If you had to be shot...

Since moving to France, I've noticed that I've had many more nightmares than I used to. I've been chased, mugged, stabbed, and most recently, shot. I think my brain is trying to compensate for the lack of exposure to violence here. There's no American news, no bloody video games, no commercials for slasher movies. And there are certainly no guns in France (unless you count the gendarme who patrol the train stations sporting camouflage, big guns and ridiculous hats).

In this last dream, I was standing by a river under a bridge similar to the ponts by Notre Dame or the canal scenes from In Bruges. There was a man with a gun standing above me by the bridge. I knew that he was going to either shoot me or another man, whom he'd referred to as "the Brazilian." I was pretty sure he was going to shoot the Brazilian, so I pulled out my own gun to, I don't know, join in the shooting fun. As soon as the man on the bridge saw my gun I knew I'd made a mistake. I'm not sure if it was because I looked like a threat or because I'd blown his cover, but either way I knew he was probably going to shoot me.

Suddenly there was a large black man, potentially a rapper, decked out in bling (and wearing what my mind keeps showing me to be a basketball jersey but definitely wasn't in the dream), standing several feet away and pointing his gun at me. I didn't try to beg or explain myself, I just realized we were then going to shoot each other. That's apparently how it works when two people with guns meet.

So he shot at me and I shot back, only to realize that no bullets were coming out of my gun. I kept pulling the trigger anyway, which resulted in an anticlimactic clicking sound and some brief flashes of light. I can only assume that these flashes were a result of my brain's anticipation of future technology and the inevitable invention of camera guns. Think about it: you're on that bridge by the river about to kill a motherfucker, and there happens to be a really beautiful sunset behind him. Suddenly you realize that shit, that sunset would make a pretty fucking great picture. Bang. Snap a picture, capture the symbolism, kill the dude. Convenient, right?

Anyway, during all of my bulletless shots the man somehow failed to shoot me, so at this point it occurred to me that I could stop clicking my gun, turn around, and try to run away. However, even if I ran, he would still probably shoot me in the back. I considered this: would I rather be shot in the front, or the back? Having been both shot and stabbed in the back in dreams multiple times, I can honestly tell you it's really unpleasant. Shoot me in the front, man, I don't wanna wake up with that same weird back convulsion I get when I try to dodge a knife in my sleep.

The man finally shot me several times in the stomach, but it neither killed me nor woke me up. I stood there hunched over until he left me alone, then I tried to walk, which was semi-difficult but mostly just uncomfortable. It didn't even hurt that much--in fact, I was really surprised that it hadn't hurt nearly as much as I'd expected. Getting stabbed in the back was WAY worse than getting shot in the stomach.

End Dream.

How I Conned My Way Into...A Job?

My brain has seriously let me down this week--and usually the unconscious state is where it makes up for that. But lately--lately being since I decided to post my dreams online and attempt to tell them in an interesting manner--my dreams have been lacking material that can be readily manipulated and cleverly retold as strange but amusing anecdotes. Is it too much to ask for just one interesting dream with an easy-to-recount plot, magical powers, and brief appearances by dwarfs, celebrities, and/or talking animals?

If that disclaimer didn't dissuade you from reading....

A few nights ago I woke up from a long series of dreams feeling confused, dizzy, and utterly exhausted. It was 12:47 the first time I tried to get up, 2 p.m. the second time, and 5 p.m. when I finally got out of bed. Whenever I wake up like this the first thing I try to remember is whether I went to bed drunk or sober (or on crack?).

In one of the dreams I was, at first, watching the dream happen to me. I was with someone else and we’d nearly fallen to our deaths somehow but instead wound up being caught by some kind of elevator-like thing that looked a lot like a construction crane but was not operated by anyone. So this elevator crane thing brought us over to a big warehouse. We had to decide when to jump off the elevator and onto one of the many platforms. The decision was made based on which TV shows were playing on the TVs on the platforms—not based on something sensible like, you know, which ones we could safely jump to. We chose some old TV show that the other person (who is so anonymous to me even in the dream that my brain cancelled them with no explanation immediately after) recognized, but I did not.

I jumped, landed in the warehouse, and the next thing I know the other person is no longer part of the dream. I don’t know, maybe he or she missed and flew back down to land on another elevator crane, or landed before me, found the exit, and quickly peaced out. But I was vaguely aware that I was sort of two people in one. Like, I would be the person in my body first, then there would be another one. So maybe we just collided in mid-air and morphed into one person who has to take turns functioning. In this case, my going first was totally unfair, because the next thing I did in the dream was sit down at a computer (which is surrounded by planks of wood, because this is a warehouse platform and not an actual office), and pretend that I worked there. I even asked the boss (in both English and French, so I guess we’re still in France) which document to work on, hoping he wouldn’t realize that not only was I not the man who worked at that computer, but I was a strange American girl who did not work there at all.

I Swim Faster Than a Kennedy

Last night I was swimming in a race and kept bumping into this guy who kept coming into my lane. His named was John Kennedy. I finished second to last but because John Kennedy had slowed me down they decided that I would have come in second place, so they gave me second place anyway. Once in a while I would have trouble moving my arm for a stroke, so I would do two strokes in a row with same arm and then go back to alternating--which leads me to believe that maybe I was the one veering into John Kennedy's lane, and not the other way around.

Bad Kennedy luck trumps Horowitz karma?

Also, I think it was Christmas time, but we weren’t at home. Vanessa and her sister from Six Feet Under were there. I think my Gramma got to go out with them all night instead of sleeping wherever we were. When they got home in the morning, I asked why she got to go out and I didn’t. She is, after all, 79 years old and should maybe not be hanging out with badass latinos who beat Rico's girlfriend's car.

In another dream I was showing a friend this big monument/small temple-like thing that was, supposedly, mine. The entire thing was supposed to represent my Jewish name—which had three parts I believe, even though I’m pretty sure “Sarah” is already Hebrew. Granted it’s Hebrew for princess, but I had the impression this was just some kind of monument I was given from my parents, or had when I was born or something. My friend asked something about her also Jewish friend Rachel, and I told her I’m sure Rachel was in part of my name somewhere. (Duh. Obviously all female Jewish names are in my Name TempleMonument, and are Mine.) It may have been in Paris, because part of it extended out into what appeared to be the stone walkways by Centre Pompidou. My friend asked why it did that. I didn’t know but I thought it was kind of cool. There were three large stone structures allowing for people to walk through two openings.

In another dream there were kittens—black ones (like the ones at Flamig Farm my dad told me about on the phone yesterday), crazy cute but slightly vicious, like Kismet as a kitten, but with claws. There were also many hamsters, as per usual, in one cage which I left on the floor of my dad's office. They had food but I fed them anyway to compensate for that fact that in dreams, much like when I was little and had gerbils, I do not clean the cage.

Intro Post

I started this blog because I am one of those people who does more exciting things in my dreams than in real life on a regular basis. I wake up tired from sleeping, and have flashes all day long of having been in bizarre places with somewhat familiar people. Unfortunately, my two recurring dreams, after which this blog is named, are rather unexciting.

In one dream I am trying to run and cannot. That's a lie--I can run, I'm just running in slow motion and I caaaan't quiiite get my legs to go any faster. I'm like Dane Cook being chased by the giant crab wearing loafers, but without his unnecessary slobbering crab noises. I'm also usually really embarrassed about it, and try to keep starting over so I can push off my back leg and get some oomph, but it never works, and I am forever running like I'm in that level of Gameboy Super Mario where you have to swim by pressing "a" every 3 seconds, or wade through the giant jello-like blobs.

In the other dream I have hamsters, only I forget I have them and when I finally remember they exist I rush to go feed them. They are either ravenous, or have plenty of food but are in a super dirty cage. Either way I feed them, but never clean the cage. Also, it's always a crazy number of hamsters--like 5 in a cage, sometimes with a few other cages elsewhere. In my opinion that's what makes this dream notable. Like, why the fuck do I have so many hamsters? And why do I keep dreaming about them?