The Wood Pushers Meet the Killers, Mario & Luigi

I really wish I could remember how this dream began. The beginning was particularly wacky, involving superheroes and my family and I living on a deserted island with carnivorous dinosaurs.

I recalled these sequences in some detail after I woke up, but I went too long without recording them, so now those details are lost. 😒

The dream proper I do recall quite well. It was another one of my frustrating "back to high school" dreams.

IRL, there's a hallway showcasing photos of all past graduates. In the dream, however, only grads from the last thirteen years were represented; grad photos from 1960-2005 were tucked away inside a folder, which was sealed in a glass case on the wall. This flustered me greatly, as I wanted to see the '05 grad photos.

(that's the year I would've graduated IRL if life hadn't bent me over a table).

Thwarted, I left, taking care to hide my face from any teachers/counsellors/etc. who would've recognized me as I crept along the halls. As I stepped outside, I peeled off my shirt and discarded it; this drew the attention of douchebag jocks, who started heckling me over my copious back hair and less-than-trim physique as I left school grounds.

As I entered downtown, I found myself in a heavily industrial area (IRL, no such area exists in my hometown). There I stumbled upon four old casual friends/acquaintances/occasional enemies from my high school years who were on their lunch break. We got to talking, and I came to mention my mother's heart attack, my late father's cancer, and that we were constantly in need of firewood to heat our shanty. This is when they informed me they were wood pushers — i.e. sellers of illegally acquired firewood. They agreed to sell  me a cord if I met them at the abandoned power plant where their deals went down.

Deep down in the power plant's humid, musty, rusty innards I met up with the four guys. There I learned from them their supplier had given them crappy apple wood. Taking a piece, one of the guys deposited it on the ground for me to examine; though it resembled a ruptured potato, I thought it looked perfectly burnable. Then we heard commotion outside. Telling me to stay put, the four left to see what the deal was. Minutes passed. There was loud shouting, cursing, then abrupt silence. More minutes passed. One of the four returned, panicked. He told me a pair of contract killers employed by rival wood pushers had killed his friends, were coming after him, and that we had to get to safety quick.

I followed him deeper into the plant. As we came upon a final door, I saw strong light coming from behind it and assumed it was a back exit. Instead it was a small, cramped room containing empty lockers, a medical examination table, and other detritus; there were no doors or windows to escape through and no decent spot to hide. The guy was skinny enough to squeeze into a locker, but I was too big to fit in any. He hurriedly told me to hide under the two foam mattresses stacked atop the examination table; I hurriedly secreted myself under the mattresses just as the killers came through the door. Somehow I could see right through the mattresses and hence see the two killers. They were Hispanic/Latino (they spoke in Spanish/Portuguese), dressed as Mario and Luigi, and armed with flamethrowers.

As you can very well guess, they knew someone was hiding in that there room. While I remained still, hoping beyond hope they hadn't noticed me and thought my comrade was the only person in the room, he left his hiding spot, offering to cut a sweet deal in exchange for his life. They agreed, but only as a fake-out; once his guard was down, Ersatz Luigi toasted him with his flamethrower.

Now it was just me, clumsily hidden beneath two mattresses, a pair of merciless killers armed with deadly weapons standing before me, blocking off my only escape route. I didn't know if they knew I was there and didn't know if they wouldn't torch the place regardless. That's when my body forced me awake.

No Soap for You

This dream was set in a Soylent Green-type near future, after the Americas had devolved into Third World countries, where hoarding soap was illegal.

The Mask

got into a fight with a supervillain who resembled Billy Idol.

They unleashed nuclear attacks upon each other, but as they were both essentially omnipotent, they weren’t able to inflict injury on one another.

Then faux Billy became a chrome-sheathed villain with no face.

Every superhero from the MCU confronted Chrome No-Face and crucified him to a crystal objet d’art, reciting a prayer as they did so. I thought to myself the prayer was too exclusively Judeo-Christian for the more syncretic orientation of the Marvel Universe.

I was then inside a dilapidated office building.

While actual office work went on inside some of the rooms, in most people were just partying and engaging in substance abuse and illicit sex.

I was striding room-to-room, lip-syncing to the Nine Inch Nails song “The Hand That Feeds” which was loudly playing from some nebulous source. While doing this, I came across a woman who resembled Tori Amos. I took her by the shoulders, lifted her to eye level, then kissed her succulent lips.

What a Story, Mark/Last Priest of Krypton/Brunette Bonanza/Apple Binldings/Tuning In Tuning On

I had a dream I told my mother and sister about 

They both got a kick out of my descriptions of the plot and Tommy Wiseau’s persona. I know in real life, though, they’d never be able to enjoy The Room; “so bad it’s good” is a concept utterly foreign to them.

* * *

Superman was an ordained Catholic priest.

He took a demonically possessed teenage girl (who may or may not have been my sister) to a cold, dark, abandoned church with broken doors to perform an exorcism. During the exorcism, the demon periodically hopped in-&-out of Superman's body, using his great powers to wreck havoc across the land.

* * *

I met both Heather Langenkamp and Brooke Shields at a convention.

My reaction was thus.

* * *

In my hometown, on the waterfront of the lake closest to me, were buildings constructed from old apple bins

which had been arranged/stacked together then bolted in place.

* * *

I was watching/inside some Kim Wilde music videos. At least one of these videos had been shot in my hometown. In this particular video, Ms. Wilde walked backward through town, from the lake to the highway. As this was happening, the seasons were passing in reverse, from summer through to winter.

During the dream, I caught some of the lyrics; they weren’t bad, but could’ve used some polishing.

(I forgot them soon after I awoke.)

Outside the video, Ms. Wilde and I met up in a local thrift store. We made chit-chat in front of a small shelf bearing gaudy, ugly clothing.

From the Dream Archives: Secret Kung Fu Agent Man/Glenn Frey: Hypnotist/3 is the Loneliest Number/Mad World/Reservoir Toydarians/Hissing High

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 12 JULY 2016)

I had this really wacky dream early this morning. I dreamt I was a time-travelling, Kung Fu-fighting secret agent — sort of a three-way cross between Marty McFly, Bruce Lee, and James Bond.

The dream was going really good — I foiled a demon’s attempt to re-convert me to Armstrongism,

(Read 1975 in Prophecy! to learn just how right he was.)

and I was kicking all sorts of malign ass — when the real-life bickering between my parents woke me up.

Just gotta love my parents. When they’re not sabotaging my life, they’re sabotaging my dreams.

* * *

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 16 JULY 2016)

I had a dream early this morning where Glenn Frey

hypnotized me and Gillian Anderson using a video played from a smartphone. Once in the hypnotic trance, I had a dream within a dream of a woman getting her teeth cleaned at a dental clinic.

* * *

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 19 JULY 2016)

Had a dream were I met and got romantically involved with two different, equally vivacious women.

I informed neither of the other's existence. Regardless, one of the girls found out about the other and gave me an ultimatum to choose between them. As I liked them both equally, I didn’t want to have to choose between them.

(Where's a Fly-type transporter when you really need one?)

* * *

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 7 AUGUST 2016)

My last dream was pretty disconcerting.

It was like I was trapped in a Twilight Zone episode where the laws of physics themselves seemed to be breaking down around me.

I would see things appear and disappear in-and-out of thin air without anyone else noticing,

and the people in my life themselves would change shape – take on different hairstyles,

skin colours,

even different dimensions.

Matters got so bad that I opened the front door of my home, and facing the cold winter weather outside, I screamed out to God to deliver me from whatever was happening. It seems God did answer my cry, for the weird breakdown of reality came to a halt. In this new stabilized reality, I found that I was now blond, in my early teens, with a pronounced overbite.

I was also the sidekick of both Superman and the Flash, dressed in some Kid Flash/Superboy combo outfit.

* * *

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 12 AUGUST 2016)

This dream began with me connecting an N64 console to my TV and struggling to get a pristine reception through the screen. Then some weird shit with my house catching fire transpired and the dream realigned. Suddenly I found myself watching a SW equivalent of Reservoir Dogs. Watto

had brought all these gangsters together for some nefarious purpose. One of the gangsters was played by Bryan Adams.

Anyway, Bryan did something which pissed Watto off, so Watto had him killed.

* * *

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 15 AUGUST 2016)

Had another one of my “back to high school” dreams earlier today. In this dream, I was crawling through the hallways and up-and-down the stairs on my belly like I was a giant lizard, hissing at anyone who looked at me the wrong way or tried to interfere with me.

My Pyrokinetic, Mass-Murdering Surrogate Son

The following is quite possibly the most visceral, heartwrenching dream I've ever had. As such, I'd like to go in-depth relating its sequence of events. However, a month has passed since I had this specific dream, relegating the minutiae to Hypnos' dustbin. Hence I'm forced to defer to brevity in this instance.

D

and Laura Bertram

were combined into a single woman.

(I shall call her "Launia".)

Launia and I were soulmates, yet not lovers.

Launia married Ricky Mabe.

Together they had a son. This son, whom I loved as if he were my own, grew up to become a pyrokinetic mass murderer.

Various Marvel superheroes were out to capture him.

(They will succeed. They always do.)

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.

Tales from the Gimpy Hospital

This strange set of dreams began with me in a hospital. I don't recall my reasons for being there.

(Though I do have a hypothesis or two.)

John Lithgow was also there.

My mind draws a blank when it comes to whether he was part of the staff or a fellow patient, nor can I recall him saying or actually doing anything. He was just there.

Then matters got truly odd. I suddenly found myself in a supermarket. Donning a Superman-esque costume with an inverted colour scheme

I began flying around the supermarket. Orderlies from the hospital were there trying to capture me, but I flew too fast for them to catch me. Then I was suddenly back in the hospital, where I got into a philosophical argument with the Smallville Superman.

(If you can even call this self-loathing, whiny pretty boy with questionable taste in women Superman.)

I criticized him for turning Clark Kent into a simpering disguise and lectured him on what it meant to be Clark Kent.

(Long story short, my Superman/Clark Kent is essentially a composite of the three above, not the Earth-One Superdick Bill waxes philosophic over.)

I then found myself back home. I was no longer wearing the costume, but I could still fly. I can often fly in my dreams; it's my dream power. I can't usually fly very high; it's often closer to levitation than true flight. But this time, I was flying higher than I had ever flown before. It was a mild, sunny day, and I could fly right up into the treetops. It was exhilarating.

(As free as the wind blows. As free as the grass grows.)

As I'd always wanted to know what the rooftop of my house looked like from above, I wanted to fly up there, but I still couldn't quite reach that far. Luckily for me, Laurie Metcalf was there to lend a hand. With her boosting me up, I was able to fly high enough to purchase a grip on the roof's edge. As luck would have it, the entire roof turned out to be rotten. Unable to support my weight, that entire side of the roof gave way; I fell to the ground along with pieces of rotten, waterlogged siding.

The dream then went creepy.

[CLICK HERE FOR CREEPY MUSIC]

I was suddenly in my old bedroom (Suffice to say, before moving into the basement this summer, I spent my worthless days festering in a crappy upstairs bedroom with a ceiling that leaked almost every time it rained/snowed.). As ominous ambient music played in the background, I watched as the ceiling slowly disintegrated, crumbling under the weight of the waterlogged insulation situated above.

(Oh, won't someone other than Tom Welling save me?)

Then I was transported to a video store.

(Saved by A-grade pablum and Z-grade schlock! I'll never criticize Hollywood ever again!)

There were two different BD sets of Jeffrey Combs horror movies available, on sale for literally a couple bucks each. Unfortunately, I didn't have even $2 on me, so I couldn't buy either one.

With no seamless transition, I found myself watching a Rod Stewart music video.

(If Stewart looked like Bowie and sounded like Jagger.)

Rod was with a blonde in a black convertible, driving around the outskirts of a suburb at night. As they drove about, night turned to day, the black convertible to a white minivan, and the blonde to a group of male bodyguards.

(I don't know about you, but I'd demand the blonde back.)

Suddenly I found myself transported into the video. The minivan pulled up beside me, the bodyguards hopped out, and one of them — a cop with mud caked on his face

— pushed me to the ground and arrested me.

I was taken to an insane asylum, and who should happen to be one of the attending psychologists but Patrick Bateman himself! Dr. Bateman was too busy treating other patients with chainsaws and blowtorches to see me right away.

"I'd refer you to Dr. Lector, but he's visiting relatives in Texas."

Luckily for all concerned, John Saxon was there to save the day.

"Hallelujah!"

Dressed in a pink tracksuit,

he confronted Bateman. Pulling two flare guns out from his waistband, 

Saxon's ultimatum to Bateman basically went like this:

"We can do this the easy way or we can do this the fun way. Whichever way this goes down, your ass has a date with the backseat of my cruiser at 8:00 sharp!"

Bateman's reaction:

In spite of all his narcissistic bravado and homicidal talent, Bateman turned out to be a pansy at heart. He surrendered almost immediately to Saxon without resistance.

(You can't repel machismo of this magnitude!)