Be Kind, Remind
[2008-04-23 17:50]

Occasionally, I have dreams where my dreamself remembers a place or thing that I've dreamt before, but which my waking self had forgotten.

Awhile back, I dreamt I returned to a small hotel that was built in a mall (or, more likely, the mall was built around it). The rooms of the hotel were posh, with hardwood flooring and furnished with antiques. The rooms also allowed access to a secret courtyard, similar to how large modern hotels are built to have a private inner courtyard. Unlike the real world, though, this hotel had a courtyard in reverse. Instead of the rooms surrounding an open space, the courtyard was really a valley (or perhaps a crater) which surrounded the rooms. And yeah, I know that's physically impossible, but... dream world, you know.

As my dreamself wandered out into the valley, I remembered that I had been there before. I remembered the blue/green wingless Ghidorah-like monster that tromped around the hills, and remembered that a path led from the hotel rooms to a small group of houses. I remembered that my previous dreamself had visited these houses and encountered a Chinese puzzlemaker and an old Chinese woman. My previous dreamself had followed the path through the village and up into the hills, where many of the villagers (and/or maybe some of the hotel guests) had been slaughtered and eaten by giant tree-monsters. My previous dreamself had wandered past this site and found a road with some shops along it. I had gone into one of the shops and had gained hints and clues from the Chinese folk that ran the shop. Those clues revealed that the puzzlemaker was responsible for the tree-monster-massacre, and that the old woman was Jackie Chan's real mother.

My recent dreamself remembered these things but did not bother to go back into the hills or to visit the store where I had learned the secrets. I might have gone to visit the old woman this time to explain that I already knew her secret, but my waking self doesn't remember if I did that or not.

So now you know why I don't do drugs.

Anyhoo, I recently dreamt that I had found some papers and drawings that I had written/drawn awhile ago. And either I remembered that I had written these in a previous dream, or the story told in the writings and pictures was a previous dream (I think the latter is what happened). I dreamt I leafed through the papers that told the story and had flashbacks to the dream I was remembering.

This dream story was about a serial killer who, I think, used street fairs and block parties to select victims. The killer ran a barbeque (and secretly made some of it super spicy hot, for some reason), which helped him blend into the festivities. To catch the killer, a pair of detectives devised some bogus street fair (which featured Al Pacino, somehow). One of the detectives was a philosophical, anthropomorphic dog, similar to McGruff, but cuter and mostly white with some black spots.

Anyway, in both of these cases, my waking self had forgotten about these dreams, which makes me wonder: if my dreams can be so vivid and complex, could the memory of them also be a dream? That is, could it be that I really didn't dream these things before, but I just dreamed that I had? I feel like the memories are real, and that I really did dream these things before, but maybe that feeling is just part of the dream.

Or maybe there's a writers' strike going on in my head and I have to rehash old dreams now to fill the time slot.