Archive for Dreams
September 1, 2006 at 6:43 pm · Filed under Dreams, Japan, Travels, Uncategorized
I was going to finish writing about last weekend…but it is almost this weekend so it looks like that might not happen. To summarize: Sunday morning we woke up at 5:30am to amaaaazing breakfast prepared by Yuko’s mother, then we drove to Kujikuri beach, I had a surf lesson, it was fun, I left in pain, we bought omiyage, went to BBQ at the surf shop, got back on the bus, got off in Tokyo, I got my haircut, then I hobbled home and passed out. Monday I woke up with battered knees and it hurt to laugh but I want to go again.
Tomorrow I leave for Nagasaki and I will not be back until September 11th. Waffles will come with me…last night (s)he finally got some Internet love courtesy of Roz’s connection…so I will post if I can find wifi during my trip. I was hoping to set up moblogging and I am *almost* there but the last part is discouraging…I have to have some “iconv” module in my web server’s PHP installation. I think dreamhost’s wiki has instructions on how to do this…but they seem headache-y. But, I would really really love to moblog so I might give it a go while waiting at the airport tomorrow.
I need this time away I think. My head has been feeling saturated lately. I feel like I am accomplishing a lot and at the same time, like my life is marbles on the kitchen floor and I am a three-year-old kicking them around. Does that imagery work for you? I know this cause I had a “no grip on life” dream last night. These often take the form of me being in my residence (whether real world or a past place or a made up one) and there being something chaotic about the space. In this dream “my landlords” (whoever they were…it was a made up place and they were a made up couple although vaguely familiar) admonished me for letting things go. When “the landlords” enter my dreams…I think that reflects my feeling that my irresponsibility is letting someone down - something that has been present lately. Although I don’t know who…likely no one because ultimately we are only responsible for ourselves. Thinking that can bring some relief and some (hard to help it) feelings of loneliness.
Oh it’s Friday - why am I being such a downer! Super excited for the trip ahead.
And one funny story: When I went to get my haircut last Sunday, I was carrying a full backpack and a bag with omiyage in it. The receptionist gave me the key for a locker and my backpack fit inside but not the omiyage bag. So I went back to the counter and lifted the bad as if to say “oh it doesn’t fit”. She immediately nodded in understanding and put the bag behind the counter for me.
In the final stages of my haircut, the stylist came around and asked me “oh…so did you leave something for us…” and I looked at her strangely…”…a gift?” she said, and then it dawned on me that the receptionist thought I was giving HER the omiyage. Ah language barriers - you gotta love the awkward situations. I felt so bad explaining that I couldn’t fit it in the locker but needed to take it to work the next day for my colleagues. Totally wished I had brought something for them but unfortunately it is not in my cultural instincts to bring gifts to the salon.
Some interesting background from what I know (FWIK…yes, that will be the new acronym): the department / gift shop bag has significance. Gifts are often handed to people still in the bag. The bag can indicates place of purchase thus value of the gift. What I don’t know: what are the facial expressions and hand gestures that signify “I am giving you a gift”. Few words are used.
July 18, 2006 at 12:54 pm · Filed under Dreams
I just learned that Bobbi Brown the makeup artist is not the same as Bobby Brown aka. Whitney and Bobby Brown. I always thought that he released his own makeup line. Gee…you learn something everyday!
I also accidentally stabbed myself with a mechanical pencil the other day. Getting a little too passionate over a game of Kakuro. There is now a piece of lead embedded in my hand. I tried to dig it out but that only led to a more painful injury. This may be a dumb question but…could I get lead poisoning? Will it eventually work its way out or should I continue my handiwork (haha…get it?) with the tweezers and scissors?
It might be getting to my head. Get this - last night I had a dream that I was in Chapters and I found a pop-up-book edition of the Necronomicon. It was really elaborate…and dark. Jemma was there and I was like, “sweet, Jemma, look at what I just found!” and she responded, “oh yeah, don’t you remember…I should you that last time we were here”, and I was like “oh yeah” and I put it back on the shelf. Why did I not keep looking? Good reason to do some lucid dreaming training.
June 30, 2006 at 1:04 pm · Filed under Dreams
Last night I dreamt that I was in a department store in Japan. It was quite the piece of architecture. Sometimes I amaze myself with the places I dream of and I think - why am I not designing indoor spaces? Though I will admit, since being in Japan the things my sleeping mind conjures up are not that impressive. The walkways and platforms and glass and colours and moving parts seemed all too normal when I thought of them again this morning.
I don’t know if I would design safe spaces though. One bridge inside this building I dreamt of had no railing and a four story drop below. I sat on it and thought about how many people considered jumping from it. Then I tried to find a place to eat breakfast at but it was “couples day” and restaurants were only allowing people in pairs. Gee…(insert picture of Bart selling soul episode dream clip here)…is my subconscious informing me of my lack of attachments to people?
June 7, 2006 at 1:28 pm · Filed under Dreams
I’ve been waiting for dream land self to catch up to real self for a while. Dream land self is still back in Canada…not too many Japanese dreams yet. But I think they are starting. The past few nights I dreamt about weird bugs…I think in anxiety over what critters might make their way into my apartment this summer. One involved a large millipede crawling in my bed sheets. Needless to say, when I woke up my bedding was twisted, flipped, and upside down. Last night I was walking along a crowded street. I don’t think my dreams are ever too crowded and usually I know everyone (or they all play a role at least). But this was a crowded street with a lot of strangers and the odd person I knew sprinkled here and there but, in my dream, they were also strangers to me.
May 22, 2006 at 6:17 pm · Filed under Dreams, Experiences, Reflection
Reading my last few posts, I feel really disjointed from what I wrote. Like…that’s not really me talking…but it is…I think that over the past few weeks I have been going through a lot of ups and downs on my purpose and identity. Not that I need to establish purpose and identity…but I would like to have some sense of priority. There are so many possibilities here and I have some limitations (distributing time and money) so I am in this phase of “ok what should I concentrate on”. Indecisive days leave me in this really shallow place with not so much personality and I feel like that’s been reflected in whatever I write. Then…maybe it was just from being sick…which I am not anymore so that is good.
I think I am coming to some conclusions on what my focuses here should be…which is also good. Hopefully this will lead to more action and adventures : P. I guess I also need to figure out money priorities too because adventure does mean managing / budgeting how much you are willing to allocate to these activities. That is something a little hard about living here. There are SO MANY OPTIONS AND THINGS AND STUFF and if you are like me you likely repress decisions until they come out in impulses and then you wonder why did I spend money on this again?
So…what did I spend my money on this past weekend : ) Well…Saturday I had a Japanese lesson and I spent most of my time before and after studying. Learning as much of the language as possible while I am here is high on my list of priorities - the great thing is that it is fun!
Sunday was a beautiful day so I had to spend time outside but before that, the good weather inspired me to do some yoga, run, and get some housework done. Then I took a train & subway to Minato Mirai, a very new area in Yokohama. Mirai basically means “the future”, and futuristic it was. I didn’t hang out for very long, but strolled through the subway station, rode up the longest escalator I have ever been on, saw some jugglers, followed a crowd past surreal looking silver buildings and carnival rides, over a bridge and through a shopping centre. I skipped buying 350円 plates though I might have to go back because they are still on my mind. Back outside the shopping centre, I walked by a very nice field for picnic-ing and to Akarenga, old red (aka) brick (renga) warehouses converted to buildings with shops. Again, very very surreal looking because this two ancient warehouses are in the middle of nowhere (or as nowhere as I have been since arriving here which is never very far from somewhere else).
Click that last link to see a picture. Sorry…no pictures from me. Wasn`t in the mood I guess. But I will have to go back. I really liked the atmosphere of the place. There were many people sitting outside the buildings, against the wall or on the steps, eating frozen mango or ice cream purchased from cafes inside. They all looked relaxed, care free. Definitely enjoyed the vibe there.
But on I went…to Chinatown! So again, I will have to make a few trips for full enjoyment of all of Chinatown’s flavours but this initial dip of the toes (or tongue?) was definitely a yummy one. Many places sell roasted chestnuts and I would not have bought any normally but the sweetest looking guy approached me in the street and reaching out with a sample asked “chestnut?” I couldn’t ignore his sale attempt in English so I tried and without reflecting on what I just ate, bought a small bag. But yum!! Wow I did not know they were so good. In fact until yesterday I thought that chestnuts were possibly mythical, like Santa Claus and that whole gang, because I had only heard of them in Christmas related media but had never actually been offered them to eat. Sure maybe they were in bowls by the fireplace but they were never eaten so I thought well, they are probably fake. But now I know. Chestnuts are awesome! There are many other food things I will have to try in Chinatown. I am happy that it is not too far away.
Because of my desire to save money and my non-camera mood, I decided to end my adventure early and I headed back to Yokosuka. There, I met up with my neighbour Hitomi and we went to a restaurant nearby. The restaurant was split into 3 areas: one for sushi, one for fish dishes, and another for yaki-niku and korean food. It made choosing very hard, but in the end, I think we could have ordered from all three menus regardless of where we sat. The supper was very good…a salad with tuna sashimi on top, korean style okonomiyaki, and a spicier korean noodle dish.
By the end of the day I was pretty tired and I slept really really deeply last night. With weird dreams though. I won’t get into it now – but quickly – I lived in an apartment building with basement levels that were used as a prison. In the beginning there was a family (husband, wife, two children) in there for political reasons and the children were constantly wandering off in the night to sleep in random locations. I would find them and bring them back to their rooms and stay with them until they fell asleep again while cursing their mother because she was neglecting them. Later in my dream the family was gone, but the new inmates were your typical movie-style prisoner folk. I think this all took place in Vancouver/Regina morph…let’s call it…no let me think here for a moment…Recouver. It was weird stuff. I was walking through a park by this building and there was snow on the ground but it was summer and there were these large-beaked birds from Australia perched on smaller trees. They were diving birds and one dove towards me, crashed into my shin and then deflated into something resembling a rubber chicken.
Ha…yes…quick.
May 18, 2006 at 9:56 am · Filed under Dreams
This may or may not be influenced by my recent desire for a hover-board. Last night I had a dream that I was flying in a plane but just right above city buildings. It was different from this dream though, when the plane was hijacked by scary people. This time we were in control of the plane. We being me and other 20-somethings, maybe 10-20 of us, stole the plane to get away from something. It was very vivid and fun!
I was running a slight fever last night so I took some cold medicine before bed and had quite the delirious rest. Feeling a little better today but still quite foggy. More later…
April 13, 2006 at 2:54 am · Filed under Dreams, Experiences
We just had the SL start up party (for the lab that I work in). It was an in-the-building affair so now I`m back at my desk to write some thoughts before going home. I am a little pooped. Anyway, tradition is that the freshmen introduce themselves and do a little “performance”. I`m not technically a freshman but I am new so my colleagues encouraged me to prepare a short introduction - maybe in Japanese. After some drinks and food it was time for the intros. The freshmen looked all neat in a row with their black suits, black shoes and crisp white shirts. I was wearing a white shirts and jeans and shoes with a hole in the toe…how saskatchewan of me. They went through their performances. Pretty entertaining. There was a one-arm pushup-er, a whistler, some harmonica, plate stacking, a scary amount of flexibility, and some others. I was last so I had plenty of time to build up a sweat and shake. Man I was nervous. So I went through my lines (Yoko helped me write them the day before and I do know what they mean…not just memorized!)…very very very shaky. My face was burning. Yesterday I presented my work to some people and I actually felt quite confident. I guess it`s a lot easier in your own language. I still feel shaky and breathless. The reception was good though - for that I am very happy. I think they were impressed that I actually tried and even more impressed that I was relatively successful. Yay! It`s more encouragement to continue studying the language.
Now I am going home for an early sleep. Early? It`s 7:37pm and I am still here but so is everyone else so you just feel like continuing your work. Although I`m not really working right now am I? Anyway, I am curious about what I might dream tonight. The dreams have been weird lately - morphs of here and there (Canada being there) and last night I had a dream that I believe is a reoccurring one. Do you want to hear it?
(Yes.)
(Cut to dream sequence.)
I have to go to the washroom really really badly. I`ve had to go for a while. I am walking around in some neighborhood with few houses and I am trying to find an inviting one. I pick one and am invited inside by a few men. Only one speaks some broken English. They are of an indigenous tribe somewhere in the southwestern states. I think my mind actually took them from a few X-files episodes. I ask them if I can use their washroom. They say yes but it is a small journey away. I am given a pair of tall brown cowboy boots to wear. They are old and soft. They direct me to a hole in the wall, only large enough for me to get on my stomach and squeeze myself through. I do that and feel quite claustrophobic but finally I am through and in a crawl space under a house. I can see a line of light at the other end. I crawl towards that. When I get closer to the other end, I can see a white structure through the opening. There are stairs leading up an outhouse. Success! But before I can use it, my dream cuts to a movie trailer where I am a Keanu Reeves-esque action character. I fight crime using my incredible ability to squeeze through small spaces. I`m also all deep because I received the powers through an encounter with a mysterious desert shaman. I have a good theme song.
Then the dream ended, I woke up and went to the washroom.
March 2, 2006 at 8:24 pm · Filed under Dreams
I am wasted. Exhausted. Last night I was wasted. So tired that all I could read before I fell asleep was the Safeway weekly flyer. Their new product is Oil of Olay Body Wash with Body Butter Ribbons. I fell asleep and then dreamt that I was moisturizing my legs.
February 21, 2006 at 6:42 am · Filed under Dreams
I was in Vancouver-Regina morph, leaving some place to walk a few blocks home. A man was walking on the other side of the street wearing a parka and playing a recorder. He was someone I had gone out with once before but I couldn’t be sure. I walked slowly, so slowly that I couldn’t walk straight. Couldn’t bring myself to walk up to him or even look over but I was not going to run away either. We both had to cut through the same park. He to a party in a greenhouse/tent, me towards home. Then my name was called and I knew it was him. I turned around and walked over, walked with him to the party. My face was burning. He was drunk and balding. He had something that he wanted to say to me but he wouldn’t/couldn’t. People were interrupting, distracting. I turned around to leave several times but stayed because I wanted to hear. Still, I had a surprisingly calm acceptance that I might not. Then I woke up without ever hearing, but still thinking that he might tell me something.
My dream itself is not that interesting. Waking up though, it took me some time to get back to my own reality. At 3:30am I was still in that space where your dreams and your conscious life are intertwined and you can’t quite distinguish one from the other. I had two things going on: I was wondering what he had to say and I couldn’t think of anything I would say to him (that was from dreamland) and, I had the most overwhelming sense of what am I doing with my life and why am I living it inside walls I have spent the past 25 years building (from reality).
It is 5:30, I could not fall back to sleep, and I am still obsessed with thought B. Thought A is there, but mostly as a reminder of how much time I invest in waiting for the approval of others. I wait and then I begin to accept that I might never receive. Everytime I accept, another brick is added to my wall. Of course it is fine to be peaceful with what life offers, but I think my peace has been through finding solitude and safety, not through accepting drama and pain.
The dream was a prelude to my day and today is going to be a day of deconstructing. Normally I spend a lot of time reflecting on how to make the space within my walls more pleasant. In other words, I consider what I can do with what I have. Today I’m going to consider what I could do beyond my self-imposed limits.
If I can stay awake. You’ll likely find me on the couch in x509 between 10am and noon.
January 19, 2006 at 8:20 pm · Filed under Dreams
…and what a better day than January 19th? Edgar Allen Poe’s birthday which, as you’ve probably read, is still honoured every year by the Poe Toaster who visits his grave in Baltimore with roses and a bottle of cognac. Today should be Halloween II.
Besides it being dreary outside which doesn’t say much for spooky in Vancouver, why is today so spooky? Well…I’ve been having the weirdest dreams. I had a nap in the late afternoon - quite a long one. In my sleep, a portion of my dream had me in the backyard of my home in Regina but the backyard being itself before the renovations. I went to the far edge of the yard to where a little shed used to sit. There were some crows and sparrows doing their bird things around me. When I turned around to go back to the house, I was completely surrounded by various birds. Large birds. I could identify the crows and sparrows, some ravens (I think…they looked like massive crows), and a few ivory-billed woodpeckers. They were all looking at me. They were giving me that “so…what are you going to do now?” look. I was frozen in that moment and while the distance between me and the back door seemed infinite, the hanging tree boughs, weighed down with the rows of fat birds, made the yard claustrophobically small. I remember taking one step forward, really the only step I could take without running into birds, and there was some ruffling of feathers as all birds shifted their glances slightly to continue watching me. I think I woke up from this one or I switched the dream channel cause it was way to spooky for me.
The dream makes sense given its certain influence. Before napping, I was reading the “Year in Science” issue of Discover magazine. They mentioned two breakthroughs of 2005 - the return of the ivory-billed woodpecker after 60 years of presumed extinction and the growing evidence that birds are much more intelligent then we thought.
The dream marks something else for me - the first time ever that I’ve thought of birds as spooky even though they’ve always graced Halloween decorations and various tales of macabre. The human-bird-weird thing goes way way way way back. I think I can finally understand. At the same time, my curiosity of our feathered friends has certainly been ignited.
January 18, 2006 at 11:26 pm · Filed under Dreams, Movies&Film
Tonight I went to a presentation of Belief’s Untitled:003-EMBRYO organized by the Vancouver ACM Siggraph group. The short film was presented with a talk by Mike Goedecke, writer and director of the film and founder of Belief, on the creative process.
I think I missed the creative process part. He talked for a while at the beginning and showed us some samples of Belief’s motion graphics work. I liked what he had to say but quite immediately I realized that I was at a gig for design folk. Not to say that designers are bad, or that I don’t secretly dream of one day working for a hip design firm, sitting at an ironically shaped desk wearing coordinated frames and scarf combos and talking about my process. But I’m not there right now so I couldn’t truly appreciate what he was saying. BTW I’m not trying to mock anything. Seriously…that’s how I imagine it.
We left after the screening (9pm gets a little late for me these days) but the film was okay. There were definitely some nice visuals and effects to be had. Still, again because I couldn’t appreciate Untitled 003 from a designer, or filmmaker, or graphics person point of view, I was left a little un-blownaway.
On the way home I was thinking about my disenchantment. I went there thinking the film would be very conceptual, very high level, using visuals and audio to express something but leaving a lot to the imagination. Instead, Untitled 003 had a storyline - a cool one too. Actually the way they did it is they had a “contest” of sorts where people could send the company their dreams and several dreams were chosen to be part of the film, the owners of the dreams not knowing anything about the final product.
The story was about this agoraphobic guy who finds a “dream-machine” contraption waiting at his door one day. The machine required that he place a helmet that captures dreams on the heads of 5 different people. The dreams were then fed to this gremlin-type monster living inside the machine. Each time he stole a vision, he would see it played back on the dream machine and this of course gave him a great sense of euphoria thus moving the film along quickly because he wanted more dreams.
My problem with the film was this: as soon as they introduced a story, I wanted to see see SEE everything that would make that story seem real. I want to really experience it. Show me what someone is dreaming I want to know! I want to feel like I’m watching my own dreams. But I didn’t. I felt like I was watching a commercial, or a music video. I felt very desensitized to the experience they were trying to give me. Why? Here are some of my thoughts:
1. The final dream sequences (I think there were 6) seemed to be driven by graphics tools or techniques rather than by an initial vision.
2. The story built itself up almost Disney style (seriously the beginning…Phantom Tollbooth) and, given the shorter length of the film, it felt really rushed. On top of that, the dreams take you away from the story, are really abstract, and while they give you some information on the characters to whom they belong, there’s no other time for you to develop an attachment to the character thus have a strong interest in what the dream tells you.
3. In his presentation Mike talked about how our perceptions are based on our belief systems. He gave the classic “which colour is darker?” example where they are both actually the same colour. Another was a sentence being read repeatedly with an increasing amount of distortion. By the end you can still hear the sentence. Do the process backwards and start with distortion, the sentence becomes audible around midway between distortion and clarity. This happens because in the first case, we are able to establish a frame of reference. So…
I figure that I had no frame of reference while watching these dream sequences. I couldn’t develop any interpretation because they seemed too abstract, too fake. My dreams can be pretty crazy, but they are always somewhat based on my reality and that’s what makes them weirder. It’s not the fact that I had to bathe in a community jacuzzi with a built in soap bucket and everyone stored their soap in there so it became one large mass of soaps and I couldn’t find mine so I ended up using someone else’s that was weird. It was that all the soaps in that bucket were from Lush. It astonished me that everyone who used the community jacuzzi used Lush soap!
Based on this last point (3), what would I do to make the film more likeable (by me)? In the dream sequence I would give the audience a frame of reference and then I would take that away. Make them think something is real, believable, and then blow their minds.
(holy crap this is long)
Of course I’m not saying that everything should go like this. I’m also probably totally missing the goal of making the film and where it sits in the design / art world and all the theory given to it by that. I was prepared to see it from that viewpoint, but he lost me as soon as it went into a fantasy-like story. So from the viewpoint of a spectator…
He did show a piece that I really did like - Manstray. Go to that page…click on “VIEW MOVIE”…it’s hilarious!!!
December 26, 2005 at 2:19 pm · Filed under Dreams, Reading
I’m not a boxing day person. Only once in my life did I spend the day at the mall. Boxing day is sleep day. I would like to crawl in a box and sleep and read and sleep some more. At my grandmother’s in Humboldt. Everyone here is drifting off, taking there time, slumbering, napping, dozing…it’s the Deutscher way.
So I am thankful that my dreams are starting to get interesting again. Last night I was at a pizza parlour and then suddenly we were up in a small plane flying over Vancouver. The pilot was insane though, and a coke dealer I think. He laughed madly and the plane started to descend. We thought we were going to crash. But he gracefully landed us on South Granville street and we ran away terrified. I was trying to catch a bus back home. I knew that I had to pack my bags for a trip to Belgium or Bulgaria or some other place starting with a “B”. I missed my flight of course and then woke up.
I think my dreams are being influenced by the book I am reading, “House of Leaves” (see side column). Quite amazing. It’s a maze of a book. I think the author is borrowing from film theory to “frame” his story. I don’t really know anything about film theory, but it’s what I’m guessing. Please go read this book. I need someone to talk to about it.
November 26, 2005 at 6:38 pm · Filed under Dreams
I just woke up from the strangest dream during a pomegranate induced nap. A pomegranate is very tiring to eat and it was only half of one! So I napped and had this long, strange dream and what made me wake up finally was a question posed. I had to choose from two options. To put the question into some context, it was asked by Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus. They didn’t actually say it in words because all they were saying was a repeated “Hello!” as I approached them with tears streaming down my face under the pressure of their holiness, but I knew they were asking me. I found them in this night time winterland. Nine feet tall and living in a very large, luminous tree like Keebler Elf gods. So the question I knew they were asking:
Somebody important to you has died. You have two choices; you can bring this person back as things once were OR, you can receive a small bit of last advice from this person (and they know they are dead so it is like, advice from the dead…k I am still groggy so can’t quite put that one together yet). What do you do?
That woke me up immediately. I think I know what I would do…do you? Better yet, do you trust that Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus are not tricking you? Hahaha…
November 22, 2005 at 7:08 am · Filed under Dreams, In the News, Sweet Finds
…I think I slept *mostly* through the night. It was a little restless yeah, but that could be because it was filled with dreams of spookiness, high voltage, and moving the next day with nothing packed.
So first watch these guys doing some marimba mario tunes for a bit. Then on to a serious matter.
I was reading about the coming execution of Tuong Van Nguyen in Singapore for attempting to traffic almost 400 grams of heroin. It interested me because, just being in Singapore, I was wondering how often their harsh laws were broken.
This is a sensitive case because Tuong Van was running the drugs to help his twin brother, Khoa, pay off over $30,000 in legal debts. These debts were amassed when he was charged with possession and trafficking of heroin (though in Australia I think). This is where that thing comes in…what’s it called? Oh yeah, compassion. It’s a tough case. We know Tuong Van was only working to help his brother out. On the other hand, Singapore works by sticking to regulations. I guess the kicker here is that they are going to kill him. Me? I think death is a little too much. Hmm…it’s an interesting issue.
While you think about it, check out what the power of many can create.
October 28, 2005 at 9:38 am · Filed under Dreams
It’s close to Halloween so at nighttime you hear random firecrackers being set off. Someone was having a field day with them last night. In my dream I was in my apartment and I could hear gun shots. I was doing something when two gun shots were fired into my apartment (though it was not really my apartment). It was freaky.
So I hate guns. They scare me. Not so much because they are a weapon that could kill me. More so because they remind me of the fear or hatred or insanity that possesses people to carry them.
I hope I never experience bullets flying through my home. I am saddened to think of all the people who have to.
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