Dream: The Candy Mountain LUCID

Dream 20030409, 7:20 AM:

I’m in a place that reminds me of a doctor’s office, or a pre-op area of a hospital. I’m doing some kind of strength training exercises. Richard is here with me. A nurse comes in, and wants to draw blood for something; she takes off my little bootie and starts tapping the sole of my foot in various places, trying to find a vein. She doesn’t seem to find what she’s wanting, and I tell her that there are much better veins in my hands, if she can get the blood from there. She says that’s good, because if she can’t find one that floats, she’s going to have a hard time. Richard gets fed up, I don’t remember why, and picks up his stuff and leaves. There is a tiny cocker spaniel puppy here, and I play with it, waggling my finger as it tries to bite it. It looks more like a pomeranian than a cocker.

I wake up (false awakening). I am alone in the spare bedroom (where I am lying asleep in real life) and I feel scared and alone. I hear Chris getting ready, and call out to him; he hears me and comes in. I tell him that I just need to be held for a minute, and he holds me, and I feel a little better, but still feel kind of scared. He has to go to work, since he is running late, and he heads out the front door. I walk after him, and watch him leave. I walk out the door, and stand on the driveway for a minute, watching as he rounds the corner and disappears from sight.

As I’m watching Chris leave, I notice that there are two young men standing in the yard on the other side of the Mexican neighbors’ house. They are pale, with reddish-rimmed eyes, and I know somehow that they are vampires, although they seem totally non-frightening. They are watching in the same direction that I am, but they appear to be bowing as if in worship; I watch them, and see that what they’re bowing toward is a big blond-colored dog with red eyes. It is on the porch of a house down on the cross street. I walk over toward them and ask why they are bowing to it, and they reply that it is a great and powerful bull. I shrug and walk back toward my house. One of them follows me. We all look at the sky, which is starting to lighten near the horizon, and his friend calls out to him, saying that it’s dangerous, it’s getting too close to sunrise. We can see brightness starting to creep up between the houses, although the overall sky is still night-dark. There are little patches of sunbeams, like what you’d see on a forest floor at mid-day, just winking between the trees. The vampire guy wants to come home with me, and I’m not sure why; I don’t feel like he’s going to attack me, and I don’t know what he wants from me. I tell him that he can’t stay at the house. He seems kind of pathetic. I think about it, and realize that there are rooms that are dark enough, but I don’t want him to. He dodges and leaps around the sunbeams, calling out “SOL!” as he does so. I get to my house, which is a bigger, darker, and more foreboding house than the real one, and I walk in the front door. He is following behind me. I turn to him and say, “I could invite you in… but I’m not.” He was leaning forward, as if waiting for the invitation, but sags back when I say that, and I shut the door. I hear a rushing noise outside, and then a door slamming, and I know that he has run back to his house and shut the door.

Then, I’m walking around the house. I walk into a solarium-type room, and there are big panels of glass that form the roof; they are leaking water at the joints, and I am upset about it. I feel like everything has piled up on me, and I get frustrated and teary. Then, I notice that there are people in the house; there are like four of them, I remember one slim tan-skinned black woman, and don’t remember faces of the others. They are trying to find the Princess; I tell them the only one I know is Princess K (thinking of J, actually) and she’s not at this house. They seem to figure out that they have the wrong house, and leave.

Then, without apparent transition, I’m driving down the street. It’s dark. I look behind me, and another car is driving so close to me that he’s pushing my car with his. He doesn’t have his lights on. I realize that it’s one of the vampire men, but now he seems more sinister. I don’t feel like he’s attacking me, but I feel like he’s pushing my car along faster than we ought to be going. It goes faster and faster, until it gets to the point that I’m practically zooming down the streets, weaving around cars and such. I remember something from Dr. Garfield’s site about dreams of driving fast or particularly well, and I recognize that I’m dreaming. I decide that since I almost feel like I’m flying already, I’m going to just take off and fly around some.

The dream retains its dark character. I try a couple of shifting techniques to see if I can get it to be any brighter, but it is still a totally benighted landscape of weird twisted forest. It seems kind of like a cartoon Schwarzwald, but the trees have these odd moss-like clumps of leaves. I remember that it’s difficult to change illumination levels in dreams, something to do with the stimulation level of the hippocampus, or something like that. It doesn’t occupy my attention for very long. I twist my body, spinning through the air as I zoom along, and feel my hands brush along the leaves of the trees, and also feel the wind against me. I have a momentary thought of what position I’m lying in as I sleep.

I land, and find myself at some kind of outdoor game field. It reminds me of soccer. There are people here, having a picnic. I run along the field, barely touching the ground; it is raining, but I’m not getting wet, because there is a clear plastic sheeting held up by a grid of small boards above the field, about ten feet up in the air, and there is water on top of parts of it. As I run along, I knock some of the pooched-out pieces of plastic, spililng the water off the edges of the covering. Then, I take flight again.

I fly some more. I find myself going along what appears to be a beach, and I have something on my arms like rudimentary airplane wings made out of leather. I am flapping them with a sort of circular motion, and although it’s not really making my arms tired, it is tedious because there is no variation in the angles. I take them off, and fly on without them. I am hearing a story about a man who was killed in an international area near the border of Mexico; I don’t know what the story has to do with anything. It’s like I’m hearing a news report in the background.

Then, I come to a beautiful mountain. It reminds me of pictures of the Swiss Alps; grand meadows below, rocks and snow above. There are a bunch of tourists here, looking around. As I get closer and land on the mountain, I realize that it’s made of candy. It’s all different kinds, like something out of a fairy tale; there are chocolate rocks, and the snow is something sticky and gooey like marshmallow cream. I eat, and eat some more – I remember chewing my way along a bunch of sweet stuff like a cartoon character eating corn on the cob. It tastes really good. Someone points out a big window that is built into the side of the mountain. I look inside, and it’s a room full of cool antiques, kind of packed in tightly. I realize that it’s an antique store, and I think about going inside and seeing what’s there, but decide that I’d rather stay out here where all the candy is. I tell someone that I want to go find some more shops, and they point down the mountain to a village; now, it looks like somewhere in Arkansas, with old buildings and green fields by the road. I tumble along toward the buildings in flight, enjoying the sensation of flying. The dream fades to black, and I find myself lying awake in bed (for real.) I focus on drifting back to sleep, and do.

Then, I awaken (another false awakening.) I am lying in bed next to Chris, but the bed is way up toward the ceiling, like the top bunk of a double bunk bed. I lean down and hug Chris, who seems pale and blond. I realize immedi
ately that this is not our real bed, or the real bedroom, or even the real Chris. There is another bed just a couple of feet from the one we’re in, also high up near the ceiling, but the other bed is a twin. I say, in almost Dr. Seuss fashion, “This (pointing at the bed we’re on) is the bed in my head, and this (pointing at the twin bed) is the bed of my youth!” It seems like there’s a second rhyming verse, but I don’t remember it. I stand up, pushing my body through the ceiling, and start to take off flying, but then finally wake for real.