Strange Tales from My Dream Journal
(Non-fiction) As I swung at the vegetables with a knife the size of a sword, I wondered “Is this salad for me?”
The Grim Reaper
October 2006
I was asleep in my bed, observing myself from outside my body. Then came the reaper with his cloak and scythe to my window, square in the frame. He raised his scythe far above his head and shattered all the glass in the pane. Slowly he stepped onto my bed, the glass crackling beneath his cloak. When my CD alarm clock went off—at the wrong time—at 3AM, it didn’t play the CD. It sounded just like cracking glass.
Undead
October 2006
We are buying bullets for our guns. They look like BBs made of mercury. We drive to a field, the backyard of an abandoned house and explore for a while.
B. goes into a shady dome of trees, and finds a beehive. He pops out of the brush and presents it to us, the bees buzzing gently around him.
“Damnit, guys, they stole our idea,” he says “Flight of the Bumblebee!”
We continue to explore and stumble upon a dead body. It’s D. As we fall back and begin to cry, D.s ghost appears behind us. I stare at his body, and then at him.
“How is this possible?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he smiles.
“Maybe we’re all dead,” I say.
The Dictator
November 2006
K.’s face is rainbow around the eyes. We do our usual ‘kiss, kiss’ goodbye, but she kisses me more intimately than normal, as if she had a feeling this parting would be significantly longer than any other.
I’m in my black, strapless party dress. This house seems like a mansion. I run up the stairs and open the door.
Then everything changes.
I fall into this change as if I’ve always been there. I run into a group of people, young teens like me, that I’ve never seen before. They are looking for the bathroom.
This monstrous-sized place is an old factory, but everyone else sees the illusion of the mansion. The teens follow me because I said I knew where the bathroom was. We slide down the banisters though there are guards enforcing rules against that sort of thing.
I tell the teens this isn’t a mansion, it’s a factory. A dictator runs it. He has hundreds of thousands of people working for him.
“See,” I say.
A big door bears a sign:
Property of [Dictator]
“This is bad. If we can’t even find a bathroom, how would we find a phone?” they say.
I start feeling a need to be connected to the outside world, in case something strange happens. I feel like this has happened to me before, like I know something bad is coming. Like we are going to be prisoners.
The mansion’s illusion is broken and now it looks a thousand years old, decayed, scorched on the inside. I fall through the floor boards and as I fall, beings rise from the dirt. They are monstrous, faceless beings, reaching for me. I begin to fly up and away from them.
I circle the factory. Above me I hear voices and below me the factory transforms into an arena. Those monstrous, faceless things keep reaching for me and I turn upward and fly through the floor, but somehow end up in the arena.
Everyone there is glad to see me, but I don’t recognize any of them. Two, a woman and a man, motion for me desperately. I look at them and wonder if they are my parents. I sit next to them anyway and turn to see what the show is, why we are all here. It’s hot and the arena is in flames. I awake.
Big Salad
May 2008
I dreamt I was making a big salad, a spinach salad, for an old woman with large, thick eyeglasses. I jumped into the enormous, oversized bowl to cut the tomatoes, carrots and artichoke hearts. As I swung at the vegetables with a knife the size of a sword, I wondered “Is this salad for me?”
Castle Made of Sand
September 2008
I am standing on the shore of the Atlantic ocean staring across to the other side. It is night. The wind is chilly. I can see the distant shores of Europe. I make a silent wish to myself to be on the other side and a fairy-god mother type person appears, waves her magic wand, and there I am on the distant shore in a castle made of sand. I start to fear that I will die there, for it is empty of people and empty of food, but as I look closer it seems that someone has been there before me because there is food in the cupboard and a broom in the closet. I sweep.
The Rabbit
July 2009
I am a rabbit trapped in a cage, a small room more like. There are windows but when I open them, guards with guns are at the ready. I turn around, jump up, open one, jump up, open one, work my way up to the top and realize I have horns.
A guard aims, fires. I fall, but am only pretending to be shot in order to get away. I run up the beach. Now three guards are after me. We play hide and seek. One guard repeatedly finds me then intentionally passes me by. Benny is his name and he has horns like me.
“Benny,” another guard calls. She has long blonde hair tied in a tight knot.
I jump in a paper bag. The blonde guard comes close, sits right next to the bag while making casual conversation as she peeps around.
Benny gets up to lead her away from me, but she sees through his game.
“Benny if you’d had horns like that growing up they probably would have shot you too.” She points her gun at Benny.
Bang.
I wake up.
Flying Fish
July 2009
A couple of nights ago I had a dream that I created a flying fish. It swam out of the computer screen and into the liquid air. We watched it go, three of us, in the room that used to be my brothers’ out at the Magnolia house. The fish was pink and yellow and orange and slim. Magenta fins. It swam off the green grid on the laptop screen.
G.W. entered the room and it started to buzz around frantically. She was wearing her prom queen dress. She picked up a book and whacked the poor creature.
“No! G.W.! It took me three whole days to develop that fish!”
Mountain Grave
July 2009
I am driving up a mountain and my tank is running on fumes. Everywhere there are pine trees and snow. I park a ways away from the cabin where J. is waiting for me to arrive, but before I can get out of the car a giant bear walks past my window.
The shine of his fur ripples over his giant muscles. He’s yellow and black with a fierce expression. I crouch down in the SUV and try to start up the car, but there’s no gas so I put the car in neutral and it rolls up closer to the cabin. The bear disappears.
I hop out to meet J. I’m wearing my bowler hat and from its’ rim I pull three cigars. Just to hold them. I put them back.
We hike over the rocks and little hills and I become aware we are heading to a funeral though we all are surprisingly cheery. I don’t know who’s gone. I peek through some brush and see a giant swimming pool down below. Some people are climbing on the lane lines, walking on them like tight ropes.
I take out a cigar as we approach a grave. “Well for God’s sake, somebody’s died,” I say. I put the cigar back in my jacket.
Nobody Move!
June 12th, 2010
I am huddled beneath a picnic bench, a billiard table, a school desk.
“Nobody move!” The helicopters are hanging low and searching for us with their gleaming glass eyes.
I look for J. He is trying to figure out how to end this, how to get out of here.
I need him near me. Shots ring against the table legs. I need him here to hold my hand.
More Nonfiction by Annie Hendrix:
Do You Dream Like J.R.R. Tolkien?
My husband and I love J.R.R. Tolkien. We each read The Hobbit as children and our appreciation of the vast universe he created is a shared interest. My husband’s knowledge—not only of Tolkien’s literature, but of his life— is far deeper than my own. A few years ago, he informed me …
Almost
I dreamt again last night I saw my mother, this time on the cliffside at Bodega Head, overlooking the rock near where we lowered her urn. The spray glittered in the evening sun. The sea lions were singing again. She almost looked back at me, almost.
Deep Water
It was early summer and my roommate Ryan had invited my boyfriend James and I to take a spontaneous trip to Big Sur River Gorge. We went the long way, Highway 101 to Highway 1, so we could spend as much of the trip as possible admiring the Pacific coast. We stopped for lunch and as we ate on the deck, I took i…
Very cool dream vignettes
Okay Annie. Now dreams mean something to you. But to me a basket or woven blanket needs to be woven to hold something or to warm someone. Create a tale which will entice me to fear the beast or feed the flying fish, protect this creature that amazes one with wonder.