Dream: The Hummingbirds on the Ceiling

Dream 20021129, 10:34 AM:

This is a portion of a longer dream. I remember something about people being up on top of a mountain, and there were a lot of explosions; I remember one person tying a piece of plastic explosive to a rope and swinging it out the door, and it explodes and throws pieces of wall through the building. Then, I remember going downhill on a motorcycle, and the path is straight down at a steep angle, and the cycle bounces as it goes over bumps in the path. I meet someone at the bottom of the hill.

Then, I’m in Mom’s dining room, and there are crows flying around on the ceiling. I reach up and put my hand out, and one of them flies down and lights on my finger. I’m laughing in amazement, showing Mom. She says something about I can offer it some tobacco; I say no, *spirits* want tobacco, birds want real food. They’re real things, they don’t want to eat tobacco, because tobacco is for spirits. The bird flies away, and I look at another part of the ceiling, and it looks like it’s covered with toy soldiers painted white, or made of something white like plaster. They’re stuck to the ceiling in no particular pattern. I look up at another part of the ceiling, and it’s covered with these metallic silver lizards. I hold my hand up, and four of them zip down and curl around my hand in various poses. They’re large, they remind me of tropical chameleons. I look up, and realize that the state of Texas is marked on the ceiling, outlined with thick black tape and filled in with the silver lizards. There’s a can of tobacco marking where a city would be, but I don’t know which one it represents. I look over to the right, closer to the kitchen, and there are hummingbirds. I hold up my hand, and one flies down and lights on my hand, and it’s so tiny and beautiful and I’m totally amazed. I go and show it to Mom, and she does something in the kitchen that makes a loud bang, and the bird flies away, and she laughs. I look up, and there are more of the hummingbirds, but of different types. Some of them look almost like canaries, all in yellow. One bird lands on my finger that reminds me of the messenger birds from Dinotopia; it’s got long elaborate tail feathers and neat patterns on its head and back. Then, it flies off and another flies down. It’s irridescent, shading from yellow to a ruby red. Mom does something again that makes a loud bang, and the bird dies. I set it down on the counter, hoping that it’s only stunned and will recover, but now it’s stiff like it’s made of paper or straw. I tell Mom that it’s dead, but she says that it’s just startled. I poke at it with my finger, and it is sitting in a very lifelike pose, and it slides sideways across the counter, and I tell Mom, “No, it’s really dead.”