Poltergeist

Sleeping in a haunted movie theater. Ghosts are knocking things off the walls. In the middle of this dream I am seized by real sleep paralysis, but do not wake up. My brain narrates the feeling as what it is to be a ghost. Tethered by the feet to something ethereal, hanging, thrashing and screaming, a half-thing, screaming, a rage stronger than anything I've ever felt. I resent the living, knock things off the walls into their heads. I want to damage. I am pure pain.

Civil Service

There is a new cult for middle-aged people that combines the Tea Party with the Secret. The logo is a slightly distorted, inverted pentagram with a robed woman standing at the bottom vertex. They are marching into the city and we trick them all into entering a mausoleum, where we seal them in.

Contrarian

Three goats are playing soccer. Christopher Hitchens, driving an armored car with a huge, blunt lance attached to the front, chases them off the field while chuckling eruditely to himself.

Du Hast

A girl tells me that I "look too soft." I buy a Rammstein jacket and combat boots, give myself a mohawk and slide down paved hills on a garbage can lid.

The Happiest Place On Earth

I cry the entire way down the Palestine-themed water slide at Disneyland.

Play Him Off

An Armenian man who loads trucks is looking for someone to sing a duet with his cat. I volunteer, and find out that it is to be an improvised comedy song, and the cat and I will be judged on who is funniest. During the first rehearsal, I realize I cannot play piano and am not as funny as the cat. I graciously drop out of the competition.

Wu-Haul

I returned with a group of people from a trip to a rainforest. I had driven a U-Haul to the departure point, and when I walked out to check on the truck, I heard, to my embarrassment, that I had left my 8Ball & MJG CD had been playing the whole time. But then I realized that it was coming from a different U-Haul, full of bros. It was still my CD; they had switched the trucks attached to our trailers because they thought mine was nicer. I called The GZA to ask him what to do but he didn't pick up. When I went back outside to check again, both U-Hauls were gone.

Supercop

I'm asking Jackie Chan if he gets all the ladies. He tells me to stop making such a big deal out of his celebrity, since we're friends. I say, "Sorry, Jackie," and put my hand on his shoulder.

Rock the Mic Like a Vandal

I am Vanilla Ice. Not early, parachute pants Vanilla Ice. Late-career, county fair, sideburns and tattoos Vanilla Ice. I am sitting in a bathtub with the shower running, singing Ice Ice Baby. I know that I am no longer relevant, but that if I can sing the song to myself and enjoy it, that's the only success that matters.

The Shadow Out of Rhyme

I'm reading a pop-up Lovecraft book in my living room at night. Somehow, whether it came from inside the book or not, I grab a large snake behind its head. It's dark green, monochrome, and about 3 feet long. It is tremendously strong, and it takes all my strength and both hands to hang on to it. I remember that there's a herpetology convention in town. I look on the internet and there is no herpetology convention. But the snake is Anorexic, so to neutralize the danger of having it around I make fun of it for being fat.

After a while, it stops struggling, and I carry it around the house for a bit. I accidentally lose it when I dress up like Mike D from the Beastie Boys and dance in front of a mirror.

These Colors Don't Run

The Joker has kidnapped me and two other guys, and is forcing me to drive all of us to a cliff where we will be held hostage. He is talking calmly about how deserters in the Vietnam War joined the military deliberately to "disgrace the flag." After a tense silence of disagreement, we start listening to John Denver. The Joker says, "I remember when I didn't need these stupid hearing aids to listen to this." He has a wistful little chuckle, remembering his youth. I ask everyone how old they are. Two people, including Joker, say they're 38; I couldn't hear the third's answer, who says, "Looks like you're the youngest!" Self-deprecatingly, I yell, "Hey, who loves Justin Bieber?! Isn't Pokemon cool?!" We all laugh, and then, remembering that he is a supervillain, The Joker sings a 'menacing' song with a 'villainous' lisp.

Cornucopia of Wrong

I have been keeping an irregular dream journal for a couple of weeks, and these are the best passages, unaltered from their original, half-awake composition.


For some reason, I end up wrestling with an old man to remove his socks. In the course of wrestling, he steals $10 from my wallet. We laugh about this, I tell him I "respect the hell out of him" and he gives me three wet cheek-kisses with his old mouth.

•

I am at somebody's house, staying as a guest. In the night, I wake up to find Binkley [the cat I had while growing up] nestling into my arms (I'm sitting up). Binkley presses himself hard against my chest and nuzzles his face right under my chin. I'm looking down at his face, all black with the little white chin, and I realize that it's actually the face of a Juggalo who has snuck into my room. We fly apart and both begin freestyle rapping.

•

Superman, parking lot at night. Get into car, man in car. Get out, fight man + 2 others. Hit 1st man w/ piece of wood in face, nail in wood gouges eye, blood everywhere. They do not relent for a while. Long standoff, few punches. They leave, people walking by watching.

Earlier, some manatees.

•

I'm playing SNES with an 8th grader, the game is a Mortal Kombat-style fighter, and all of the characters are racist Mexican stereotypes. I'm playing as a Mexican mother with too many children.

•

Watching a movie about a guy who joins an S&M "cult" who meet at the beach, where they all wear bondage gear and robes and hoods/masks, and are each given a snake to care for. But they're too preoccupied with S&M to pay attention to the snakes, which get into the water and precipitate shark attacks.

•

In Scripps Ranch, I became aware that there was a potential terrorist attack looming. It was late afternoon and raining lightly. I was on Red Cedar, by Miramar Ranch, scooting along in my "neighborhood watch" wooden rolling desk chair, making sure the gates to the soccer field were all locked.

Paper, Tigers

Myself and a group of people are camping on the outer steppes of Hell; the sky is the same black as the slate ground, with a band of red along the horizon. Nothing moves but the air.

On a walk I find a tunnel, leading down into the ground at a steep angle. I emerge at the other end into a space even more barren than the steppes. We are all in a book of paintings of Hell, and I have arrived at the last pages, which are a solid maroon, blank except for tiny white credits typed along the pages' bottoms. I return to the campsite to fetch the others, but they refuse to follow me because they are too afraid of monsters.

•

I am in a jungle, training a group of children how to be brave. We are surrounded by tigers, all of whom are named Sasha Baron Cohen.