Well, I should have posted this Saturday, but my job has me running ragged. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. I wouldn’t ask to work anywhere else, but I kind of feel put upon. When they hired me, they said they try to schedule full time people so they only work two days of the weekend (F/S/S). But I will have worked the past 3 this coming weekend. I am tired, and I do most of my work on my newsletter over the weekend. Guess how much I got done this weekend with a 2+ hour meeting tacked onto my Sunday. Nada.

So today, I was scheduled 9-5. I ate a little breakfast but really I’m not a breakfast person, so it wasn’t much. But when I got to work, I found myself scheduled to 4 hours at register, then one hour info desk before lunch. They didn’t send me to lunch till 2. After being at work till after 11 the night before, and not getting to sleep until 1, then getting up at 6:30, guess how low my blood sugar was by the time I ate? I felt like passing out, and I still have a headache. I suppose I’m a little insulted. I work hard, I’m friendly, I don’t complain, but I think I’m being taken advantage of a little because I don’t put limits on when I’m available to work. I want to say something, but I’ve only been there a month, and I don’t want to make ripples. If I complain, mightn’t they cut my hours? I think I’ll wait to see what my schedule is like come the first week of November, but if it’s another full weekend, I really need to say something right? I’m just afraid of screwing up the first job I’ve actually ever wanted to keep.

Anyway, I dreamed Saturday I was in a crowded and busy Italian fast-food business. It was so busy no one was waiting on me, so I went into a freezer that was nearby and ate some frozen fruit salad. When the line finally thinned and the attendant had time to wait on me, I told her I had already eaten something from the freezer and she should charge me for it. When she asked what it was however, I told her it was fruit calamari. She said “…what?”

heh, I don’t think it meant a darn thing, but it was certainly… different.

Well it’s time for dreamtime with Candace again, or maybe it should be… proof Candace needs psychiatric help. It was 3:30 AM last night, only about three hours since I had gone to bed, and of course I woke up on my back and completely freaked out from some hideous dream. You know I have nightmares when I don’t sleep on my back, but the only time I wake up with heart racing is when I’ve somehow rolled over onto my back. I much prefer curling up in the fetal position in the corner of my bed with my pillows, but that’s just me.

Now if I had any prospects of marriage or were even seeing someone, I’d be completely unhinged, but I’ve never so much as been asked out by anyone and don’t know anyone about to get married, so I really don’t know what to make of this dream.

It was really like two dreams overlapping. I was seeing both at the same time. They would seem to have nothing in common, but the bad parts seemed to be a commentary on the “normal” parts.

So there I was, getting ready for marriage, not that this is not a surreal event in and of itself, but there were some bizarre moments incorporated into even what others would consider the “normal” portion of the dream. Like I found a wedding dress, and I wasted no time in dressing in it right there -as if finding the dress took precedence over actually having a prospective mate. It was in three pieces -long hippyish, embroidered skirt, shirt of same material, and a short beaded and embroidered vest/coat thingie. Then I went to a salon to have my hair done even though I just planned to take care of it myself. This flamboyant pair of stylists insisted on taking over though. They were seriously like Sigfreid and Roy. I think even dream stylists get all excited when they see long hair. (I haven’t been to get my hair done since I was about eleven because they all see it and reach for the scissors.)

They made me lean over so they could check out my scalp and hair. They sifted my hair through their fingers, and showed me all these split ends and these weird bumps on my scalp. For some reason I was standing looking over their shoulder as they showed me these things. (Maybe they took off my head, heh.) Anyway, Sigfreid and Roy, the hairdressers, insisted I needed some kind of heat treatment for my “damaged” hair.

So like I said, it was really two dreams. All the while this wedding prep was going on, I kept flashing to this other place. I don’t know if the people were actually soldiers, but they were definitely armed. I am sure they were being observed, so I think it was some kind of entertainment. They were being sent into this arena/maze to fight these horrible things, but it was a complete slaughter. In addition to the “stock” monsters you might see in any horror movie, and the weird-ass monsters you’ll only find in dreams, there were these horrible metallic statues that no one could get past (like mini-versions of the living statue in Jason and the Argonauts which I haven’t seen since I was around 9). They were Greco-Roman things that moved really fast and pretty much ripped people apart. They were in this one section of the maze that everyone had to get past to get out, but no one could.

All the while they hunted people down, snippets of monotone comments on family and life sounded as if they were trying to get you to give up (which is why it seemed a commentary on the underlying dream). The voices were saying things like “nine to five,” “the wife and kids,” “working to live” etc, and not in a good way. It was the creepiest thing.

I was the last person in the maze (not that I was actually me) and I kept thinking these things had to have an Achilles heel, and then there was an Achilles statue chasing me as two others went after my companions.

At the same time, the stylists were trying to convince me I needed this heat treatment. They were showing me my split ends and the weird bumps on my scalp, and they wanted me to go into this “heat treatment room,” but I knew if I did, I’d be magically transported to that arena/maze and die like the rest. Even though I was already there in the overlying dream.

Well the dreams keep getting stranger and stranger. So it’s after the “BIG WAR” and everyone’s worried about radiated water and whatnot. The world’s gone all fuedal and people are camped out in malls. In fact, the “kingdoms” are mall stores. I get parceled off to marry this “king” of one mall store, and shortly after he invades another mall store to enlarge his kingdom. It was like that Capitol One credit card commercial with all the ancient warriors attacking.

Gah, I think I need a therapist.

OK now, this has got to be the strangest dream I’ve had so far. I know I’ve said that in the past, but this one really made no sense.

The long and the short of it is, I broke into someone’s house in nothing but a t-shirt and my underwear, used some Noxema skin cleanser from the their bathroom, and climbed out a window on the wall in the bathtub when someone tried to come in. Then I went to a party and drew pictures in front of the tv. After a while, a friend came up to me and asked if “that was all I was wearing.” It was at that point that I actually realized I was in my underwear and t-shirt, though I’d been aware of it throughout the dream. So I just shrugged and said I guess so, too late to change now. And she shrugged and went back to whatever she’d been doing before accosting me.

For all it’s mundane weirdness, it was very detailed, like when you look down and watch what you are doing. I noted the various bottles in the medcine cabinet. I picked a blue and white bottle clearly labeled Noxema. I saw the peeling edge of a label on the bottle, the chipping and cracked paint on the door, the film of soap scum on the shower curtain and the mildew in the bathtub grout. The yellowed green grass outside the window was dry and dead, with earth showing through. The dwarfed fir trees by the side of the house didn’t look too much better. When I got to the party, it was dark and smoky, except by the tv which I guess is why I chose that area to draw. I could see the coiled fibers of the carpet and felt them leaving impressions on my bare legs.

I don’t know why I would wander around in my underwear, let alone break into someone’s house to use their skin care products. I don’t even like Noxema. I think it’s noxious.

Wow, had two horrible nightmares last night. Subsequently, I didn’t sleep much. I didn’t even fall asleep till two, and then I got woke up twice by these nightmares. The first one actually had me shaking when I woke, but it was weird too cause Bill Murray was in it. lol

Both of the dreams were viewer only, rather than including me in the action.

So in the first dream, there was this horrible “witch” like in Hansel and Gretel. She kept eating all the children in the area. Enter Bill Murray. He rushes in, saves the kids, and is driving off in a rusty blue cadillac with the witch in pursuit. Some how she catches up and grabs the side of the car with her nails. The nails go through the side of the car like it was made out of taffy. So she’s hanging onto the car, getting knocked around till she falls off. Then she gets back up and goes chasing after them again. This time when she gets close enough, Bill Murray opens the door and knocks her in the head with it. And that’s pretty much where I woke up the first time.

There’s something about sleeping on my back that gives me nightmares. I know this because most times I have one, I wake up on my back, with my heart racing. I have nightmares when I sleep on my side too, but something about sleeping on my back… I don’t know, makes me feel unprotected or something maybe.

Now the second dream, I guess I had around 4 or so. It was more strange than scary, though it was no cake walk.

There was this little boy washed up by a lake with his dead parents. Then this “man” found them. I put man in quotes because it’s hard to say what he was. He was kind of had a man-form, but he shown like a black-light so you couldn’t see any details of his face or body. The kid’s kind of semi-conscious, so he sees everything that’s going on. The black-light-man seemed a lot more concerned about the dead people than the boy, as in, he performed some kind of long, drawn out ritual, even kissing them on the forehead, before even looking at the kid -like he didn’t have much use for him because he was alive.

So he picked up the boy and took him to this old house with a lab in the basement, typical mad-scientist’s lair, and left him there. Later when the kid woke up, there was another man there -the scientist I suppose -and he was all worried about getting rid of the kid because he didn’t want him getting into his lab. This guy didn’t look right either, but you couldn’t see much cause he was all covered up. So he took the kid out to the woods to a cave and left him there instead of the house. And so later, another guy shows up, and he’s ready to take the kid to the nearest town. He’s looks pretty normal and acts pertty nice, but the kid’s kind of annoyed with his treatment so far and is feeling pretty suspicious, so he wants to know what’s going on.

So this third guy seems to be living in the cvave. He feeds him and the next day takes him to the outskirts of the nearest town, but won’t go in. He just leaves the kid there, tells him to head into town and tell them his parents are dead. But the kid decides he’s going to find out what’s going on, so he heads back to the lake.

Somewhere he finds some dead bodies, and waits for the black-light-man. When he arrives and starts in on his ritual, the kid takes off for the house. No one’s around, and he finds the lab and some notes which pretty much indicate all three men are in fact the same man.

Everything’s kind of sketchy at the point, but the black-light-man finds the kid and goes nuts. He’s flying all over the place and bashing in the house. He even flew through the chimney and sent the bricks flying. Which is when I woke up for the second time.

Normally I love to dream, but now I’m darn tired and I have to work till midnight again tonight. Darn it.