Dream: Waiting for Viggo
Jan. 19th, 2005 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mokie_edomThe first thing I can remember is a creepy little boy. The dream took place in the city, but there was abundant vegetation, as if everything were overgrown; it lent the urban area a feeling of wildness and natural danger that tripped over into supernatural danger easily. A young boy followed me through this terrain, his body curiously stiff, his stare intense and unwavering. I never saw his back, but felt somehow it would be missing, like those tree spirits that take on the appearance of women in the front, but have nothing inside when viewed from behind.
There is a shallow grey gulf between this part of the dream and the next. The cat woke me at various points that night, and this was probably one of them. A subtle shift in the dream's feeling follows as the city became more obviously urban and the child that was always on my heels became a monstrous thing that was always on my mind.
At first the creature, an angular thing that I described to friends as "an evil Ent," was waiting for me in junk-filled alleyways in the hilly, cluttered city, but later the area became my basement. Whether the dream shifted again or the creature followed me home and made its nest there in the dream, I don't know. I was captured by the creature while my friends escaped, but it spared me--instead of feeding on me and killing me, it chose to keep me alive and imprisoned. The reason wasn't clear-cut; at points it felt like the thing wanted companionship, a pet or a toy just to have, and at other times it felt as if I was a ration, held for partial feedings but never completely eaten. It had no problem killing my companions, however, so I kept escaping to warn them and help them flee, before being inevitably recaptured myself.
At one point I escaped and ran with a doubting friend to find her significant other, who should have met her at a predetermined spot but failed to show up. She suspected the person was cheating on her, but I suspected the monster. We found her partner along with several other friends held captive by ghostly branches/tentacles, being sexually assaulted and not really minding, in a scene that was half "Evil Dead" and half hentai tentacle rape. I felt vaguely that they might be in some kind of trance, but I was also sure (as was the friend) that they weren't entirely unwilling participants either. Bringing them fully around broke the unseen creature's hold on them but also seemed to annoy them, and after helping everyone escape, the group decided they wanted nothing more to do with me--just being near me put them at risk.
At another point, two little girls came into the story. I'm not sure if they were strangers, neighbors, relatives, or daughters, or just two figures given to me to protect. They were in the basement with me and in danger, and I knew I had to get them out before the monster decided to feed on them. I succeeded in getting free of my enclosure in the basement and opening the door, and I helped the two little girls into the back yard, hoping my dogs would protect them. In a strange moment of faux lucidity, I wondered who would protect my dogs now, with me trapped. Nobody could inhabit the house without putting themselves at risk--who was feeding them? Would they hurt the girls? If somebody came and rescued the girls, would they leave the dogs behind to starve?
Sure that the girls were safe (I doubted the dogs would turn on them, really), I returned to the basement before the thing noticed I'd been out. As it got dark, however, I realized that the girls were still in danger out there, just being close to the house. I had to get them out of the yard, before it emerged. I went back outside and told the two girls that I was going to put them down on the other side of the fence, in the alley, and that they should run towards the large black spaceship sitting in front of the house. I knew it was a pirate ship, but I also knew that the man inside would help them--that he was supposed to have come long before now to help us all. I felt a bit panicked and wondered why he hadn't come yet, and worried about what this might mean, but getting the girls out of the yard was my first priority.
(Yes, the man who was supposed to have come out of the pirate spaceship to save me was Aragorn, and now you know how dorky I truly am!)
I told them this and pointed the ship out as I lifted the younger girl over the fence and into the alley, but as I lifted the older girl, something took hold of her leg--a shadowy branch/tentacle that I knew would suck something like her soul away from her--and prevented me from lifting her over. I looked at the little girl in the alley, barely a toddler, and knew she didn't understand and couldn't run to the ship on her own, not without the older girl. It was hopeless. I'd failed to save the two girls. Instead I went to find the creature and beg for their freedom by promising to stay with it and never try to escape again.
Again there's that shadowy gulf between portions of the dream, but this time I was a bit too awake to fall completely into the dream again. The creepy boy returned, but he was not frightening. I looked at him analytically, as friends from the dream attempted to figure out who he was, how he was formed. He wasn't quite as real now, more like a mannequin or an obvious walking symbol for something more. The friends annoyed me with their poking and prodding and jabbering, because they made it hard for me to concentrate on the way he'd been earlier, hard to concentrate on him and see his true form underneath the mannequin.
Notes and explanatory details
#1. I had a "Nightmare Before Christmas" Sally sort of role in the latter half of the dream, escaping to do what needed to be done while knowing I'd be recaptured and chastized. There was little fear of the creature past the middle of the dream, at least for myself--I was very afraid for others, however.
#2: I did a lot of pushing away in the dream--pushing people away, putting the two girls out, even pondered opening the gate for the dogs so they could escape. It was not safe to be near me, I was a threat to everyone.
#3. The friends mentioned in the dream, the ones saved and the ones pushed away, were not people I really know and gave no impression of being real people. They were like the cast of a slasher film, provided by my head to give me people to save.
#4. No, I've not been watching any tentacle rape hentai recently. ;)
#5. Dreams which feature a matching pair make me nervous, because they call to mind a pair of men in an earlier dream cycle that always showed up in a threatening role: two slave holders, two taxi drivers, two child molestors, two threatening boys, and so on. When I caught onto the recurring symbol and began inspecting dual male figures for some meaning, they appeared as two little old ladies in need of rescuing from a fire, and turned out to be the most terrifying incarnations of the Two Men yet. I have yet to transcribe the dream cycle into this journal or onto the website, but the little girls make me wonder if they might be standing in for the Two Men in some way, and if so, what I'm supposed to make of this.
#6. Dogs frequently appear in my dreams as protectors, also usually in pairs. I was certain that the dogs would protect the two girls until I suddenly worried about the dogs themselves. I didn't know how long the dogs had gone without food--would the dogs turn on the girls? I didn't wonder if the dogs would eat the girls, and I didn't feel particularly worried; if the dogs turned on the girls, oh well, I'd gotten them out of the basement at least.
A possible explanation is that doubt about whether the two girls were or weren't the Two Men. In the dream cycle, the dogs protected me from the Two Men in their various disguises; if the dogs attacked the girls, it might simply be confirmation that these were the Two Men again. As for it having been so long since the dogs were fed, it's been a long time since I've had dreams like that. I've not needed dogs in my dreams to protect me for a while.
A couple of friends offered their thoughts on the dream. Both admit that the dream is slippery and invites them to impose their own issues on it, and I have to admit that while both make excellent observations, neither view really fits. There's a matter of some importance underneath this dream; I can feel it, even if I can't describe it. However, until someone hits on what that is or another dream cycle establishes itself and gives me a Rosetta stone to decode this thing, I'm afraid I'm not going to get to the bottom of things here. But those observations should be offered up here, I think, because they do make good points.
The first friend suggested that the dream described a feeling of being trapped in this (very cluttered) house and a very safe and complacent life, all represented by the danger inside the home--indeed, at the very root of the home, in the basement. (The house in dreams representing one's life, in other words.) "You don't like the lack of space, that swallows up your life and privacy regardless of how good it looks on the outside. So in your dreams, you create reasons to stay away, and also reasons to stay, the dogs, the excuses, the protectors."
The other suggested I was at war with myself, with a dark side of my personality that I have been holding apart from me at arm's length and bargaining with, but which holds in "in a stalemate that prevents [me] from accomplishments." (The house in dreams instead representing one's self.) She also notes a martyrdom role in the dream, which she said in her own dreams usually indicates that she's avoiding conflicts in her personal life to avoid damaging a relationship.
There is a shallow grey gulf between this part of the dream and the next. The cat woke me at various points that night, and this was probably one of them. A subtle shift in the dream's feeling follows as the city became more obviously urban and the child that was always on my heels became a monstrous thing that was always on my mind.
At first the creature, an angular thing that I described to friends as "an evil Ent," was waiting for me in junk-filled alleyways in the hilly, cluttered city, but later the area became my basement. Whether the dream shifted again or the creature followed me home and made its nest there in the dream, I don't know. I was captured by the creature while my friends escaped, but it spared me--instead of feeding on me and killing me, it chose to keep me alive and imprisoned. The reason wasn't clear-cut; at points it felt like the thing wanted companionship, a pet or a toy just to have, and at other times it felt as if I was a ration, held for partial feedings but never completely eaten. It had no problem killing my companions, however, so I kept escaping to warn them and help them flee, before being inevitably recaptured myself.
At one point I escaped and ran with a doubting friend to find her significant other, who should have met her at a predetermined spot but failed to show up. She suspected the person was cheating on her, but I suspected the monster. We found her partner along with several other friends held captive by ghostly branches/tentacles, being sexually assaulted and not really minding, in a scene that was half "Evil Dead" and half hentai tentacle rape. I felt vaguely that they might be in some kind of trance, but I was also sure (as was the friend) that they weren't entirely unwilling participants either. Bringing them fully around broke the unseen creature's hold on them but also seemed to annoy them, and after helping everyone escape, the group decided they wanted nothing more to do with me--just being near me put them at risk.
At another point, two little girls came into the story. I'm not sure if they were strangers, neighbors, relatives, or daughters, or just two figures given to me to protect. They were in the basement with me and in danger, and I knew I had to get them out before the monster decided to feed on them. I succeeded in getting free of my enclosure in the basement and opening the door, and I helped the two little girls into the back yard, hoping my dogs would protect them. In a strange moment of faux lucidity, I wondered who would protect my dogs now, with me trapped. Nobody could inhabit the house without putting themselves at risk--who was feeding them? Would they hurt the girls? If somebody came and rescued the girls, would they leave the dogs behind to starve?
Sure that the girls were safe (I doubted the dogs would turn on them, really), I returned to the basement before the thing noticed I'd been out. As it got dark, however, I realized that the girls were still in danger out there, just being close to the house. I had to get them out of the yard, before it emerged. I went back outside and told the two girls that I was going to put them down on the other side of the fence, in the alley, and that they should run towards the large black spaceship sitting in front of the house. I knew it was a pirate ship, but I also knew that the man inside would help them--that he was supposed to have come long before now to help us all. I felt a bit panicked and wondered why he hadn't come yet, and worried about what this might mean, but getting the girls out of the yard was my first priority.
(Yes, the man who was supposed to have come out of the pirate spaceship to save me was Aragorn, and now you know how dorky I truly am!)
I told them this and pointed the ship out as I lifted the younger girl over the fence and into the alley, but as I lifted the older girl, something took hold of her leg--a shadowy branch/tentacle that I knew would suck something like her soul away from her--and prevented me from lifting her over. I looked at the little girl in the alley, barely a toddler, and knew she didn't understand and couldn't run to the ship on her own, not without the older girl. It was hopeless. I'd failed to save the two girls. Instead I went to find the creature and beg for their freedom by promising to stay with it and never try to escape again.
Again there's that shadowy gulf between portions of the dream, but this time I was a bit too awake to fall completely into the dream again. The creepy boy returned, but he was not frightening. I looked at him analytically, as friends from the dream attempted to figure out who he was, how he was formed. He wasn't quite as real now, more like a mannequin or an obvious walking symbol for something more. The friends annoyed me with their poking and prodding and jabbering, because they made it hard for me to concentrate on the way he'd been earlier, hard to concentrate on him and see his true form underneath the mannequin.
Notes and explanatory details
#1. I had a "Nightmare Before Christmas" Sally sort of role in the latter half of the dream, escaping to do what needed to be done while knowing I'd be recaptured and chastized. There was little fear of the creature past the middle of the dream, at least for myself--I was very afraid for others, however.
#2: I did a lot of pushing away in the dream--pushing people away, putting the two girls out, even pondered opening the gate for the dogs so they could escape. It was not safe to be near me, I was a threat to everyone.
#3. The friends mentioned in the dream, the ones saved and the ones pushed away, were not people I really know and gave no impression of being real people. They were like the cast of a slasher film, provided by my head to give me people to save.
#4. No, I've not been watching any tentacle rape hentai recently. ;)
#5. Dreams which feature a matching pair make me nervous, because they call to mind a pair of men in an earlier dream cycle that always showed up in a threatening role: two slave holders, two taxi drivers, two child molestors, two threatening boys, and so on. When I caught onto the recurring symbol and began inspecting dual male figures for some meaning, they appeared as two little old ladies in need of rescuing from a fire, and turned out to be the most terrifying incarnations of the Two Men yet. I have yet to transcribe the dream cycle into this journal or onto the website, but the little girls make me wonder if they might be standing in for the Two Men in some way, and if so, what I'm supposed to make of this.
#6. Dogs frequently appear in my dreams as protectors, also usually in pairs. I was certain that the dogs would protect the two girls until I suddenly worried about the dogs themselves. I didn't know how long the dogs had gone without food--would the dogs turn on the girls? I didn't wonder if the dogs would eat the girls, and I didn't feel particularly worried; if the dogs turned on the girls, oh well, I'd gotten them out of the basement at least.
A possible explanation is that doubt about whether the two girls were or weren't the Two Men. In the dream cycle, the dogs protected me from the Two Men in their various disguises; if the dogs attacked the girls, it might simply be confirmation that these were the Two Men again. As for it having been so long since the dogs were fed, it's been a long time since I've had dreams like that. I've not needed dogs in my dreams to protect me for a while.
A couple of friends offered their thoughts on the dream. Both admit that the dream is slippery and invites them to impose their own issues on it, and I have to admit that while both make excellent observations, neither view really fits. There's a matter of some importance underneath this dream; I can feel it, even if I can't describe it. However, until someone hits on what that is or another dream cycle establishes itself and gives me a Rosetta stone to decode this thing, I'm afraid I'm not going to get to the bottom of things here. But those observations should be offered up here, I think, because they do make good points.
The first friend suggested that the dream described a feeling of being trapped in this (very cluttered) house and a very safe and complacent life, all represented by the danger inside the home--indeed, at the very root of the home, in the basement. (The house in dreams representing one's life, in other words.) "You don't like the lack of space, that swallows up your life and privacy regardless of how good it looks on the outside. So in your dreams, you create reasons to stay away, and also reasons to stay, the dogs, the excuses, the protectors."
The other suggested I was at war with myself, with a dark side of my personality that I have been holding apart from me at arm's length and bargaining with, but which holds in "in a stalemate that prevents [me] from accomplishments." (The house in dreams instead representing one's self.) She also notes a martyrdom role in the dream, which she said in her own dreams usually indicates that she's avoiding conflicts in her personal life to avoid damaging a relationship.
