Thoughts and Pajamas

in which there was a water slide

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:29:28 +0800

Today I stayed with my dad in the hospital. I was so tired after the day’s travelling around the metro, though, that I had to excuse myself and sleep on the cot beside his bed. Haha. Great company I turned out to be.

Anyway. I fell asleep immediately after my head hit the pillow. It was raining outside. And my dream involved a water slide.

It was like a class, from what I remember. There weren’t any familiar faces there crowd, but, in my dream, I think I knew all of them. We were all lined up for the water slide, and I think we had to make awesome splashes or something. We were all really serious about it, and we were really treating it like a test and something we were really mastering instead of something just for fun.

I can remember three times I had a go on the slide. The first one was okay, but the teacher told me to give it another go.

The second one was pretty scary, because when I neared the end of the slide, I saw people right there under the slide, so I had to do this maneuver thing that let me jump on the end of the slide instead of just…sliding. Nobody noticed the people under the slide, and they all thought I did the cool maneuver just so I could do it. It scared the heck out of me.

For the third go, I was going really fast down the slide. So fast that I didn’t have to do anything fancy, but I was launched into the air when I reached the end of the slide. Everything dropped into super slow motion—so slow that I could see each drop of water suspended in the air.

Like this, but not I was NOT smiling. I could hear screaming my name. And not in a good way.

I woke with a start when my dad called my name because my mom was going to send me to an errand.

Outside, it continued to rain.

I realized just now that I haven’t dreamed of swimming pools in a long time. Huh. Maybe I really need to go back to swimming every week, yes?

in which there was a musical

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:01:00 +0800

There was one episode of Scrubs where a woman starts hearing everyone’s speech as singing after she faints.

My dream was something like that, only I didn’t have to hit my head to hear the music, thank goodness. But, yes, the whole dream was in musical mode. I can’t remember what the musical was about, but everyone was singing in my apartment complex. So were bloggers in an event. Random strangers out in the streets. In the train station. And in our office.

Although…Singing in our office isn’t really a strange thing. Our department oftentimes just bursts into song for no reason.

One of our favorites: Spamalot!

My dream was musical theater, only in the real world. No stages, but there were lights and music. And choreography. Nothing Bollywood-ish, nothing High School Musical-ish. It was Broadway, and it was awesome. Haha!

I kind of wish I remember what the musical was about, though. Haha!

in which I was (or with) Annabeth Chase

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:31:00 +0800

It wasn’t because I was reading the third book of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series before going to bed. No, not really. It had more to do with the gigantic migraine that decided to pound on my head like a cyclops whacking at a piece of metal.

Warning: this is not a happy post.

I went to sleep at around 11 PM, only to be jolted awake by the throbbing pain on the back of my head. I try to sleep it off, like I usually do—although I usually take a paracetamol tablet first, but I was already in bed and I was too sleepy to get up. I dozed off, and dreamed.

It was dark. There was a consistent sound of dripping water on stone. Under my feet, the stone was slightly wet (but no puddle), like the street was when I was on my way from work to my apartment. My head was hurting real bad. Beside me, Annabeth Chase was holding up boulders that were about to crush her. I was beside her, trying to hold it up, too, except the weight was more on my head than my hands.

I woke up. The throbbing in my head had turned into a consistent, painful pressure, almost as if—you got it—I had part of a cave pushing down on it. I tried to pull on my hair (that usually worked, you see), changed my position, and tried to sleep again.

No such luck. I tossed and turned in my bed for hours, probably whimpering every so often. Sometimes I’d doze for a minute or two. (I know it was only a minute because I kept checking my watch when I wake up again.)

By 4 AM, I couldn’t take it anymore. I hauled myself up to a sitting position and nearly threw up at the change of position. I collected myself for a few minutes, then got up to finally drink meds. Afterwards, I stayed in our living room for a while, letting the pain subside. When it did, I went back upstairs to my bedroom, and laid back down to sleep.

I was in the cave again. This time, I was carrying the boulder alone. I was trying to carry the weight on my hands, but it remained on the crown of my head.

I woke up feeling sick again.
I tried sitting up again.
The pain subsided again.

I fell asleep huddled in the corner of the walls.

I didn’t dream again.

in which I clenched my fists

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 00:36:00 +0800

This morning when I woke up, I felt something digging into my palms. I was half-awake, but I was fully aware that it HURT. So I cracked an eye open and took a peek… to see that my palms each had four red crescent-shaped marks on them. The ones on my right hand were redder than those on my left, but they were all there, aligned like four smiley faces greeting my good morning.

Only…these smiley faces had no eyes. Freaky.

I laid there for a minute blinking at my palms. And, slowly, I realized what made those marks.

My fingernails.

My fingernails aren’t very long. Yes, they’re not newly-trimmed, either, but they’re not even this long————>

They’re much shorter.

And yet they left deep marks on my palms. (The marks faded eventually, but they were still visible until lunchtime.) That only means that I was clenching my fists pretty tightly in my sleep.

Like the past weeks, though, I still can’t remember what I was dreaming about. *sigh*

I think I better trim my nails now.

in which there was a montage

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:23:00 +0800

I have been dreaming the past two weeks. Problem is: I don’t remember them. I know for sure that I had a dream. Sometimes I have several dreams, or a montage of dreams. You know that kind of dreams that don’t really have one big story, but just fragments of stories? I’ve had that a lot the past weeks, but by the time I wake up, I don’t remember the details anymore.

I’ve had vague memories of waking up in the middle of the night, remembering each detail of my dream, and then saying to myself, “Huh. I’ll write about this tomorrow.” But then, of course, I can’t because I’ve already forgotten.

Which is, of course, a total bummer for this blog.

in which there was a baby

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:20:00 +0800

My dream featured me, a baby, and wooden floors. Like a stereotypical dream, this one was a strange mix of different elements from my reality.

The room looked like the old sala that used to be in my grandmother’s house.

The baby was around one or two years old, I think, and looked like a combination of the three kids in our department at the moment. He looked like the super cute Kye, but he was reciting the ABC’s in Andi’s tune, and he laughed as loud as Ellora.

At first he was sitting on my lap (like my favorite niece usually does), before he got up and started to run the wobbly way that one-year-old babies did. And then he tripped on his own feet and fell with a shallow thud.

He remained on the floor for a few beats, blinking and letting the situation sink in. And then he sat up. He stared at the floor. And then he stood up again, and, as if he didn’t just hit his head on the floor, ran again.

(I realize now that this is how I usually was when I was a kid, walking calamity that I was.)

He fell again with another thud, only this one sounded a bit more hollow, like the low beat of a bass drum.

He got up again, and ran again, and fell again with yet another thud. This went on, each thud sounding different from the last.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

My dream at this point was a montage sequence.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

And then he stopped. And then he looked around the room, his eyes calculating.

And then, with utmost precision, he ran and fell and ran and fell and ran and fell around the room, producing a song that was very much like a distinct drum beat. Like Trashin’ the Camp in Disney’s Tarzan (which, coincidentally, I listened to before sleeping).

Huh. Strange, yes? And a tad bit violent, though the baby didn’t look hurt at all. In fact, he looked like he was more interested in the sounds his falling was making. And he remembered each specific sound and which spot in the room made them.

Haha! Genius baby. If I had my way, though, instead of banging his head on the woodern floor, he’d look like this:

in which there is nothing

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 23:26:00 +0800

Three days in Palawan and I did not have dreams. Not one. Not at nights in our hotel, not during naps on the plane or boat, and not even after nodding off right there in my seat after a very heavy dinner.

Nothing. I just slept. I closed my eyes, and then there was darkness, and then several hours later I was waking up again.

I’m pretty sure this is because, sometimes, reality really is much, much, MUCH better than dreams.

in which I was in my karate gi

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:17:00 +0800

Last night was one of those nights that I had no dreams. Or maybe I just didn’t remember them. (Again.)

I woke up several times last night, but it wasn’t because of the heat like the past weeks. I just woke up for no apparent reason. And then I happily went back to sleep again after checking my clock for the time.

I woke up at 1:36 AM, 2:15 AM, and 4:54 AM.

At that last one, I was in the process of sitting up to adjust the angle of my electric fan when I saw a fleeting image of myself in my karate gi. I studied karate before going to college, you see. My sensei had told me that my strength wasn’t in kata; it was in kicking. I think my being tall helped that. My favorite kick was mawashi-geri, the roundhouse kick.

It was a just a split-second, but I saw it clearly: me in my gi, and already in mid-mawashi-geri.

The sound of my fan crashing to the floor snapped me into full consciousness, and I realized that my foot was in the air, right where the head of my fan should have been.

My roommate Karess was also jolted out of sleep, sitting up in near panic that her laptop would be somehow damaged, making me mutter “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” in a voice that I hoped was somehow soothing.

Fortunately, my fan survived the fall, laptops were far from danger, and Karess and I both fell back asleep almost immediately.

I therefore conclude that maybe dreams involving martial arts—in half-consciousness or no—can be destructive.

in which the taxi driver turns out to be right

Mon, 31 May 2010 17:27:00 +0800

As with most of my dreams, I can’t remember how this one started—I’m lucky to have remembered anything about the dream at all—but I do remember that it was more than halfway in it.

I was with Chique and Ana, in front of a nipa hut. I’m guessing I was with them because we live in the same general area, and I suppose we can choose to go home together if we wanted. But we usually don’t.

It was hot. It wasn’t really scorching hot, but the heat was enough to make me wear a tank top. (That, in itself, helped me realize that I was in a dream.) A light breeze occasionally blew on the mango tree leaves above us. We were standing on the side of a rather dusty road, waiting for a cab to get into.

I don’t really know why, but we walked up to the nipa hut, climbed the stairs, and peeked in without opening the screen door because, really, it’s not like we were invited to come in.

There was a bamboo sala set inside—the heavy ones that your grandmother would own and upon which she had pillows dressed in covers that she sewed herself. (And the covers usually had large yellow flowers on it.)

“Good afternoon!” the woman inside greeted us. The toddler playing on the mat beside her gave a cute little shriek of delight. It was as if the two knew us, and it was as if we knew them, too, judging from how we talked with them. I have no idea what we talked about, though. I do know that we never opened the screen door, and that Ana was cooing at the baby.

I eventually left the doorway and went back to the shade of the mango tree. As if on cue, a taxi arrived and pulled over so we could hop on. The cab was white and blue.

Looking back, I realize now how strange it is to wait for (much less actually see) a cab in an obviously provincial town.

I said “Tandang Sora po”—so obviously we were going to go home—and the driver pulled out into the dirt road. Chique, Ana and I talked about…many things, I think. Again, I can’t remember what we actually talked about—except for me saying, at one point, that when I got a house I wanted it to be as windy as the one we just left—but I remember that I felt like our trip was taking longer than it should.

I tapped the driver’s shoulder (I was seated behind him) and asked him where we were. Before the driver could give an answer, Chique suddenly went pale, and Ana gasped, “Ecija?!”

Ecija.

WHAT.

“NUEVA ECIJA?!” I echoed. Sort of. Because echoing really means saying exactly what was said, and I didn’t really say exactly what Ana said, so…yeah. I sort of echoed it.

“Tandang Sora,” the driver simply said.

“In NUEVA ECIJA?!” I screeched. Yes. Screeched.

I don’t screech.

Not that I know of, anyway.

I then proceeded to screech some more at our cab driver, but, again, I can NOT remember what I said. I do know that I was holding on to our driver’s head rest (not his head, thanks very much) and I was yelling and I was so angry and furious, and all the blood was rushing to my head and—

And then I woke up.

Eyes wide open, fingers clutching my pillow, heat pounding, and lungs heaving. My throat felt dry, as if I was screaming in my sleep.

It was morning. The sun was up, and, downstairs, Karess was taking her shower. And if I didn’t get up and took a shower, too, I was going to be late. But I could not get up because my heart was still pounding in anger.

My dream was, simply put, strange. But then I suppose most dreams are like that.

I learned several things from all this.

#1 KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. I rarely show emotion to my cab drivers. I’m always carefully displaying an air of indifference, but with a dash of politeness. But in this dream, I was livid. I suppose I would have been less angry if I already knew we were in Nueva Ecija.

#2 DON’T TALK TOO MUCH IN A CAB or you won’t notice it if and when your cab driver is going the wrong way.

#3 PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR SURROUNDINGS. See #2.

#4 BE SPECIFIC IN GIVING DIRECTIONS. As it turns out, there is a Tandang Sora St. in Nueva Ecija. Huh. I did not know that.