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.)

All the Dream World's a Stage...

It was about 1992/1993, and I was the 15/16-year-old star of a "shot on shitteo" teen sitcom.

My hair was long — so long, it trailed down my back — and styled a mite feminine.

In an episode we were filming, my character joined a play, a committee, or a play committee (the dream was a tad vague). A female character

(played by the incomparable Lindsay Ellis)

was in/on this play/committee; my character quickly became smitten with her. Also in/on this play/committee was another girl (I got the vague sensation this was a girl I knew in real life, but I couldn't get a fix on her identity); my character quickly became smitten with her.

My character ended up bungling his play/committee duties something fierce, drawing the ire of his peers, love interests included.

The Unholy Trinity

Had myself an unwelcome bout of sleep paralysis.

I was in bed, dozing, when I heard my sister calling for me upstairs. Her voice sounded distant, muffled, so I figured I was asleep and dreaming all this and didn’t bother to get up or respond. Then I heard the music from the Pink Floyd song “In the Flesh” playing in the background.

It was if my sister had turned it on at full-volume to rouse me from sleep, though it had the same distant, muffled quality her voice had.

Then I felt myself being shaken. I opened my eyes and saw three figures over me; the first was my father — some 20-30 years younger than he was before his recent passing; the second was a rail-thin man with fine hair and stringy beard who looked vaguely familiar; the third was out in the corner of my eye and I couldn’t see them clearly.

(My sister?)

My father looked kinda-sorta concerned for me, but the second man had something of a malevolent look on his face, and he moved forward in a creepy herky-jerky fashion.

All of them made these unsettling noises, like something between roars and hisses. I shut my eyes and tried to move but couldn’t. Then I felt a weird sensation, like the room was quaking around me. Then it was over and I was fully awake.

(I guess this is what comes of a night spent watching horror movies and reading Hellboy comics.)

Let's Do the Time Warp Again

The earliest part of this dream I recall is standing in the living room and noticing a heavily rewritten-&-reshot version of Stargate Origins playing on TV.

(Unlike the real SGO, the costumes looked good and the plot wasn’t shit.)

My father then started complaining about something, so I left the room.

It was late August, but the weather was unseasonably cool, so it felt more like fall. I found a medium-sized lizard outside; it had grown sluggish from the chilly weather. Carefully, I picked it up — it had sharp teeth and didn’t like being handled, so I wasn’t gonna be careless — then brought it to the garage so it could go into suspended animation in a sheltered area. The Joker then appeared.

The Clown Prince of Crime started handling the lizard, subtly implying he was going to harm the creature. After some minutes spent begging the Joker to let the lizard alone and leave, he lost interest in the animal, set it down, and went away.

I was then taking a leisurely walk in the back yard. A sensation of foreboding fell upon me, a strange “time lapse photography” effect occurred in the sky, and I suddenly found myself in the dead of winter. Going back to my house, I found things were stranger than I ever could have believed; I had experienced a time warp and was now 62 years into the future. Having taken anti-aging drugs, my parents were still alive (indeed, they looked younger and healthier than they do/did in real life) and my sister had had a sex change; she now had man-abs and a three-man army in her pants

(Yet for reasons beyond my understanding, she still wore her hair long and was in makeup.).

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.

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.