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The Foam, and other places I choose to spend the night 11/17/2014

There are few things that make me roll my eyes more than this statement:

"I had the weirdest dream last night"

Because, honestly, no you didn't.  Your mind is completely free to imagine anything in the Universe - and even anything that doesn't even exist - and it chooses to dream about walking on a rope bridge with Joan Rivers in panda face paint.

I mean, that is a bit weird - but I just came up with it...and I am mostly awake right now.  You can do better, people!  You can imagine anything in the Universe!  Come on, brains!  Let's get weird!

If you say you had a weird dream, I want to hear about a 11-teen legged dragon dogs that fetch pure goldfire Volkswagen Spaceships full of Swedish bikini wearing uni-ox, (much like a unicorn, I guess maybe) that know how to speak Latin.

Seriously, no one cares about your dreams!

So anyway, I had the weirdest dream last night.

ORANGE YOU GLAD I SHOWED YOU THIS?

I don't remember it all, but I need to preface the "weirdest dream" comment with the statement that I was not only sick, but I had taken some cold medicine.

Now, I know that cold medicine can mess you up, but I don't react well to pills.  Unless they are hard drugs, then they seem to work just fine.  But cold pills etc. keep me awake no matter what the PM written on the box would suggest.  So while I was "asleep" for some of this, I often occupy this weird limbo state between awake and asleep where the two mix together and I am left wondering if the Grateful Dead ever had such a Long, Strange, Trip as I just dreamed about.  I call it "The Foam."

So I lay down around 9 PM on the couch and slap on some light TV - I believe it was about advanced fighter tactics during World War 2.  I know, I can't turn off the sexiness sometimes.  Believe it or not, I dozed off during this action packed adventure of fighter formations and dive ratios.

With a nose like that it is no wonder it likes the drugs...

I pop two of the generic cold pills and stagger up to bed about a half hour later.  At 945 PM I am down for the count, and of course - a victim of this:

Oh brain - I hate you.

But I was determined.  I had the blanket-to-skin ratio just right.

I had the pillows precisely placed.

Now all I needed was to actually fall asleep - and eventually I did.

It was one of those times where you wake up and feel as though you've been dreaming for a good, solid 6 or 7 hours and it is only about 30 minutes later.

Yet somehow, in this 30 minutes I managed to cram about 60 hours of random footage.  

I could sit here and type out to you how I was on my street where I grew up and there were people in red t-shirts - I knew they were voters somehow - but they were violent and set fire to the van in my driveway.

Don't worry - the van was fine later on.

I could mention the fact that my boss was crouching by my nightstand - then swallowed a mouthful of Sriracha hot sauce.  Immediately after, when the spice hit, he turned bright red yelled about how he couldn't drink from the water bottle on my nightstand because he couldn't be positive it wasn't from the tap.

Perhaps, if you sat here long enough, I will tell you about the floating little girl I chased through what seemed to be a Washington State suburb...think of Astoria from the movie Goonies.  She wasn't flying, more like floating.  She was talking to me but I couldn't understand, so I kept trying to take a shortcut and get in front of her, but I always ended just behind her as she floated away down another quaint little street or into a cobblestone alley.

I would certainly try to mention the fact that there were people walking up and down my stairs, trying to find the bathroom.  As in it didn't seem like a dream - this was pure The Foam.  I was sitting up and listening as they tried to find my door.  They would get to the top and whisper in a raspy voice, "No, no.  This isn't right. This is not right at all" - or something similar.

I wake up around 11 PM - all this has already happened in about an hour of trying to sleep.  Things can only get more interesting, I thought.  I took a sip of water and rolled over.  I do toss and turn a lot normally, but this was memorable because in an instant I was somehow back in my yard - the van wasn't on fire like it was earlier, but from down the street near the old community pool I saw a bunch of angry looking men.  

Nothing specific.  I remember one had curly blonde hair and a white shirt on.  I don't know who they were, but in The Foam I knew they were not something pleasant.

Wait - I should be clear - I was laying in my bed, drinking the water from my nightstand - but the wall I would normally be facing was gone and I was in the yard of the house I grew up in.  Now, I am not entirely certain if I actually took a drink or not - maybe it was a dream?  I told you I occupy that interesting The Foam between sleep and awake when I have nights like this. 

Now it is your turn to have a nightmare...

So these guys stood underneath a street light.  The distance between my house and their circle of light was completely void of all features - just pure black depth.  I know I have to do something as by now the streetlight crew has noticed me.  So I get out of bed - in my dream or in reality, or maybe a little bit of both and I run to the garage.  At this point I see something from behind me shift and float as you'd imagine a ghost would between shadows, and I start following this...thing.  It goes around the house - in real life I have neighbors but here the house only existed in a circular beam of light - similar to how the thugs were being illuminated.  It dances close to the edges of the light around my house, but always flicks and flutters back towards the house itself.

The shadow slips inside and I follow.  The inside of my house - the one I grew up in - is now the inside of my villa I live in now.  Okay, sure.  My new shadow friend goes into the closet room - which is visible from my bed.  I hesitate - are there still people on the stairs?  

No - I think they have gone.

This is how I roll when I dream in the limbo foam...

I figure the best thing for me to do - since at this point I realize I am not actually awake is to go back to sleep...if that makes any sense.  So I lay back down...and before I close my eyes I look over the side of the bed - at this point the shadow comes into the light and is a small dog - think Scottish Terrier.

OH HELLO. YOU MUST BE MY DEMON SHADOW ANIMAL. AHH?

I look down at this shadow as it becomes a small black dog by my bed, and I feel something I used to feel all the time, but lately less frequently.  The grip of the sleep paralysis.  Where you wake up but things aren't working.  You can see what is going on, and when you try to react your whole body either doesn't respond, or works in an incredible form of slow motion.

I know this feeling well as I used to experience it quite often.  I look down at the dog and I try to say: "It is time to go" but it all comes out as a terrible slur - I can't move my face muscles very well.  

I try again: "It is time...tie..time to go" but once again it isn't right.  It isn't right at all.

I am finally able to slowly lift my head off the pillow and say: "It is time to go" to the shadow dog.

I watch as it looks at me, and then slowly fades back into the shadows.  

The room is quiet and I grab a drink of water.  I know I am actually awake now - though I am not sure if I talked to the dog out loud or just in my dream.  I check my phone and it is 440 AM.  It is almost time to get up anyway, so I roll over.  The next 20 minutes I think I was asleep again, though I remember thinking about work, the dream, and the dog.  Maybe I was awake then as well?  Dancing on the edge of The Foam is a wild trip sometimes.

When I dream - or when I run around my apartment chasing shadows and putting out van fires while my boss eats hot sauce - it is a magical place where I spend a few nights a month - sometimes a few nights a week.  I am not afraid of it - not like I used to be.  I know when I am in The Foam usually. It is an odd understanding - I know I am there and I don't fight it anymore.  I don't desperately try to get out like I used to.  While there are things that are "scary" - I know they can't hurt me.

Well, usually.

So when I tell you about the weirdest dream I had last night, I am usually referring to my most recent trip into The Foam - and don't you dare roll your eyes at me!

Oh hey, I was just taking a nap.





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