, the landlord set the pen aside and slit open his palm with out of his claw-like nails, scrawling his signature in his own blood. The dream ended abruptly there.

Potatocide/T1J, Ticks, & emigranTs/An Alkie, Drunk/Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said: The Motion Picture

Monica Lewinsky was walking along a rocky mountain path all by herself, carrying in her arms an enormous Yukon Gold potato, when a man with a machete-sized butcher knife leapt out and attacked her. He tried stabbing her through the potato, but it got stuck in the tuber. After failing to pull it free, he ran away.

* * *

It was the early '90s. The YouTuber T1J

took his dog for a stroll through a boggy grassland. Walking through the long, moist grass, the dog picked up a number of ticks.

Back in town, T1J ran into a Haitian emigrant who spoke little English. The Haitian cleaned T1J's dog free of ticks, free of charge.

The Haitian worked as a cook at a "greasy spoon" diner owned by Vera Miles.

Dilapidated and unsanitary, the diner was failing.

* * *

The end times were upon us. A species of flying, biting insectoids of unknown origin appeared in massive swarms, attacking and draining of life-force all beings they encountered — even ghosts.

One of my sister's drunking buddies, having run out of booze, left the safety of the enclosed shelters to procure more. Contact with him soon ceased, phone and text messages going unanswered. My sister went into a frenzy, intent on venturing out to find him. We were forced to restrain her, heedless of her desperate pleas.

* * *

In the '70s, my mother wrote an adapted screenplay of Philip K. Dick's Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. It was an adaptation in name only; the plot and characters were wholly original. The screenplay was picked up by a major studio and made into a movie starring Yaphet Kotto and Leslie Nielsen.

Kotto's character was the primary antagonist, a hitman hired to eliminate a number of different people. Nielsen's was the decoy protagonist, a detective tasked with apprehending the hitman.

At some point in the film, the hitman sent the detective sliding down the side of a skyscraper to his doom.

Swedish Tongue/Back to the Dead/Burtonverse: The Special Edition

It was the '60s and I was in Sweden, on the set of a movie being filmed by Ingmar Bergman. I'd been hired as an extra, but due to an actor's absence, I was promoted to bit player. I was to deliver my lines in Swedish, but not being fluent in the language, I had to recite them phonetically; I flubbed them badly.

On the plus side, Bibi Andersson and I shared a mutual attraction; we spent the whole time flirting and consulting a Swedish-English dictionary to bolster my understanding of her tongue.

*swoon*

* * *

In the near-future, the end times came upon us. The human birth rate had fallen to zero and the souls of the dead were no longer permitted to pass into the afterlife; they remained tethered to their decaying bodies, intelligent zombies which maintained an uneasy, sometimes hostile co-existence with the living population.

Marty McFly had developed an addiction to pizza; he ate multiple slices of pizza multiple times a day every day until he became obese, died of heart disease, and came back a zombie.

He continued eating pizza — old, dry, mouldy pizza topped with human skin.

* * *

Dreamt that I watched alternate cuts of the Tim Burton Batfilms which had been re-edited to better conform with the Schumacher films. Not only had a mention of the Riddler been inserted in Batman '89, but a new scene with Dick Grayson had been placed in Batman Returns; he was Vicki Vale's new boyfriend, and he was shown driving a shape-changing holographic car.

The dream ended on a mortifying note. In a Returns post-credits scene, the soul of the Penguin — reduced back to infancy, back in his gothic baby carriage — was sailing down the River Styx. As his androgynous soul made its voyage along those brown waters, the disembodied spectral head of Tim Curry materialized over it.

Looming large over the carriage, Tim Curry's disembodied head metamorphosed into the disembodied head of Pennywise the Clown, complete with large, burning red eyes. Looking directly at the viewer, me, he showed a ghastly grin of sharpened teeth. For several seconds I had no choice but to stare back into those hideous eyes before I forced myself awake.

A Nightmare on Shanks Road

It was the early 1980s and I met Heather Langenkamp/Nancy Thompson.

The dream proper was preceded by this random bit where I was chasing after a faux Heave-Ho.

Unlike a real Heave-Ho, it had two smaller, separate platforms which operated side-by-side rather than a single larger platform, and it was not built strong enough to flip Mario-sized objects. Even though it wasn't capable of launching me into the air, the thing remained dangerous to come into proximity to, so I was cautious in apprehending it. Once I got my grubby little hands on the mechanical bastard, it became a miniature Audrey II and started singing. As I offered it my thumb to suck from, I immediately found myself watching a videotape of Little Shop of Horrors, recording a copy in EP mode as it played.

Suddenly I found myself in the '80s. I don't know if I travelled back in time or this was a universe where I was a baby boomer — the dream was vague in this regard — but there I was, in my late teens, having just watched A Nightmare on Elm Street on the big screen, emerging from the cinema only to meet Heather/Nancy and Johnny Depp/Glen Lantz as they were also coming from watching the movie. Though I said we had all just watched ANOES, it wasn't 1984; Heather/Nancy was still in high school — about 16/17 years old — so the year was 1980/81. Also, though the two had starred together in the movie, Heather/Nancy & Johnny/Glen acted like they didn't know each other and had only now just met for the first time.

As the three of us stood out there, making our acquaintance, I tried my damnedest to keep Heather/Nancy from forming an attraction to Johnny/Glen, striving to get her interested in me instead. It seemed to have worked to some degree, 'cause I soon found myself hanging out with Heather/Nancy and her girlfriends with Johnny/Glen nowhere is sight.

A rusted can of pop and a woman's magazine in hand, one of Heather/Nancy's friends read out a list of the attributes Heather/Nancy found most desirable in a man. From the way she spoke and the combination of words she used, the girl sounded like she was singing the lyrics to a Bruce Springsteen song. I can't precisely remember the lyrics, but there was a line in there going something like "Together, we are drawn to things which will/won't burn us."

Then I woke up.

(I think Wes Craven would've been proud of this dream.)

Revamp of the Jedi/Cavewerewolf/Masters of the (Parallel) Universe/Tim Sizemore in "The Grave Stalker"/I, Norman Bates

Had myself a dream where I watched footage from an early cut of Return of the Jedi. Here’re the details I recall from the dream:

• Luke had a different lightsaber. It was mallet-shaped, with a red blade.
• There was a scene of Luke slaughtering Ewoks.
• The big plot twist wasn’t that Leia was Luke’s sister, but that Darth Vader was actually his grandfather. Luke’s actual father had never fallen to the dark side; he might not have ever even been a Jedi.
• “Anakin” was played by Mark Hamill himself.

Here’s what Mark looked like in the old-age makeup:

* * *

An archaic human

(a Cro-Magnon, a Neanderthal, or a hybrid between the two)

became a werewolf.

The details escape me, but he wasn’t an animalistic killing machine; he retained his human intelligence and used his lycanthropy only in defense of his tribe.

* * *

Godlike entities transported myself and a number of other individuals to another planet/universe. Once there, we became overlords in possession of advanced technology.

I befriended one of my fellow overlords

(She resembled Suzanne Vega, but was curvier.)

and began hanging out at her citadel/supermarket, where I drank an entire pitcher of ice-cold milk which was just divine. She and I eventually entered into an intense romantic/sexual relationship.

Then she, I, and the other overlords were transported back to Earth, along with our advanced citadels.

* * *

I watched a horror/thriller starring Tom Sizemore.

Sizemore’s character was a real piece of nasty work; he volunteered at a soup kitchen only to deliberately contaminate the food with soap, rancid fat, and other unmentionables; he was a grave robber; and it was heavily implied he was a sexual predator who had molested his own daughter.

As I recall, the plot was about him stalking a beautiful woman who happened to live next door to his favourite cemetery.

* * *

Norman Bates and I had been combined into a single person living during the early '80s.

I wish I could describe this dream in detail, but it’s too convoluted to make sense of. All I can say with certainty is that the mummified corpses of Norma Bates and one of my victims looked incredibly cheap — like “gray alien rag doll” cheap.

Also, Susan Clark made an appearance.

The New Librarian/Nic Olié/So-Called Chaos

I paid a visit to my local library. While at the check-out counter, I saw a new librarian had been brought on staff. She was five-to-ten years younger than I and rather short, only in the neighbourhood of five-feet tall. She wore her ash blond hair short and feathered, and her eyes were blue and watery. She wasn’t drop dead gorgeous, but certainly pretty. She was wearing a gray-and-cream striped T-shirt which really hugged her modest but perky chest.

We got to talking. That’s when she made it clear to me in no uncertain terms that if we weren’t in such a public place, she’d jump my bones right then and there. We made arrangements to meet somewhere after she got off of work to fool around.

I got the sense this woman was going to be nothing but One Night at McCool’s-style trouble.

* * *

I watched a version of The Phantom Menace where Ric Olié was played by Nicolas Cage instead of Ralph Brown.

“The deflector shield is too strong! Oh no not the blasters! Not the blasters! AHH they’re in my eyes!! My EYES!! AHHHHHHH!!!”

* * *

Dreamed that Alanis Morissette, nude save for a pair of panties she’d bought from Sears, had covered herself head-to-toe in red body paint.

Strangest Things/I Went to NYC & All I Got Was This Lousy Anarchist

I had a dream which served basically as an alternate second season to Stranger Things. Eleven had returned, but the events of the first season finale had left her so traumatized that she mentally regressed to the state of a toddler; she no longer knew how to use her powers and she was forced to wear a diaper all the time.

I became her guardian and had to protect her from a nigh-unkillable demoniac who was hunting her; the fucker was so strong that all the damage I dealt to his body only slowed him down. And to make my job all the harder, he had the power of mesmerism; he could enslave others to his will with a glance.

There were other details to the dream, but they’ve slipped my mind.

* * *

I dreamed I watched an early-to-mid '70s romantic comedy starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Roy Scheider.

Fonda played an unmarried-and-unattached woman with a modestly successful modelling career who had a crush on a millionaire with a pornstache.

Tomlin played her best friend. Together, they were planning on taking a skiing vacation to Colorado, but they got on the wrong bus and wound up in New York City instead. There, Fonda met and fell for Scheider’s character, who was a cantankerous, misanthropic anarchist who always talked to himself in the mirror and wore his hair slicked back and the top buttons of his black T-shirt unbuttoned.

Fantastic Four 3.0: Source Material? What Source Material?

Dreamt that Fox greenlit production on yet another DOA Fantastic Four film.

Forest Whitaker had been cast as Reed Richards AKA Mr. Fantastic.

(It's like the character just leapt off the page and came to life!)

But that's not all! In addition to having his familiar elongating abilities, this version of Reed also had super strength! And he had his genius-level intellect removed! And he went around in whiteface to disguise his true identity!

(How progressive.)

As for the remaining characters, Ben Grimm AKA The Thing & Johnny Storm AKA the Human Torch had been combined into a single character;

Sue Storm AKA the Invisible Girl/Woman was nowhere to be seen;

(Which is reasonable.)

and Adrian Paul played Kryptonian Jesus.

Yes, Kryptonian Jesus. He wore brown-and-tan robes over a Superman costume.

What a stupid dream.