Tag: sleep

The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams ( book ) … Stephen King

The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams ( book ) ... Stephen King

Stephen King, the top seller in the horror book Bazaar, remains an excellent writer in the technical sense. It’s his mundane imagination; a lot of his tales are simply boring; and corny sense of humor that might have you demanding a refund. Even the best short stories in this collection; Premium Harmony and The Little Green God Of Agony; are merely decent.

my rating : 2 of 5

2015

a dream I had about a woman named Rebecca

Parts of it were like a movie; one of those dramatic tearjerkers you see on Lifetime. Rebecca, a woman I used to work with in real life, had a decent job until she got fired for stealing. That was, as far as I could tell, the beginning of her downfall.

The good news was that her boyfriend; a man probably in his thirties named Sid; had a job, so he could take care of her. That is until he got fired what seemed like weeks later. The reason for his firing was where the real drama came into play.

Rebecca’s ex-boyfriend, the one before Sid, was still enraged over their breakup. She’d dumped him for Sid before she got fired. So he went to Sid’s job, which was also the place she got fired from; they used to work together; and caused a scene.

That scene wasn’t in the dream. Either Rebecca, who for some reason was constantly around me as if we still worked together, or someone we knew told me what happened. Her ex had a meltdown and tried to fight Sid right there at the job.

There was a lot of commotion, yelling and cursing, which ultimately resulted in Sid being fired. That meant there would be no one to help take care of Rebecca and her two or three kids, whom I don’t think was fathered by either guy.

She had her parents but didn’t want to burden them. I think that’s what she told me, but I suspect it had more to do with disappointing them. Still I overheard her on the phone, basically in tears, saying the kids would be staying with them.

She’d stay there also, off and on, when not staying with Sid. I don’t know why the kids wouldn’t follow, but it was probably because she didn’t want to burden them (kids) with having to go back and forth every week or two. They also had school.

Another reason could’ve been that she didn’t really trust Sid and didn’t want her kids around him that much. He was just a co-worker after all; one she’d recently started dated not long before dumping a guy she perhaps regretted leaving.

This is gossipy speculation, but it seems she’d been in a glum state ever since. Getting fired, losing her home; I didn’t mention that part; and Sid getting fired for a reason she was inadvertently responsible for would only add to her depression.

She mumbled something to me one day; I think the day she was sitting out on the window sill, looking down at what would’ve probably been a deadly drop; that sounded like, “I wanna kill myself.” I asked her to repeat it and that’s what she said.

I felt sorry for her. She seemed to make bad decisions in life when it came to money and relationships. She also smoked a lot of cigarettes; you could smell it; and may have done heavier drugs, but she seemed like a good-enough person.

She was also attractive; a slim-built Caucasian with sexy legs, a perky cleavage and a prettyish face. She, like the men she dated, seemed to be in her thirties, perhaps around 40, and was a bit rough around the edges but still attractive.

I’ve never been the type of guy to take care of a woman financially and I’m certainly not the type to help raise a woman’s kids, but I imagined being her next boyfriend and helping her out if only for the sex and cigarette-breath kisses.

What I told her was advice I try to follow in my own life. “When you come across major problems in life, you should think about how to solve them.” It’s simple and obvious enough but profound in its implications and she seemed to agree.

The dream ended in a weird way. I must’ve still been living in the house I grew-up in because I remember seeing a young black guy come out of the old Simpson’s building that isn’t there anymore. I asked him if there was anyone (else) in there.

I think he told me it was just him before asking Rebecca about Sid. I don’t remember the question and he didn’t mention Sid by name, but she did in response to his question. “Do you mean Sid,” she might’ve phrased it. I awoke soon after.

2020 August 06

a dream I had about driving my cars from a bus

I was on a bus, going south (southwest) on what seemed like the first street I lived on in Detroit, except it was longer. Instead of one intersecting Avenue before you had to turn left or right; or crash thru a fence, down a grassy slope and the wrong way onto a busy Freeway; there were at least two.

I know that because as the bus passed each intersection, seeming to slow down or stop as if there was a Stop sign at each one, I was able to look out of the window to my left and drive my own vehicle; I think it was two cars, but it could have been a car and a truck or some kind of SUV; via remote control.

I don’t know if it was an actual remote control like one used for an RC toy, my phone or what, but I was able to drive one of two vehicles I owned at each intersection. It seemed they were already rolling (northwest) and I was merely trying to park them to the side so that they wouldn’t block traffic.

My plan was to get off the bus soon, before it turned left or right at the end of the street, walk over and drive each vehicle home. What I don’t understand is why I didn’t just get off immediately. Perhaps I thought there could be more intersections with more vehicles, though it’s unlikely I’d own more than two.

I awoke just before or after getting off, contemplating how to drive two vehicles home. I was uncomfortable leaving them parked haphazardly as they were because I didn’t have time to park them properly. In hindsight, the most sensible choice would be to drive one home, walk back and drive the other one.

2020 July 20

a dream I had about witnessing a crazy traffic collision

It seems I started off driving, but I could’ve been walking the whole time. I don’t know. I was definitely walking, alongside a guy I didn’t know, when the vehicle; a car, truck or van that seemed tan in color; came speeding toward us.

We were walking on and seemingly near the middle of some sort of expressway; the kind with two or three lanes of traffic going both ways, divided by a median strip with grass and maybe a concrete barrier. Perhaps there wasn’t a sidewalk.

We’d just passed an intersection. The vehicles behind us, facing us from the back, were stopped at a red light, there seemed to be no traffic coming from the sides, toward our left and right from behind, nor in the parallel lanes to our left.

All I could see in front of us, at least all I noticed, was the vehicle coming directly toward us, going way too fast. We moved to the side to get out of the way as it swerved from lane to lane. It seemed out of control and was going the wrong way.

I think the driver tried to brake; there may have been a loud screech; as it passed us, passed the intersecting street just behind us and slammed into the oncoming traffic, which was still stopped at the light, hitting at least one other vehicle.

The impact was incredible. It sent the vehicle, the one that had been going the wrong way, what looked like a hundred feet into the air like magic. We watched, looking up, as it soared, flipped a few times and crashed violently into the water.

That means the whole expressway must’ve been a bridge, which in hindsight makes what happened even scarier. Why me and the other guy were taking a death walk is the question. Why that one vehicle was going the wrong way is another.

I was about to ask the guy if he knew how to swim before dismissing it as a stupid question. The vehicle didn’t seem to break apart before it sank like a rock, but to suggest he jump in and try to save whoever was inside seemed ludicrous.

I certainly wasn’t going to, even if I’d known how to swim. It would have to be someone or something I really cared about in that vehicle and that was unlikely. It was probably a drunk old person with early dementia or schoolgirl on her phone.

In any case, whoever it was, they were most likely dead or dying at the very least. Crashing into the water, albeit face down, wasn’t so bad. You could theoretically escape the vehicle and tread up. It’s the first impact that would’ve ended your life.

Whether or not the person or people were lucky enough to survive, or unlucky depending on the severity of their injuries, is something I’ll probably never know. The vehicle hadn’t even had enough time to reach the bottom when I awoke.

2020 June 22

a dream I had about being late for class

It seems I was already late for class as I rushed my way up staircases and thru mostly empty hallways. I’d almost made it, in fact, when I came across Randy. He worked there as some sort of hall monitor. At least that’s what he was doing at the time. He’d been talking with maybe two or three other people who I assume also worked at the school.

“Do you have a late pass,” he asked, maybe not in those exact words, as I slowed to a stop. It was obvious he was only asking me because the other people were there with us. He and I were good friends and he wouldn’t have cared about me being late, but he couldn’t let them see that. “No,” I said to which he told me he had to hold me there.

That meant I would probably be suspended, so I told him I’d just left my counselor’s office or something and that they’d just changed my classes around or something, meaning I either wasn’t officially enrolled in the class or didn’t know I was enrolled in the class until moments ago. Whatever my lie was, it sounded a lot more coherent in the dream.

“Oh, okay,” he replied with a few other professional but amiable words before waving me on to class. It was all an act to save each other’s ass. That way he could let me go free without getting in trouble for it and I could be late without getting in trouble for it, though it seems I had already gotten in trouble for something else a day or few prior.

My “class” was just a few more steps down the hallway, maybe on the other side of a set of glass doors, except it was actually a sort of detention; a light alternaive to suspension. “They got me in here with all the bad kids,” I joked aloud just after walking in while holding the straps of my bookbag on my back. They laughed as I found myself a seat.

2020 May 26

a dream I had about arguing with Alex Malpass

I don’t know what we were arguing about, but it had to do with philosophy and knowledge. He was saying that something would be the case (true) under a certain set of hypothetical circumstances and I was saying I didn’t know if it would be true.

The implication was that he also didn’t know, which I think is what he was arguing against. He repeated his example to try to make me understand his point, but I didn’t think it was that I didn’t understand it; just that I wasn’t agreeing with it.

He seemed to be talking over the phone or some type of internet voice connection like Discord, Skype or Zoom, but I was actually there in some kind of room, perhaps a classroom in a school or a small auditorium, full of people listening to us.

I don’t know what the situation was. It didn’t seem to be a scheduled debate, but just as we began to talk over each other a little louder than before, the moderator or teacher or whoever it was that seemed to be in charge on my end butted in to stop us.

If it was an actual debate, that part is a shame. It’s one of the reasons I prefer casual back-and-forth debates over formal ones. The moderators, many of which abuse the power of the role, tend to cut in just when things are getting interesting.

Besides, it’s not like we were calling each other insulting names, yelling or getting upset in any serious way. We were simply arguing our points not even particularly vehemently. He was arguing his rather. I was more or less questioning or challenging it.

If it sounded hostile, it probably sounded even worse when I talked over the person intervening. “I just want to say one last thing,” I might’ve phrased it in my calm but naturally dominant voice before telling Alex he was one of the smartest people I’d met.

I was about to say “people I know” before changing it because, though it seems we’d met in person, we weren’t friends or anything. “You’re one of the smartest people I ever met,” I might’ve continued, “but I think you’re in over your head on this one.”

I don’t remember what he was saying; just that he continued to argue his point in a voice that’s naturally a lot more polite-sounding than mine, which makes sense because I was listening to audio of him arguing points in real life as I slept.

2020 May 18

a dream I had about taking pictures of girls I used to know

I think the alarm was already going off when Keisha, who, if she was wearing anything like a shirt, had it open in the front, exposing a fancy and sexy lingerie bra, asked me, rather rhetorically, if I wanted to see her tits.

I did, of course, but I grinned and said “nah” in a tone high enough to mean “of course not” before telling her I just wanted to take a photo of her, or more likely a video, meaning a clothed portrait shot with her face in it.

I’d already shot Sicely, Najah, Tasha and/or other girls I went to high school with. They were in what seemed like classrooms about to graduate or rehearsing for when they were going to be on stage about to graduate.

I wasn’t at school though. It seems I was at home except it was all dark but for the light from the rooms they were in. I went around with my camera until realizing the alarm noise was coming from my real-life phone.

2020 April 17