I’m wondering about dreams.
It’s Saturday morning as I write this. Anubis’ wife texted me 15 minutes before my alarm was going to go off and woke me up. (Granted it was an offer of free breakfast, I can’t exactly complain. On Friday, I woke up Yax with a text saying his site was down.)
Of course, she interrupted me in the middle of my most active (and remembered) state of dreaming – early morning. And wow, was this a weird one.
I was in the middle of a dream involving watching a woman that was the size of a small sea mammal eating two sub sandwiches while reclining on a a magical rainbow beach chair that somehow supported her massive behind.
The first sub was a steaming hot Philly cheese steak. It was probably 5 feet long and was oozing cheese from every crevice. It lay next to her like a slender and dedicated lover, just hoping he didn’t get squished.
The second sub was a standard size meatball sub with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese on top. It perched in the dent it made in her ample, squishy thigh. The meatball sub looked tasty, but was dwarfed in comparison to the leviathan (the woman AND the Philly).
She largely ignored the attractive little meatball sub and concentrated on practically making out with the Philly cheesesteak by her side.
During this dream, I was switching points of view between the men in her life, both of which were business associates. Each was trying to convince each other (and her, if she was listening) that their business was going to succeed based on his actions. Nobody seemed to notice (or care) that the woman had her face buried in thin-sliced rib-eye.
WTF does that mean? I have no clue.
But it made me wonder… do all geeks dream the same way? Let’s have a highly unscientific poll and comment fest, shall we?
Check as many answers as you like!
[poll id="23"]
A follow-up question: What’s the weirdest geek-related dream you’ve ever had?
About e
My weirdest geek dreams are recurring, and involve Star Wars. I am almost always just an observer, though once I was Boba Fett. The weird part is the fact that this seems to be Star Wars through a glass darkly; everything is grittier, the fights more desperate, the tech and physics more real, and there is this constant feeling of dread. I describe it as Star Wars meets Babylon 5 meets Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman both writing and directing. Oh, and the Storm troopers are all techno-zombies, and Vader is more like Lord Soth.
I’ve had dream with the most surreal content. I’ve had dreams that helped me come up with gaming ideas. As for lucid dreaming I’ve managed it a few times.
I can’t remember where I heard about this method but I have a way to program yourself to realise you are dreaming so that you can take more control in your dream state. It works for me sometimes.
The method basically needs you to get into the habit of checking if you are dreaming throughout the day. The theory being that if it becomes a regular feature of your day to day life it will carry over into your dreams.
What you need to look for are elements of Complexity, Pattern and Detail in the real world.
Complexity – Elements of deliberate design, words on a page, cables plugged in at both ends, mechanisms operating as expected.
Patterns – Wallpaper, carpet, paving slabs, consecutive numbers on a calendar, pips on you D6, qwerty keyboards.
Detail – Handwriting style, creased pages in a book, reflective surfaces on plastics, stiches in clothes (a tie is made from two pieces of cloth)
If you look for these kinds of things in real life you will soon notice when they are absent in your dreams. The subconscious mind will fudge the details, ignore complexity and fail to maintain patterns. If you can spot this then you can tell yourself you are dreaming and from there you might get control.
@ Malckuss – That sounds like it would be an awesome movie!!
@ Mike – Cool! Kinda reminds me of being in the Matrix, tho.
My weirdest geek dreams happen when I play LOTRO right before going to bed and I’m realty stressed from work. Wargs and Hobbits fighting in my workplace ftw.
The oddest feature of my dreams is that I’ll often have a whole set of memories relevant to “reality” in that dream. Sometimes these carry over from other dreams and once in a while can get a little confusing if they stick with me when I first wake up.
Oz´s last blog post..4laCarte – alpha
That’s actually a good point.
Dreams are often influenced by the preceding day’s events.
Did you have/crave a sandwich before going to bed Friday?
Or a fat woman in a rainbow chair? Did you crave one of those?
Graham´s last blog post..Scales of War – All sorts of updates
@ Oz – I used to have lots of EQ and WoW dreams back when I was addicted.
@ Graham – Actually, I went out for subs with Anubis and his wife on… Thursday? I forget. He had a Philly Cheesesteak.
Well, then. Maybe the Philly Cheesesteak is Anubis.
Though that would make the woman his wife… or something.
Or maybe the woman is Anubis, seeing as she’s eating the cheesesteak.
…dreams are weird.
Graham´s last blog post..Scales of War – All sorts of updates
@ Graham – Um, yeah, Anubis’ wife is 1/4 the size of the woman in my dream, if not smaller. Hehehe…
Gabe from Penny Arcade came by with two friends to play Bella Sara at my house. I am not sure how or why they came from the west coast all the way to NC and found my house, but they did. When they were done playing Gabe gave me his packs of Bella Serra cards which included some cool promo horse with magical powers. It was the craziest dream I have ever had and it happened last night to. Was there some strange geek moon out last night?
I have no idea why it was Bella Sara or why the promo card was actually cool. Apparently it had a special move that let Gabe win. The dream was so clear this morning about 5 right after I woke from it. Now I can barely remember it.
I remember back when I was younger I staid up playing Metroid (NES) all night so when I went to bed I dreamed I was Metroit involved in a war with the strange creatures. I have to tell you, them creatures looked a looked scarier when they are not in 8Bit graphics. =P
Also…Sometimes when I play an RPG or table top and stay up late I take the game back to bed with me and dream.
I had a real scary dream recently were me and Lisa had a teenage son who was brilliant but used his intelligence to commit crimes, that was the scariest dream I have had in a LONG time.
@ Ocho – do you actually play with Bella Sara cards?
@ Loky – Hahhaha, yeah, I wonder if any old school gamers ever dreamed in 8 bit…
e: No that is what disturbs me more than anything else. Last year I bought a few packs for my daughter because they had horses on them and that is the extent of my Bella Sara knowledge. Heck I had to look up the name to spell it right, and still got it wrong when I posted Sunday.
I have to limit my playing of first person shooters or else they’ll get into my dreams, with me running around shooting things. With creatures from Half-Life, Doom and Quake running around in your dreams it gets to become a nightmare.
@ Matt – That’s definitely a good idea. I used to have dreams about DOOM back when my brother was addicted to it. (We only had one computer, so most of the time, I had to sit there and watch him play.)
BTW, your Code Monkey of Love icon is the BESTEST. I hope you’re taking good care of him and feeding him lots of Fritos, Tab and Mountain Dew.
Code Monkey have boring meeting with boring manager Rob, tomorrow. He is the perfect coworker.
Dream of the morning of 3/5/09: My “husband” (I had one in the dream, never saw him but he was assumed to be there) and I were being pursued by a walking, talking washing machine that wanted to kill us. Imagine a washing machine with the legs, arms, and head of a scrawny male human. Anyway, the only problem with his evil plan was the fact that he couldn’t climb hills, so even if we were only up a tiny bit from him in elevation, we were safe. He was very polite and would say things like, “Oh gee, well, I’m really sorry that I won’t be able to kill you now, but maybe later, ok?” It was odd because there wasn’t a shred of sarcasm in his voice. He was really sincere. My husband and I went into our house (a very old New England-esque white house). I was fumbling with the lock trying to get it to shut right (this ALWAYS happens with me and locks in dreams). The killer washing machine was sitting in his pickup truck (don’t ask me HOW) in the driveway, patiently waiting. Just then I saw my “daughter” arrive home from school. (If I believed in dreams coming true, I’d have this kid, she was BEAUTIFUL.) Anyway, she was a teenager and had long beautiful brown hair. She was just getting home from school and was walking up the driveway towards the house… and the killer washing machine!! I tried to shout to her that she should run up the hill in the yard and around to the door, but she didn’t hear me. The washing machine did.
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One of my weirdest dreams was one where people from the dark side of the Moon were invading the Earth. In order to invade more easily, they were somehow able to move the Moon closer to Earth and launch their ships into our atmosphere with limited effort. I can still vividly remember the seen where I first realized this in the dream. I had stopped my car on the side of the road after seeing some strange ships fly through the air. I was in the center of an open field surrounded by a forest with a small hill at the center. I climbed the hill and stood at the top looking up at the sky…The moon was so close that it took up 3/4 of the sky and it was gloriously beautiful. It shown with a blue/white glow and I’ll never forget it.
The rest of the dream was spent with me trying to make my way back to my home to make sure my wife and kids were safe (though I’ve never married or had kids in the waking world – its a common theme in my dreams).