Mr. Tux Saves the World

I have never had anxiety dreams before.  I've never had any "forgot to study for that test" or "forgot to get dressed" dreams.  This fall, I'm transferring to a new university.  Even though I am not too worried about it, it must have been enough to trigger "back to school" dreams in me.  Such as the dream I had last night.

I'm in a kitchen (okay so the dream ended in a school, it didn't start in one) standing at the line, for those of you who don't work in a professional kitchen, the line is where they pretty much make all of the food and plate it to go out to the people who ordered it, and in front of me on the silver shelves are about eight huge clear tubes laying on their sides.  The clear tubes are full of little candies, each tube a different color and type of candy.  My job was to take the candies one by one and place them on a cookie tray according to the color of their wrappers.  It's a pretty tedious job, but it's what I'm supposed to do.

After the cookie tray is full of one color, I picked up and took it across the kitchen to an in-wall clear glass refrigerator where there were about 15 more different colored candies in 15 tubes, organized and ready to be placed on trays.

I put the tray down and turn around to open the glass fridge, when I turn back around, a little tubby man in a tux with tails is standing there.  He had a monopoly man mustache and seemed very out of place standing there in the kitchen.

He looked at me and said "is there enough for the beach?"

"Of course!"  I said even though I don't have any idea WHAT he was talking about.  I get it, Xenos people go to the beach this coming weekend, but what on earth does that have to do with colored candies?!  I still don't know....

Anywho.

"Miss, you're needed up stairs.  Apparently there is a dog, a penguin, and a hoard of campers who are doing something with a ball, 6 houses, and an old school bus.  I don't remember the details, but you might want to go up there and see whats going on.  It's in the courtyard."

I didn't verbally respond, but I did put down the tray, threw down my apron, and went around the corner and up the stairs.

I don't remember reaching the top of the stairs but I appeared in the courtyard facing a bus.  Sure enough a dog and a penguin were there waiting for me.  They could talk too.

I walk over to them and a man appears.  He tells the three of us that we have exactly six minutes to find the correct cardboard cut out of a tree that is hidden within one of the six houses, but be warned because this tree cut out is not like the others that are also in the houses meant to confuse us.  Once we find the tree cut out, we are to run out and use it to unlock the bus.  Hidden in one of the seats (that are shaped like toes - I don't get it either) is a small ball bearing and a single piece of hay.   We are to take the hay and the ball bearing, throw it over the wooden fence at the other end of the courtyard, then set the timer on the bridge for five minutes.  Cross the bridge into the park on the other side and be safe.  Oh, and we had to do all of this within 6 minutes or the ENTIRE courtyard would EXPLODE!!  Don't worry though, the hoard of campers will help us.

"GO"  he yells and we assume our six minutes have begun.

The dog and the campers split up into the houses, and the penguin and myself stay together to search the first house.  Oddly, the penguin had a sixth sense about finding the correct cardboard cut out.  He found it and took it to the bus.  Long story short, the dog, me, the penguin, and the campers were able to find the hay and the ball bearing, throw it over the fence, set the timer and cross the bridge all in time and safely avoided the explosion.

But, once we crossed the bridge to safety, the dog, penguin, and campers disappeared and the man in the tux showed up again.

"Come come or you'll miss the painting!"  he panted.... I realize now as I type this he was similar to my white rabbit.

He walked me to a trail that had rocks crossing a creek.  I'd have to jump from rock to rock to get to the other side.  OKAY!  I love creeks and I love jumping across them so off I jumped.  But on  the other side wasn't more woods and park, but I jumped into my school.

Okay let's take a break for a second.  I didn't jump into a building at Kent State or at OSU, I didn't even jump into my old high school.  Nope, I jumped into the lobby of good ol' Shanahan Middle School.  Now, since I left that school in real life, they've rearranged, where I had all my sixth grade classes are now the eighth grade classes and so on. but I jumped into the building as it was when I was there, only this time, I'm ten years older....whoa, I just made self feel really old there.  Okay back to  dream land.  Oh wait...did I mention the other kids there were all eating the walls?  Yup.  The school was made of fondant.  You know the icing the Cake Boss uses. Now back to dream land.

To my right of me was the principal office (before it was redone with a glass wall as anyone who went to Shanahan would know) and to the left of me was locker island (which I don't if that is still there or not).  My locker was in locker island and on it was taped my schedule and locker combinations.  I noticed immediately that as between each class, the locker combination would change to a new and the list of what it would change to was on the paper as well.  I open my locker and through my backpack (I don't know that the backpack showed up) inside and find these odd metal pans.  I inspect them and leave them in my locker as I close it.

"Did you forget about the painting?!"  the tuxed man said to me again and I spun around and he was standing there.

"Umm?"  I said and he put his hand over my eyes and took his hand off almost immediately.  When he did, I was on a black stage watching a bunch of people put together an ocean themed set.  I go to pick up a paint brush and I can't.  My hand goes through it.  I can'g grab it.

"They can't see you and you can't help them"  Mr. Tux says to me.

"Why?"

"I don't know!  I'm not in charge here, you are!  Maybe.  I don't know.  Am I in charge?  Yes I think I'm in charge."  At this point, I think he's forgotten I'm even there and he's talking to himself. "I dislike this.  I don't know I don't know I don't know!"

He finally remembers I'm there.  "Oh!  There you are!  I thought you wondered off again!  We can't do what we need to on this stage!  They can't even see you here.  Off to the seats!"

"You mean the house?"

"No, we blew up the houses at the park don't you remember?!"  He was very animated if you can't tell.  We walk down to the seats and he spins me around in a circle until I'm back in the lobby of the school (which for those who didn't go to my middle school, there wasn't a theatre in that building) with my schedule in my hand. I had already missed my first class and my second class was down the hall where I had my science class in the sixth grade (Woot go team 603! ---Sorry, Olentangy joke) and there was woman there in a red dress.

"Today is day one.  We are dissecting frogs today, tomorrow, pigs and by the end of the month, cows.  Hopefully your final in here will be a whale that the class can share." Said the lady in the red dress.  He had short brown hair and basically the dress made her look like orphan Annie all grown up.

None of us had any of the materials because it was the first day.  I remember leaning over and I found I had a box cutter in my pocket so I pulled that out ready to play frog doctor.  Before the frogs came out though, Mr. Tux appeared AGAIN.  He began to say something but I heard squeals instead of words.  He tried again to say something but again, squeals.  Then I felt a sharp scratch on my arm and the squeals got louder.  Another squeal and I woke up.....My dog Reo was in my room squealing trying to get me up so I would play with her.

Damn Dog. I wanna know where Mr. Tux wanted to take me next....

Pot Calling the Kettle Green

Sorry guys about waiting so long to put up another dream blog.  I'm not sure why but the past few months I just haven't had near the dream recall as a I normally do.  Finally, last night, I had one that was wonderfully vivid and horribly cartoon-ish.  Oh well, at least it wasn't Harry Potter themed.  This theme was more ... Green.

I'm on an island that is a ferry's distance from shore.  I feel like the island is Put-in-Bay, but it's more of a city-scape.  So I guess, take Put-in-Bay, and marry it to Manhattan.  The baby of that marriage is the setting of this dream,

Correction.  Nightmare.  In hindsight I have no idea why this dream frightened me as much as it did, since it's rather...comical.  But nonetheless I still woke up in a cold sweat.  Not kidding.

About half a mile from the ferry dock is a small neighborhood.  It's an older neighborhood since the bricks on the house fronts are beginning to either crack with age or be blanketed with Morning Glory plants. The trees separate the sidewalk from the brick road and it's very...homey here.  None of the houses look a like (unlike in younger neighborhoods these days were all the houses are very similar to its neighbor) and on the corner of one of the roads winding through this neighborhood is a gray house.

This house had gray siding and a rounded corner on one side with a pointed, navy roof and several windows.  Each window, despite whether on the first or second floor, had navy blue shutters and a terracotta flower trough at its sill.  The lawn was groomed and the small yet vibrant pink flowers were happily watered.

I had walked down a little road with little shops (similar to downtown Kent or Westerville) before coming to the neighborhood from the pier.  When I saw this gray little house, I smiled.  One of my friends lived here and I was visiting her on holiday.

Instead of walking to the front door and ringing the door bell, I walked to the side of the house and knocked on a paint-chipped screen door hidden behind some landscaping.

"Come in!"  I heard the girl yell from inside.  Now, I have no idea who this girl is.  I don't know her from real life.  She didn't even have a name.  But in this dream she was a long time friend who I trusted and loved.

Let's call her Gert.  Yup, that's real friendship-y love.

Anywho, inside, Gert welcomes me with a hug and tells me to just hold on a second before we leave (she has lost the matching shoe to the one she was already wearing and needed to find it).

"Do we have somewhere we need to get to? I just got in."  I told her.

"What do you mean?"  Gert said.  She had long beautiful ( I mean shampoo commercial quality) hair that just fell perfectly around her face.  I don't remember what her face looked like.  I remember her hair style and that she was only about an inch taller than me.  Shorties Unite!

"I mean could I at least settle in before we go anywhere?"

"Oh," she looked at me blankly, blinked and said, "just throw your bag anywhere.  There you're settled already."

Gert had found her missing shoe, a black ballet flat made of all different shapes of black material, and we left the gray little house. Gert wanted to show me the little town I had already walked through.  We walked up to the first little shop on the corner of the main road.  It was a bakery.  They were already closed for the day even though it was only about three in the afternoon.  Next to that was dance studio.  On the door to the studio were tiny white letters under address "Police Offices in Back."  Okee Doke.  I didn't know what that meant...nor did I care.

Further down the row were more little antique shops and flower shops, bicycle mechanics etc.  Every single store on that island was ma and pa owned.  Not a single chain.  Finally at the very end of the line was the pier with the one dock on it.  PESO A FISH FERRIES read the sign in big green neon letters.  Okay... I guess this ma and pa are Mexican, even though it was an old white guy with a beard in charge (Think Gandolf in fishermen garb).

After showing me the sights and grabbing me a bite to eat, Gert and I went back to the house.  I walked in and sat out the couch and turned on the TV.

"SHUT THAT OFF!! I'M TRYING TO FOCUS!!" A deep raspy man's voice yelled from upstairs.

"NO!  IT'S NOT EVEN ON LOUD!" Gert yelled back.

"Huh?" I whispered.

"Oh that's just my roommate.  He's a real ass.  Stan is just crotchety.  I ignore him and his rants most of the time." Gert tells me.  Turns out, Stan was also Gert's landlord.

We sit and watch TV.  After a while I get up and start walking around (any one who knows me knows I can't sit still for more than an hour and half at a time).  I walk up and open a door that leads off the room.  The moment I start it opened Gert yells "DON"T OPEN THAT!" and I jerk the door back closed.  Gert continues, "That's Stan's area.  I'm not allowed to even touch the door."

"You realize that's the basement and that ther-" I begin/

"Stan sleeps upstairs and spends most of his day downstairs in the basement.  I'm not even allowed to know what he's doing down there." Gert finishes.

"Hon. He's growing pot down there."

"How do you know?"

"I glimpsed before you yelled at me!"

"You must be mistaken. Stan? No."

"I saw lots of green colored plants, foil trays, and PVC pipe on the ceiling.  I've seen enough HBO to know that's pot." I say.

Gert looks stunned.  Then I hear it.  Thump thump thump thump.  Real fast.  Stan's running down the stairs.

"RUN!" Gert yells at me.  I start for the door when he's at the foot of the stairs.  I realize this guy is huge and...old.  But strong and angry and headed right for me and I only have about a ten foot lead.  I bolt for the side door and make it out and across the street from the front of the house.  I spin around ready to scratch this guy's face with all my might...but he's not there.  He never left the house. Gert's still in there!  Oh look, me about to play hero again, I run in to save her from what in my head is guaranteed to be a guy beating up a girl my age.  I run in to find Stan dead on the floor and Gert watching the TV.

What the crap happened?  I was outside for all of five seconds.  How did she kill him AND start to watch TV that fast?

"What happened?"  I ask her, breathing heavy.

"Looked like a heart attack" she says calmly.  She turns off the TV and turns to me. "So, wanna go see if it *is* pot down there?"

um...sure?  Why the hell not?

I nod and we go down stairs.  I see before me row after row of the illegal green. "Shhhh" Gert suddenly says. "What? I didn't say an-" I begin before another "shh" silences me.  Then I hear it.  Wind almost.  It sounds like  a ventilation system.  It's defiantly air moving, but its moving to a very slow and steady long beat. Quietly we investigate.  We're not looking for the noise, we're just looking at all this ... I don't know... scandal down here.

I have a bad habit of not looking where I'm going.  Yeah. It's gotten me into trouble before, and me accidently running into doors and walls has given me concussions in the past.  I turn into something in that basement.  Something that moved back.  All I see at first are jeans and very very strained buttons to contain whatever is wearing those jeans.

Wanna guess who was wearing them?

A monster.  Made out of Pot.  Who was alive. And pissed.

Only I could wake up the Incredible Pot Hulk.

Literally.  He looked like the Hulk.  Green.  Angry.  Really tiny tuft of hair on top.  But, he wasn't the Hulk.  He was the Pot Hulk.  Made completely from Pot.  And somehow...alive and trying to eat me and Gert.  Yay.

"RUN" I scream this time to Gert and we bolt up the stairs and outside.  Pot Hulk stomped up the stairs after us, breaking them as he went and tore through the house and out the door.   We ran around the house and climbed trees, ran to other peoples' houses and did what ever we could to get away.  He was destroying the neighborhood and uprooting everything.  Things caught fire, got smashed, and Pot Hulk was on the loose.  He wasn't even chasing after me and Gert anymore.  He was simply looking to destroy.

"Kate! Run to the Police Station!  Tell them Stan was growing.  They can fix this!" Gert yells at me.  So I run to that dance studio, now very happy I read those letters on the door.

I bolt into the studio and see a guy in a leotard striking a dance pose against a red wall.  I swear every single wall was a different color.  The guy just said, go straight back.  I turn the corner to head "back" and oh great. This dance studio is set up like a fricken laser tag arena.  It's a maze in a big room with different sized walls and holes to hide behind or shoot through.  And "dancing" was merely an artistic and flow-y game of laser tag between the different leotard colors.  So, navigating through that I finally reach the Police officers.  A bunch of men in uniform...in the middle of this laser tag arena.

I tell them about Pot Hulk.  I tell them that Stan grew him in his basement.

They ignore me.  And I keep trying.  I was there frantic for a good ten minutes before I realize two men have been watching me through one of the laser tag holes.  I feel threatened.  I feel like this men will chase me if I run and punish me or take me to the pot hulk.  Eh, screw them.  I ran anyway.

Yup.  They chased me.

I ran through the maze and back out the door.  To my right was destruction, Mr Green killing people and no one trying to stop it.  Sirens going off, but no one answering them.  I see no hope.  To my left was the pier.  God, PESO A FISH FERRIES was a welcoming neon sign.  I ran to it and flipped Gandolf a quarter (cheap ferry ride I guess) and hopped onto the boat shaking.  I found a corner and wrapped myself into a ball and closed my eyes.  "It'll all go away.  It'll all go away"  I thought to myself.

Then I realized, the boat hadn't moved.

I open my eyes and see those same two men there in front of me and Gandolf behind them. They were green.

I jumped up to run again but I was cornered.  I felt a hand over my mouth.  Darkness as something was pulled of my eyes.  Laughter from the men rang through my ears.  I kicked and punched and struggled and I couldn't move.

I was picked up and thrown over someone's shoulder.  All I could hear was the laughing.  Finally.  I heard one of them say "We're home" as I was thrown off his shoulder and down on the floor.

The impact of me hitting the floor woke me up.

Yup.  I dreamed up Pot Hulk.  I call that a nightmare.  Don't do drugs!

A Forest that Even Buddy the Elf would Approve Of.

I'm standing in white infinite space with water beneath my feet.  It's deep water, like I'm standing on an ocean that is calmer than calm.  As I turn and look around, behind me is a water spout (a tornado made out of water connecting the ocean to the white infinite "sky") that is on fire.  There is no temperature at all here.  It's peaceful.  It's quiet.  I don't feel warm or cold.  I just exist.  No thoughts.  Just quiet and pure space of nothing except for me and the fiery water spout.

I don't move from where I'm standing, I just turn and watch the spout slowly move towards me and overtake me.  I'm swirling and spinning slowly inside the spout as it lifts me off the ground.  My arms are out and I can see through the water, through the flames.  It's still peaceful.  It's still calm. Still perfect.

I spin faster and faster and raise further up into the spout.  I bring in my arms and close my eyes.  With my eyes closed I can't feel myself spin and swirl.

I open my eyes and I'm standing in the Savanna (like in Africa wilderness) but, I'm still in America.  The sun is hot and mean here and I see the wind blowing the long grass back and forth.  My dad is here too. (? I know this is sounding realllllllly   oddball, even for me)

To the left of me in the distance, maybe about a half mile, is a cliff side that runs straight up a good two hundred feet.

"This used to be my favorite park when I was little.  There's a hiking path that leads up the hill to the top of the  cliffs." My dad said.  Normally I'd respond, but I wasn't meant to talk in this dream, I was meant to only see what my dad wanted to show me.

We walk to the path in silence.  Once we get to the hill, I notice it's not like the Savanna plains below.  It's a dry forest. The trees are further apart, brownish green bushes thrive between them and the leaves on the trees are a sickly green.

We keep walking up the hill and follow the top of the Cliff overlooking the Plains.  My father stops me at the top and looks at the ground.  He kicks the dirt and leans down and picks up an old tooth that has fallen out of either a lion, some other type of big cat, or a shark.  I'm not sure which....Hey, I never went to tooth school!!!

My dad takes my hand and puts the tooth in my palm, closing my fingers around the tooth.  He then squats down to get down to my level....I'm younger and shorter here (yes, I've been shorter than I am now!).   Dad points out over the Savanna.

"Follow where I point to"  he says.  He slowly moves his arm left and right, pointing to the Savanna.  Finally, I see it.  He's pointing at a lion teaching her cubs how to stalk.  They blend in.  But once I see them, I can't take my eyes off them.

After a few minutes of just watching my dad stands up and walks further down the path, which turns right away from the cliff side.

"This is why this isn't my favorite park anymore."  He said. Dad lead me around the bend and I saw why he was saddened.  There used to be a forest here.  Alive and well forest of...PRETZEL TREES  (thank God, it's finally starting to sound like a regular dream)

I used to because all that's left of the rare pretzel tree are the stumps in the ground.  The ground is covered in a white icing.  The stumps are giant pretzel sticks sticking out of the ground.  Salted and ready to eat.  I could envision the trees so clearly.  The trunks and branches made out of pretzel with leaves like any other tree.  It was a horrible sight.  Who ever would cut down a pretzel forest?!

The ground was icing.  I was so tempted to lean down and grab a finger full.  I didn't. (Sad face).

"They wanted a Sand tree forest instead.  So they cut down all the pretzels and planted sand trees instead into the icing.  The sand trees never took.  They cut down the pretzels for nothing."  My dad told me.

I walked around the forest a good ten minutes.  I then walked back over to the cliff and re-found the lion and her cubs.  I watched them until I woke up.

I shouldn't take Nyquil anymore when I need help to seep

I feel like we're away on a vacation.  You know, when you first arrive somewhere you haven't been before and are working out where you'll stay and such.  That's the exact feeling of confusion and anxiety that I'm feeling at the start of this dream.

We're on a road that is very straight that crests a hill.  It's a thin road that you would find in a neighborhood.  In fact, that's where we are.  To the right side of the road is a line of trees that quickly fall down a hill and into oblivion, and to the left side of the road is duplex after duplex that high and mighty rich an snobby might live in someday.  I say someday because all of the duplexes are under construction. No one lives in them yet.

We land (meaning when I first enter this dream) somewhere along this road.  My mother is with me as well as two siblings, a boy and girl (neither of which are my real siblings in real life), and a babysitter, to help with my "sister's" new born baby who is also with us.  My sister is 25 so her having a baby isn't too odd in this dream.

Immediately, I ask my mother where are we staying while we're away on this vacation.  She tells me that she has a vacation house in mind and we just need to find it.  We begin to walk on this road and looking at all these duplexes that are under construction.  I begin to get frustrated. "Mom, these aren't vacation houses.  They're people's houses.  We can't just go into one and stay there because you say so." I remember saying as my mother starts peering through the windows and testing the locks on the front doors.

She ignores me.  About the fourth house she peers into, she sees something that seems satisfying, opens the door and sneaks in.  We follow.  Inside, there is carpet and somehow mom has set us a nice couch and beds, television and all the amenities.  I'm pleased that she pulled off a stolen...Uh... I mean borrowed vacation home so quickly.  However, I can feel in my mind that something is off.  I'm worried that whoever is building this home will come and find us.

After settling in, I go upstairs to my sister's room.  She is sitting there with her baby and the babysitter just talking and beginning to feed the baby.  They feed him with a syringe, like the kind we used to use to give our dog it's seizure medicine.  Any who.  My brother walks by and says to me that he's found this neat place just down the way that will entertain us for a few hours.  We decide to go.

We leave the house and walk back down the road from where we came and I see a park down the way.  He tells me that's where we're headed and that it looks nothing like the outside once you're on the inside. We go and sure enough he is right.  Inside is a huge treasure hunt park.  That's right.  It's a park dedicated to a treasure hunt game.

Inside is an icy winter wonderland that isn't cold at all. And there are mountains and hills and glaciers and caves that are there to explore.  They have a game inside that is set up into colors.  They have tons of colors; yellow, green, highlighter green, blue, red, purple, white, and so on.  Everyone who is playing is assigned a color (I was yellow and my brother was a dark green) then given a toilet plunger and three hours.  The plunger is actually a metal detecter.  You climb the wonderland and scale the walls and explore the caves using the plunger as a guide that beeps once it is above a treasure.  You need to move the snow and find the treasure... however, only the treasures that are your color count to you for points.  After three hours, the person who has found the most of their respective color wins.

Oh yeah, I make up games in my sleep. Lol.

We play.  And I climbed and gripped and fell and dug and it was fantastic and I wish such a game were possible in reality.  It was never determined who won, me or my brother.  I guess for that moment, it didn't matter.  Which oddly, makes me pretty happy.

We leave the park and have had a blast.  We walk back up to the duplex we're crashing and can hear my mom screaming at someone from a mile away.  Yup, I was right at the beginning.  The owners just so happened to stop by today to check on their house.  Yay.  My mom was livid.  So she agrees to leave the house only after the owners threaten to tear down the house with her still inside it.  I watch as my mother laves the house with all of her things.  but as she walks towards us, her things shrink together into the size of a pack of cards that she shoves in her pocket.

My mother says it's time to keep walking.  We walk the road again and ass the road begins to slope downward, we see an open gate with a bunch of elk behind it.  As soon as the elk see us, they decide to run out fo the gate towards us.  We watch them run towards us.  It was so sudden none of us even had the thought to run in the other direction.

But right before we were about to be Mufusa in the Stampede, they turn sharp to the left side of the hill where the line of trees USED to be.  The trees have changed as well.  Or rather, the oblivion behind them has finally decided to show itself.  The elk are running to what used to be oblivion and now is a huge field of wild blackberries.  Did you know elk are addicted to black berries? Me neither.  But something happened.  The moment the elk began t graze the field, a different side of them showed.  One in particular.  She change from an elk, into a woman.  Now this woman we telling us that she was an elk and that black berries were like crack to them.  That these elk had the ability to turn into a human form and back to an elk.

I promise, I wasn't high last night.

My mom and this woman knew each other.  Supposedly, they went to college together and were long lost besties.  Any who.  The last thing I remember before waking up was this woman, leaning down and grabbing a handful of blackberries.

....Don't know what to call this dream.