I am an insomniac. While this makes me incredibly fun company around 2 am (or prompts me to post a new blog entry for a blog we just created because I'm so wide awake and excited about it, I can't be patient), it is, for obvious reasons, somewhat detrimental to my sleep patterns. Consequently, I often find myself needing to turn to the aid of non-prescription pharmaceuticals in order to actually get a decent amount of sleep at night. My go-to is Benadryl, although I did once take a prescribed Ambien when I was sick. It’s seriously the closest I’ve ever come to being high and I absolutely hated it because the walls were moving and I kept running into them and the inside of my throat felt furry. No joke. I actually got the Ambien for an overseas, thirteen-hour flight to New Zealand, but I never took it because I was afraid I’d be one of those people who sleep walks when they take sleeping pills, and I’d wake up to find myself sitting in some random person’s lap in first class and then get arrested for attempted molestation or something. In hindsight, I actually probably should have taken it because I had a panic attack mid-flight due to my severe claustrophobia, which is the reason my doctor prescribed the Ambien in the first place.
But I digress.
When I’m not an insomniac, I’m one of those people who is entirely dead to the world when asleep. Being such a comatose sleeper, I don’t often dream. In fact, the only times I ever do dream are when I take Benadryl. And boy, are those dreams trippy.
One of the most infamous dreams of mine has been dubbed by my friends as the “Jurassic Park Llama Dream”, which is just as straightforward as it sounds. I dreamt I was in one of the jeeps in Jurassic Park toward the beginning of the film, when everyone’s still optimistic and the sun’s still shining and the electric fences are still working. We turn a corner in order to come out from behind a hill and there, in all of their glory, is not a herd of brontosaurs or whatever they’re called, but a herd of giant llamas, the size of, well, dinosaurs, munching on some trees and looking all fuzzy and adorable. And that’s when I woke up, rather saddened that giant, gentle, dinosaur llamas do not, in fact, exist.
However, that’s only the beginning.
A few nights ago I had a very creative dream of a fantasy world in which I was somehow an outcast superhero with a twin sister and a mother whose magic got her kicked off our island. As a result, I had to hijack a boat and try to make my way to the place where my mother was marooned in order to save her. Unfortunately, these boats were propelled, for some inexplicable reason, by swing sets. Yes, that’s right, swing sets, like we used to ride when we were kids. I had to get into a swing set and swing my little superhero heart out in order to get that dang boat to move. By the time I woke up, I was entirely exhausted from all that swinging and the boat had barely moved from the dock. Oh, and I was almost buried in an avalanche of books from a book mountain that I scraped with my swing boat because, apparently, swing sets doesn’t steer boats very well.
In yet another dream, I was in a Safeway with a friend of mine, V. V and I are wandering about the supermarket, browsing in the greeting card section, checking out the coloring books because we’re such mature adults, when we encounter a guy we know from back in high school, who we’ll call Flirtface McSmarmalots. Flirtface is hitting on every available (and unavailable) female in the store because, let’s face it, it’s clearly in his nature. Upon seeing us, something happens in my dream that still remains a little fuzzy in my memory and we soon find ourselves in an all out food fight. I’m sorry, did I say food fight? I mean food WAR. Stationing ourselves in the dairy section next to the frozen foods (which makes a lot of sense in retrospect; all of those frozen foods make very handy, solid, damaging projectiles), V and I are flinging stuff at Flirtface and attempting to win the battle, but to no avail.
Dream!Portia: We need back up!
V: But who?
Suddenly, a figure comes running to our rescue! He turns down the frozen dinner aisle, sprinting heroically to our aid, my dream sequence practically in slow motion as he comes into focus before my very eyes. It’s…it’s…
Dream!Portia: It’s Stanley Tucci!
Stanley Tucci: :D
Dream!Portia: Wait, it’s Stanley Tucci.
Stanley Tucci: … :) … :|…?
Dream!Portia: Stanley Tucci, what good are you in this situation?
Because, let’s face it, Stanley Tucci, while being horribly underrated by the big wigs in Hollywood despite his talent and versatility, is not the individual I would have called upon for aid in such extreme circumstances as a supermarket food war with Flirtface McSmarmalots.
Stanley Tucci: :(
Consequently, the war rages on in the aisles of Safeway, with Flirtface gaining ground, forcing us to retreat nearer the bakery, a bad location given the softness of our ammunition at this point. As I’m about to dive into the back of the bakery in search of some stale bread products to hurl at our enemy, V cries out in jubilant surprise. Do my ears deceive me? She seems to think we’ve won! But how?
Another figure springs from the vicinity of the deli, fully armored, hair dramatically swishing in the breeze that spontaneously appears out of nowhere in the middle of Safeway because it’s my dream and that can happen.
Dream!Portia: It’s Prince Caspian!
Prince Caspian: *hair flick*
Dream!Portia: That’s more like it!
Stanley Tucci: *is bald*
And thus, Flirtface was defeated by the mere sight of Prince Caspian’s full head of dramatic hair and his sword which, I must admit, was rather menacing given the fact that all Flirtface had was a carton of milk with which to defend himself.
Believe it or not, I’ve had far tenser dreams than that, although I don’t, on average, experience nightmares. My dreams are usually more random, with my dream self looking at all events with an incredulous skepticism typical of my real self. Even so, I had one particularly stressful dream that was, per usual, highly random, as it involved a bunch of Death-Eaters, several characters from the cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender, and a shirtless Draco Malfoy/Zuko hybrid.
Yes, I’m an adult. Why would that possibly be called into question? ...
Essentially, I was walking around my hometown one night, and found myself outside a house I knew, for some reason, to be Malfoy Manor (Harry Potter geekdom ahoy!), despite looking like a perfectly modern, suburban home. Inexplicably, I peeked through the front window, saw a bunch of Death-Eaters in their creepy robes and masks, started to book it away from the place, and then was plowed over by Draco who was attempting to flee his own home. A big chase via broom ensues, although I’m hightailing it out of there on foot and, at some point, Draco, who had taken to the air, falls down right on the top of me (and I mean that literally), totally unconscious. So there I am with an unconscious Draco Malfoy while Death-Eaters are swirling around overhead, hurling curses everywhere, and Dream!Portia is scared out of her mind. Nevertheless, with my enhanced dream strength, I am able to carry Draco (what?!) to a house that looks just like Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in X-Men and, upon entering, encounter the gang from Harry Potter and several characters from Airbender.
Understandably, things get a smidgen hazy here, but somehow, Malfoy switches sides, my brain draws random parallels between him and Zuko, there’s division in the ranks of wizards and benders and mutants regarding whether we should let him join, and then all hell breaks loose. A bunch of earthbenders, firebenders, and airbenders (no waterbenders because even my subconscious self can’t stand any excuse to have Katara present; is it weird that I’m this opinionated about a children’s TV show? ...) start fighting with Harry’s group, though who’s on who’s side, I couldn’t tell.
The rest is completely blurry, except for the fact that Draco was definitely shirtless at some point in there, which I’m thinking might tell me something about my subconscious, but I’m a little afraid to dwell on it too much. Just rest assured that, apparently, Dream!Portia has a thing for Tom Felton.
Oh, and it gets worse. Because I had yet another HP-themed dream in which Dumbledore lived upstairs, Fawkes lived in my side yard, Tom Felton visited me often just to hang out, and my cousin, who lives next door and looks strikingly like Neville Longbottom, actually turned into Neville Longbottom.
...Can I just pause for a moment to say that if I had Neville for a next door neighbor, my life would be complete?
ANYWAY, this brings me to a dream I had last week while on, you guessed it, Benadryl. What stuck out was how normal everything was. I was in a coffee shop I often frequent and there was this guy whom my companions and I have affectionately dubbed “Coffee Shop Guy”. I’ve seen him around for several years now (thaaat’s right, years) but I don’t know his name, or really anything about him. The reason? The coffee shop doesn’t give its’ employees’ nametags. Why? I don’t know, why?!
Regardless, for some time now, Coffee Shop Guy has been the butt of several jokes between my little group of friends. He’s a lovely man, to be honest. He just looks like a nice guy. I like nice guys.
And, apparently, my brain likes nice guys named “Ryan” because my dream only consisted of me being in the coffee shop and looking at Coffee Shop Guy. He turns around and he’s finally wearing a nametag and it says “Ryan”. I don’t know a “Ryan”. In fact, I haven’t the slightest idea where “Ryan” came from. However, my head is clearly distressed at the lack of name. Frankly, I’m a little surprised his nametag didn’t read “Coffee Shop Guy”.
Regardless, he remains a man I adore from afar, in a half-joking sort of way. I remember commenting once to a friend of mine that I thought he was good-looking, in an off-handed kind of way, and it turned into this huge inside joke about how Coffee Shop Guy is my soul mate who is also rich and will whisk me away from here. Oh, and he is also a man who will put up with my shameful ken of knowledge regarding Tolkien, Harry Potter, and classic literature. And maybe take me to the Harry Potter theme park for our honeymoon. And then possibly back to New Zealand.
Dang, Coffee Shop Guy named “Ryan”, you’ve got big shoes to fill.
As a result of this entire experience, if I find out that this guy’s name is really “Ryan” and my dreams somehow have prophetic properties, we’re screwed, ya’ll. Because the future must then contain dinosaur llamas, supermarket food wars with Stanley Tucci, swing-set-propelled boats, and Death-Eaters chasing me around my hometown. Although, what the heck, at least I’ll have Neville for a neighbor and a shirtless Tom Felton running around Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, which will be conveniently located not far from where I live. It can’t be all bad.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment