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.

Diabolical Death

Had quite the complicated dream. Most of the details have escaped me, but here’s what I recall:

I was a kid again. Me and the other children in my class had taken a field trip to some rural farmhouse while had lain abandoned since the '90s. The house was very strange; the front door and doggy door were in the shape of a human and dog, respectively, and there was this general atmosphere of foreboding localized over the property even though the weather was bright and clear.

I got separated from my classmates while exploring inside. That’s when I found a pantry door which had been nailed shut since the former occupant’s disappearance. I got the door open, and that’s when the former occupant — the undead, desiccated corpse of a rather rotund woman — lurched out of the pantry, arms outstretched for my throat.

I got a chainsaw and sawed her arms off.

That didn’t stop her; prehensile tentacles sprang from her arm stumps and ensnared me.

Somehow, I managed to maneuver the chainsaw into her mouth and promptly rammed it down her throat. That put an end to her right-quick.

From the Dream Archives: War of the Necronauts!

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 15 SEPTEMBER 2016)

I had a pretty strange, semi-disturbing dream recently.

In the dream, Earth was at war with a race of aliens who flew around in biomechanical airships which resembled giant flying manta rays.

These airships would drop smaller manta rays to the ground.

These smaller mantas were actually bio-bombs, fleshy shells containing a short-range but incredibly virulent viral agent which turned any living creatures exposed to it into zombies. These zombies weren’t particularly violent — they weren’t brain or flesh-eating monsters — but they were extremely contagious and a danger to anyone close to them.

Anyway, I was a soldier in a squad stationed at a derelict ranch house, and we were tasked with taking out a bunch of bio-bombs before they could hit the ground and turn anybody into zombies. After dealing with the bio-bombs, we rendezvoused with another squad. At first, the men of the other squad were friendly. Then for some inexplicable reason, they became aloof and then violent towards us, taking their weapons and firing upon us. Though caught off guard, we quickly started fighting back.

As it turned out, our squad members all got exposed to the viral agent while we were dealing with the bio-bombs, which began transforming us into decaying zombies; that is why the other squad turned against us. Something in the viral agent rewired our brains to prevent us from recognizing the undead state we were in.

From the Dream Archives: Cousin Sonja: Sorceress Seductress Supreme/Hell Hath No Fury Like a Lycanthrope Scorned/American Revenant/Attack of the Mutant Leaky-Ceiling Yellow Jackets/Leave Michael & Heather Alone/Giorgio Tsoukalos Combs His Hair

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 30 AUGUST 2015)

Had a particularly disconcerting dream where I lost my virginity to a Russian first cousin named Sonja.

I must have been an inglorious lover, 'cause she turned out to be a vindictive witch — literally. She conjured vicious mountain lions up before me and caused the local clinic doctors to be dangerously unsanitary.

Suffice to say, I enjoyed the first half of the dream. The second, not so much.

* * *

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 2 DECEMBER 2015)

Had a peculiar dream wherein I was a character in a horror film.

If I recall the sequence of events correctly, my reluctant werewolf ex-lover betrayed me to her extended family of loup-garou. They promptly slaughtered me.

* * *

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 14 DECEMBER 2015)

A word to the wise: Don't stay up to 8:00 AM. If you do, you're liable to have nightmares about being strangled by a putrescent, undead Patrick Bateman.

* * *

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 4 MAY 2016)

Was woken this morning by a somewhat disturbing dream.

In my dream, after having jets of rancid rainwater wash over my face from my leaky bedroom ceiling,

more of the ceiling caved in, revealing giant yellow jacket nests in the rafters above.

(And I don't just mean that the nests were gigantic; the wasps themselves were supersized.)

I think my subconscious is trying to tell me that I utterly loathe my bedroom and yellow jackets. 

(Why it bothered, I'll never know. I was already consciously aware of my hatred for both.)

* * *

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 15 MAY 2016)

Dreamt that a young Michael Jackson

(Okay, not this young.)

and Heather Langenkamp

*swoon*

starred in a movie together, playing lovers caught in a Romeo & Juliet-type situation. The dream/movie even came complete with a version of Jackson's "Leave Me Alone" music video co-starring Ms. Langenkamp. Clancy Brown was cast as the main villain,

(Surprise, surprise.)

with Jack Purvis and a dwarf version of Jean Smart in supporting roles.

 * * *

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 12 JUNE 2016)

Dreamt a dream wherein I was a teenage student in a high school science class. Giorgio Tsoukalos was brought in as a guest speaker.

(Oddly enough, his hair was combed and neat.)

From the Dream Archives: Whoopi Goldberg, Nosferatu

(ORIGINAL ENTRY DATE: 2 MAY 2015)

Had a particularly creepy dream wherein I ventured into an ancient, dilapidated, moss-shrouded house,

wherein I was attacked and vampirized by a bloodsucker which looked like a dessicated Whoopi Goldberg.

*shudder*

If I ever realize my dream of becoming a filmmaker, I must make a short film based on this.

Trance Loses Her Hair/The Orgy on Ferenginar/Don't Buy This Product!!!

Trance Gemini and Seamus Harper from the TV series Andromeda were on a ship stranded in a pocket universe.

(As is wont to happen with my luck, it was Gold Trance, my least favourite incarnation of the character.)

Since this pocket universe was so minuscule, there were very few stars present inside it. This proved detrimental to Trance, as being the living incarnation of a sun, she needed long-term proximity to stellar bodies to remain healthy.

Growing progressively weaker the longer they spent trapped in the microcosm, Trance's hair started falling out.

(You won't see me mourn that rat's nest.)

She gave a lock of it to Harper, asking him to weave it into his own hair.

(While the dream trailed off there, I like to believe that Harper and Trance escaped the pocket universe off-screen, culminating in her transformation back to her former, perfect purple self.)

* * *

On the world of Ferenginar, most of the Ferengi — bodies slathered in silver body paint

— were engaged in a worldwide orgy.

(Lots 'n' lots of oo-mox. Ooh yeah!)

Then the Cardassians arrived. A large invasion fleet at their command, they conquered Ferenginar with next to no resistance. Once their ships landed, the Cardassians began rounding half the Ferengi population up for transport to offworld internment camps. The remaining Ferengi? They began having consensual sex with their new Cardassian overlords right away. One of the Ferengi being hauled off called this action a "rank abomination".

* * *

My parents bought a purple cleaning product advertised in an infomercial.

Unfortunately, the stuff proved too caustic; it began eating holes in the floor soon upon application.

Furthermore, the seller of the product turned out to be the thrall of a skeletal female vampire.

The Abandoned Insurrection/Ride with a Pederast/Throwdown with the Trio from Tartarus

I led (or at least participated in) an insurrection which took place on the grounds of the Okanagan College Kelowna campus in the dead of winter.

(I suppose them's the breaks when your math instructor fails to communicate with you in regards to continuing your tutelage under him in spite of repeated efforts on your part to get in touch.)

Then I found myself away from the college and the insurrection, waiting for a bus in the cold, wet snow. I was then run down by a car or some such vehicle. I received no major injuries, though I was knocked senseless and ended up missing the bus.

A man at the wheel of a red car pulled up and offered me a ride. Since he looked like the bastard love child of Ernie Coombs and Hans Moleman,

I took him as harmless and took him up on his offer. Once we got to my neighbourhood, he propositioned me for sex.

That's when I pretended to whip out a knife and held its invisible blade up to his throat.

I threatened to cut him good if he didn't let me out and drive off toot sweet. Presumably none too eagre to hurry through his twilight years, he did just that. Oh, and it wasn't winter anymore.

As I proceeded to walk the rest of the way home, the red car reappeared. Ernie Moleman was no longer behind the wheel. There were three unfamiliar men in there now, one of them wearing a white hood over his head; he had a bloody hole smack-dab in the centre of his forehead. As there was little cover to be had, I cut across someone's backyard and ducked down behind a short length of fence, hiding where I could see them but they couldn't see me. But they weren't human, after all, and they didn't need sight to locate me. Emerging from their car, they strode right up to where I had secreted myself. That's when I took up a length of hard, heavy wood and began beating at them with it.

Of course, being supernatural, they had greater endurance to pain and injury than any mere man. I'd hit them, and at best that would slow them down. Taking up their own lengths of wood, they in turn began hitting me; I wasn't as tough as they. Taking up a trowel lying within reach, I attacked one of the men — a portly, balding fellow — and stabbed him right in the brainpan. Twisting the trowel around, I managed to pop his eyes out, leaving them danging from their sockets. That didn't kill or incapacitate him; he was as brimming with piss and vinegar as he had been when this scuffle commenced.

The Grave Robber & the Yellow Man

Dreamt a creepy dream wherein I became a grave robber.

(I may not get paid overtime or receive any medical benefits, but I get to set my own hours and meet plenty of interesting people.)

As is wont to happen with my bad luck, my skulduggery attracted the attention of a man who didn't take kindly to my desecration of the dead. He was tall, bald, gaunt, dressed in a tailored black suit, and had jaundice-yellow skin.

(O hai, Inspiration No. 1.)

He attacked me, I cut off one of his hands. Yellow blood spurted all over me, quickly congealing into a mustard-like consistency.

(O hai, Inspiration No. 2.)

While the dream trailed off there, I was still left with the impression that the Yellow Man — whoever, whatever he was — wasn't yet finished with me.