Dream: The new solution to Infertility.

I had a gross dream last night that I wouldn't post about, except that the concept is interesting enough in a creepy, sci-fi kind of way.

I dreamed that pregnancy kits were available in vending machines. Basically, you put $10 into the vending machine to purchase a small, insertable capsule, which contained donated sperm. In the kit was a variety of three capsules to choose from, from three different donors. The kit contained a little notebook with pictures and information about the potential fathers. You chose one of these, or if you didn't like your choices, you could try a different row in the vending machine, which carried different donors.

I dreamed I ran into an old friend. She was pregnant and I congratulated her. She told me that her husband turned out to be infertile, so she had purchased one of these vending machine pregnancy kits.

I was a little creeped out when I woke up. Buying sperm from a vending machine? Ew.

Sleeptext: Dangerous reading

First post in a while. I haven't been doing much in my sleep worth writing about the past couple weeks. I have woken up a lot to find myself sitting up. But not much else.

I texted Jake late last night. He was asleep and didn't respond. Here's what I said to him:

"Oh, be careful with that book. I heard it starts to eat you if you fall asleep reading it. That's why every once in a while, one of the chapters is really boring. The book does it on purpose because it wants you to fall asleep."


What a creepy idea.

Smoking Dreams

Most of my dreams last night were centered around cigarettes. I spent the whole time either look for cigarettes or smoking. I was even smoking a tobacco pipe at one point.
As I've said before, I have never smoked a cigarette in my waking life, but I dream about them all the time.

I have come up with a theory.
Whenever I have smoking dreams, I wake up the next morning with a headache. I often wake up gasping. I have never been officially diagnosed with apnea, but I know for sure that sometimes I hold my breath in my sleep.
I think my subconscious makes up the smoking scenario because I'm not breathing normally as I sleep. I need to take deep, real breaths, so my dreaming self is associating it with something you inhale.

I've had smoking dreams for years and years, and this only just occurred to me. I wonder if there's some truth in the idea.
Or maybe I was a chain smoker in a past life. :p

Sleeptexting: Flower

I didn't even have this friend's number in my phone until two days ago. Already I am sleeptexting him!

It was at 2am, so he was asleep and didn't respond. This is what I said to him:

"Have you been experimenting with the flowers in the window box? They are almost as big as the windows!"

That would be rather suspicious.

Dream: Behind the Wooden Door.

I  had a little nightmare last night that freaked me pretty badly in the middle of the night.

I dreamed that I lived in an old chateau. It was an extremely large estate and there were many rooms that I did not use.
I dreamed that one day I was looking for an antique mirror that I knew I had somewhere in one of the unused rooms. I was looking around when I noticed a staircase at the other end of the room that I couldn't remember having been there before. I walked over the the staircase and saw that it led downwards to somewhere I had never been. I walked slowly down the stairs, curious. The walls went from being white plaster, to being brown stone. I was in some sort of cavern.

I could hear a rattling sound coming from straight ahead of me. As I made my way down this cavernous hallway, the rattling got louder, and I thought I could make out a small voice humming.

The hallway widened, and I came upon a thick wooded door, with a bolt and a doorknocker on the outside. The door was shaking slightly, causing the doorknocker to make the rattling sound. There was a voice coming from behind the door. It was humming very softly.  Beneath the sound of the humming was a very quiet growling sound.

I said, "Hello?" There was no response.
I went up to the door, and took the heavy doorknocker in both hands. The knock wasn't loud exactly, but the sound echoed for much longer than it should have around the cavern.
The humming stopped, but the growling did not.  I heard a giggle from behind the door. Then the voice started to laugh. It wasn't a loud laugh, but there was something utterly disturbing about it, and it echoed around the cavern like the knock on the door had. 

I became very frightened and ran away from the door. I ran back down the cavern hallway, up the steps, through the unused room, and all the way to the kitchen where I stayed with a cup of brandy coffee until I felt more like myself.

That night while I tried to sleep, I could hear the the quiet sound of the laughter that came behind the door. It echoed very quietly around my bedroom. I heard the soft humming all the next day. I could not escape it. In the late afternoon, I went back to the unused room, but the stairway was gone.

For one week I tried to live my normal life, while the sound of the humming followed me everywhere. I could hardly sleep. All I could think about was that heavy wooden door and what might be behind it.

Early on the next Sunday morning. I went again to the unused room. This time, the stairs were there across the room. I was frightened, but I felt extremely compelled to go back to look at the heavy wooden door. I descended the staircase. White plaster turned to brown stone. I followed the sound of quiet laughter down the cavernous hallway. I could hear the rattling of the doorknocker.

When I reached the door, and I stopped moving forward, all went suddenly silent. It was the sharp silence of anticipation. I knew I needed to open that door. I had never been more compelled to do anything in my entire life. I stared at it for a long time, trying to overcome my fear, trying fruitlessly to make myself turn around and leave.

I sprang at the door, opened the bolt, and pulled it heavily open. I stepped back a few steps and stared. Inside was an unnatural darkness. Pitch blackness was clinging to the inside of that room, and I could not see inside.
Another giggle. Out from the darkness stepped a very young boy, maybe four years old. He had unnaturally large, beautiful green eyes. He was carrying something in his arms covered by a large cloth.
He was the most intense looking person I had ever seen. Even though he walked slowly in a relaxed way, something about him reminded me of a predatory animal. The sound of laughter was still there, and I knew it came from him even though he didn't look like he was making a sound.

"Thank you." He said. "I have been in there a very long time."
"Who are you?" I asked.
"My name is Pocalypse. I'm very happy to meet you. And I am very happy to be out of the dark room."

I stood there, paralyzed with uncertainty and growing fear. Finally I asked "What are you holding?"
The laughter stopped.
He looked down at the cloth-covered bundle in his arms with a strange expression on his face.
"A long time ago," he said. "I was very angry about being in the dark room. I thought if I could not see, what use were my eyes?" He looked up at me with his enormous green eyes.
"So I gouged them out," he said.
"My sister, Hope, was in the dark room with me," he continued when I didn't respond. "And she had eyes that could still see in the blackness."

He dropped the bundle in his arms. The cloth fell off the body of a very young girl. Her face was terribly smashed in, and her eyes were missing.

I tried to turn around and I couldn't. I was frozen to where I stood. The laughter started again, and the little boy smiled.
"My name is Pocalypse. I am very happy to meet you. I will not be going back behind the wooden door."

Sleeptexting: Camel

It is amazing how my friends receive so many sleeptexts from me that they really just take it in stride these days. One of them receives a strange text from me in the middle of the night, and doesn't miss a beat. They are much less weirded out by these conversations than I am.

This happened at 2am last night. I don't remember this at all.

Me: A camel? Really?

Catheryne: Yes. A camel. Are you really so surprised?

Me: Well, when you said you were going to get me a pet, I was expecting a turtle or something.

Catheryne: But a camel is so much more practical than a turtle, don't you think? At least you can ride it.

Me: Under which circumstances, exactly, would I need to ride this camel? And where am I supposed to keep it? In the pantry?

Catheryne: Well, if you're ever in the desert, it would come in quite handy. Plus, having a camel as a pet is all the rage in Paris. You can always keep it in your bedroom. I hear they are quite cuddly.

Me: They are all the rage in Paris because they might come in handy...in the desert?

Catheryne: I don't try to understand the trends in Paris...it just seemed  like a popular pet.
Catheryne: Don't you like it? I thought you would. But I guess I was wrong. I suppose I could always return it...

Me: I'm just not sure what you're trying to tell me, giving me cuddly bedroom camels.

Catheryne: I just figured it would make a good companion for you.

Me: I suppose he's alright. I suppose it could have been worse. You might have decided that I needed a pantry bear. Or a bathtime shark friend.

Catheryne: What are you going to name him?



Who knows what that was all about. It seemed to be set in a modern setting, unlike the usual old fashioned eras my subconscious seems to gravitate towards.
I wasn't as mean as I usually am to Catheryne this time, although I don't think my subconscious can help but be a bit snarky.

Sleepwalking: The Most Frightening Way to Wake Up, Ever.

I just thought of another story. This one deserves its own post.


This happened when I was an undergraduate in Davis, California, -about four years ago. I lived in an apartment with my friend Laura. This apartment was where my sleepwalking activity really started to pick up.


One night I woke up in pitch blackness. My bedroom is never that dark, so I was confused. I tried to sit up, and hit my head on something hard. I fell back down into a laying position and tried to bring my hand up to my head, but my hand came in contact with whatever I had hit my head on. I felt with both hands, and found a layer of solid wood about a foot and a half above my face. Feeling around with my hands, and trying to kick out, I found that the wood stretched the length of my whole body. I realized that i was also laying on a wooden surface. I felt to the sides, and found hard wooden surfaces on both sides.
I was in a coffin.

I was very close to a panic attack. I felt frantically on all sides, finding only solid wood. I broke out in a sweat. It was pitch black, and I was in a coffin. I closed my eyes, and forced myself to calm down. It took several minutes.
I tried to think rationally. It was highly unlikely that I was in an actual coffin. When I had my panic under control, I felt around more carefully. The ceiling and the floor were very solid, so was one wall. But when I pushed hard at one of the sides, it gave a bit. I felt it very carefully, and found a crack in the corner. I forced my hand in, and pushed it sideways.

In the hallway of that apartment, between the two bedrooms, there was a large closet with a sliding wooden door. The shelves inside were big, about 6 feet across, and two feet high, maybe 2 feet deep. I had somehow climbed into the bottom shelf, and closed the heavy, wooden sliding door while I was asleep.

It was still night when I climbed out of the shelves, but I couldn't go back to bed for a while. I think I took a shower and then watched a Disney movie or something.

I don't recommend this to anyone. It is not a pleasant way to wake up.