Planet Strike

Gwen Dreams

It’s no secret that I love sleep. As someone who has suffered from seemingly random bouts of insomnia for sixteen years, I love when I can get some sleep. Just hate the process. I stare at the ceiling for half an hour, arguing with myself over whether or not to count back from a hundred before deciding it would be silly (which takes well over a hundred seconds to decide), making out patterns in the plaster – I see a fish and what could be a squirrel, could be a terrier. I try to meditate. I fail because there are too many images running laps round my head. I get an earworm, usually something I haven’t heard in months, then half an hour later realize it’s still on loop. At this point, I’ll roll over, my face now pressed into my dog’s haunches as he chews at his leg like it’s a drumstick. He’s asleep before I am, but by the time I’ve noticed (almost another hour) I’m beginning to drift off. If my legs don’t start violently kicking on their own, I’ll be out and on my way.

The reason I love sleep is the surreal dreams I always have. The summer heat, amplified by my having to pull the blanket up over my ears (never just a sheet, too exposed), only makes for weirder, often times uncomfortable, imagery.

These posts will be largely unedited. I think the writing showcases in some small part the state of mind I was in when recording what I could remember from my brief stint in dreamland. I’ve found that the more rattled I am, the more details I recall. This also happens with recurring dreams and when I’ve experienced a sense of deja vu. This is what I hurriedly wrote one year ago today:

Night, cloudy, trying to take photo of a massive (twice the size of the moon) blue ball spinning in the sky. My camera won’t fire, and I get frustrated. Eventually, Momma points out that the planets are aligning? specifically Venus, and I try again to no avail. Later, I manage to snap a shot of one of them “crashing” down ala a shooting star, but the flash “freezes” everything and the crash simultaneously rattles the house. Suddenly, we’re at a vet’s office where all the people have been blended with their animals – there are dogs walking around with human heads, etc. Lucy and Peanut, who have switched colors, are yelping as they pick glass out of their bloody paws. Kris Allen is saying something, but I don’t recall what, only that he was placed on the body of a smallish dalmation/Harlequin Great Dane. Even later, [Lizzy] and I are inside what looks like a diner and I still have my camera. I refuse to sit near a window because I’m convinced something mutated will slam into it and freak us out, or that something else bizarre will appear in the sky.

– July 26, 2009

I wish I could describe just what this looked like, with the planets lining up over the horizon and how incredibly bright everything was so late at night. It was beautiful. If the sky really looked like this, I would move into a tent on a mountainside.

Close enough.

Lucy and Peanut were two of our neighbors’ dogs who disappeared in October of last year. Not together, but within three weeks or so of each other. We were told they must have been snatched off the street but we didn’t buy it. Their owners are more than a little sketchy and have always given us bad vibes, and this had happened (and has happened since) more than once. Their appearance didn’t strike me as odd at the time, but reading it back makes me sad. I miss those two goofballs. Now the talking Kris Allen head, that was fucked up and still creeps me out. I don’t know what he was doing there. I’d rather not know.

And there’s more where that came from. Anyone care to interpret?