Shadowfiend23 @ Wrocław

“1979”

I had a dream last night that was thoroughly bizarre but uplifting in its own way.

In the beginning of the dream, I was wandering through a forest near my mom’s house. I was stumbling through bushy, evergreen thickets, in the wild and unknown but grasping for what was safe. What was familiar. Off in the distance, I saw a wooden tower that I knew harkened the path back to safety.

I blindly ran towards this odd beacon of hope. After reaching it, I noticed that it was a half-finished tower looming over my mom’s house. It seemed to be a symbol that perhaps I was growing as a person but that my growth was far from complete. I felt a strange urge to start climbing the tower, so I proceeded to do so.

After reaching the top, I felt a jolt of fear course through my body; off in the distant swamp, I saw fires moving around in the clearing. Somehow, I realized that I was one of the only survivors of a recent apocalypse. I realized that the fires were coming from giant road-warrior like trucks that murderous clowns (who were dressed in leather and black/white makeup) were driving, mowing down any survivors they could find. I felt a protective nobility surge throughout my body, and I immediately activated my lucid dream powers. I flew down off of the tower and rocketed straight towards the nearest clown car. Then, I gave myself a new lucid dream power – I gave myself the ability to throw saws from my hands.

One by one, I flew up to the road warrior trucks and destroyed them by raining saws down upon them – some of the saws destroyed the clowns quite brutally, I regretfully add.

The last truck proved to be much more of a nuisance. I sent a barrage of saws hurdling down onto it, but somehow the truck was able to dodge all of them without a scratch. Then, the lead clown starting cackling and raising his hands up into the sky. Just then, I saw a white ball start to fly out of my throat, and I only then knew that he was stealing my soul. I quickly started doing barrel rolls through some nearby weeds while quickly pulling my soul back to my body and making myself invincible to any further such trickery. After that, I released upon furious anger upon the final truck – a gigantic saw rose from the ground behind the truck, following it for a short time before it eventually cleaved it in two. I flew up into the sky, surveying the swamp that I had barely defended, happy that there was a piece of the wasteland that I had fought for, even if it was only a small patch of land…

More will be added later!

Last night (Oct 2), I had a startling dream. It was one of the rare dreams where I attempt to invoke my lucid dream abilities and not only do they not work, but my dream actually reacts to my attempt to control what is happening. In other words, it is a dream that is about lucid dreaming – a meta lucid dreaming dream.

In my dream, I begin in an arena with two wild dogs. I believe that I am a gladiator and that I am supposed to slay the dogs to appease a crowd consisting of post-apocalyptic survivors. One of the dogs was relatively unimportant, staying in the back of the arena and posing no threat. But the other smaller dog was barking like a hell-spawn and frothing at the mouth. I activated my lucid dream powers and starting flying above the arena, out of the reach of the mad dog. As I brushed up against the roof, the dog chomped clear through part of his tongue, and blood gushed, gushed, gushed. I knew that if I continued to float out of harm’s way I could ride out the rest of the dream, but I felt something compel me to float back down to the dog’s reach. Just as I passed within inches of the dog, he jumped up and bit my foot. Everything went dark for a moment, and I felt myself being transported to a different part of the building. In the new room, I was told that I had contracted the dog’s disease (it didn’t have a name) and that the only way to combat it was to kill the dog. I was relieved because I knew that with my lucid dream powers, killing it would be a snap. I thus made myself immaterial and began floating up through the room’s ceiling back to the arena. But just as I was passing through the ceiling, I was yanked back down to the ground and was made corporeal once more. I felt a voice within me saying that my lucid dream abilities wouldn’t cut it this time and that I needed to redeem myself through hard work and good intent. I nodded my head in agreement and dashed out the door to find the dog. Then the dream ended.

Now, as I said in the preamble to the post, I believe that this dream is profound. I have some ideas for what it could mean, but here is what I find evident: the dog biting off his tongue represents my difficulties speaking French, and my inability to lucid dream properly represents that I realize that only hard work will bring me fluency.

Normally, I find dream interpretations dubious because I don’t see why any dream needs to be significant a priori, but I think that given my circumstances, the aforementioned interpretation seems a bit obvious. But in any case, you’ve heard what I have to say.

I actually had a second dream last night that I found powerful enough to recount. In the dream, I was in the backyard at my mom’s house, out where the dudley docker has been for a while now. But instead of the dudley docker, a gazebo was planted squarely between the trees and the swamp. I began the dream right in front of the gazebo with the knowledge that a killer (who was in the middle of attacking my family) was waiting for me inside. I ran inside and found myself overcome with primal, volcanic, murderous rage at this man. I picked up a rock and started beating the man’s face in. Or at least that’s what I was trying to do. After several “lethal strikes”, the man had mere scratches across his face. He scowled and told me, “That is not the way to go about anything in this world.” Then, there was a flash and everything changed. The room was now empty save for a ghostly, icy, frosty  mist trail that snaked through the room. I realized that I was a cold breeze and that if I released myself and flew with the trail, I would be carried to where I needed to go. I embraced the cold and started to flow through the mist. I tunneled through a variety of rooms, but most of them seemed in stark contrast to my current state – they seemed bright and warm. But this wasn’t a negative dichotomy – both extremes seemed comfortable and cozy. I ended up in a secret room of my mom’s house, but just as I arrived at it I awoke. Oh well.

My only comment on this dream is that it seems to be a strangely literal representation of my love for snow and the cold. Weird.

Tuesday (Oct. 1) was my first day of training, and it was not bad at all. Deanna and I woke up at about 8:00, hopped on a bus, got on the tram, and arrived in Montferrand at 10:10 – just in time to meet Remy and get the letter the bank had sent him asking for certification that I was staying with him (even though I am not and was not – we don’t go back there until the 6th). After getting the letter, Deanna and I hightailed it back to Place de Jaude and I promptly handed the receptionist the letter. She told me that I needed to come back on Friday to complete the opening of my account. (As a side note, I find the red tape at the bank – and elsewhere – a bit ridiculous. I will have been to the bank five times now as of Friday and the account is still not technically open)

After the bank trip, Deanna and I returned to David and Julien’s to sleep a bit more. After sleeping until 12:00 (the training started at 2:00), I took a bus down to the Inspection Academique and scrambled inside at 1:50. The meeting was very informal, and it mostly consisted of us being given a plethora of documents to complete. (We needed to sign up for social security and give our French bank account info so that we can get paid) There were supposed to be 10 of us at the meeting, but one girl had withdrawn from the program and another has apparently similarly defected (she hasn’t shown up, hasn’t contacted anyone, and isn’t answering any emails). Also, as a side note, I am the only guy in the mini group (which consists of those English assistants in the Puy-De-Dome department who are teaching in Clermont-Ferrand at the primary level). After working on the documents and discussing general topics regarding the TAPIF program, we were dismissed for the day. I headed back to David and Julien’s to find Deanna awaiting me eagerly.

The rest of the night was pretty quiet until the time came to have our “pre-dinner” drinks. David and Julien poured me a glass of a champagne (it wasn’t from champagne, but the liquid was of the same type), and I quickly downed it. It was good champagne, but I was mainly drinking it out of politesse. But then they poured another glass for me. So I drank that one too. Then, at dinner, I had two glasses of red wine for similar reasons. Then, David was telling me about the “eau de vie” that he had in the cabinet. Apparently, “eau de vie” is like Everclear, so it’s something like 90% alcohol. He was excited to show me it, and I (somewhat) reluctantly decided to have a small amount with some sugar. Then, I had some “clementine” liqueur, which was pretty good. Needless to say, by this point, I was feeling pretty buzzed from the alcohol. David, Julien, Deanna, and I had all been drinking, and even though I had had the most by far, it was pretty fun to have a laid back evening with everyone. We told jokes, recounted stories, and watched a bit of TV. Then, after doing a minimum of sleeping preparations, I fell relatively quickly to sleep.