Hi, it’s been a while but I’ll get into that later. Let’s just say that I’ve had an elephant sized case of writer’s block. I have lots of new blogs planned but in the meantime, I’d like to share a few stories – well, dreams actually, that I wrote in a dream diary I kept during the first year I was in Turkey. To copy the dreams from handwriting in my journal to print here, I first scanned the document then uploaded the images to Google Drive, selected the images, right clicked, and chose ‘Open as a document.’ Google automatically transformed the image into text, which I edited only slightly. Finally, I used Chatly to come up with a suitable illustration, though it didn’t really seem to understand what horrified means even though I requested again and again that the man should look really horrified. Oh well. I hope you enjoy the story. Oh yes, a couple more things. The bar Caps, mentioned at the end of the dream, was a popular bar and grill on Jarvis Street in Toronto where my two sisters and I worked during the 1980’s. Denise was a manager there and Cindy is my sister.

Zombies!!!

Okay, I’m really beginning to lose it now. Don’t be surprised if my diary goes completely downhill from here on in.

I dreamed I hitched a ride with 3 young guys from the States who were working at a summer resort on the great lakes. They were each slow talking, apple faced boys with straw hair and large bright teeth. About half way through the ride one of them split in a different vehicle down another road. The two guys left were convinced he’d made a mistake so we kept driving in our own direction – and soon discovered that it was we who had made the mistake.

We arrived at this old forgotten wharf on the side of a large lake. There were DO NOT ENTER signs and rusted barbed wire fences but we couldn’t resist the gorgeous attraction of the lake & pier beckoning from the distance. The lake had gently lapping waters & a sandy shore. A light mist hovered in the distance, illuminated by a bright, perhaps full moon.The pier was raised up from the shore about 10 meters and I assumed that the water had been higher when it was originally built. It was made of wood like a scaffold, not too sturdy but easy to climb.

In front of the pier was an old metal tomb sunk in the sand, kinda like a bunker or an old tugboat which had been beached & then slowly sunk so that all that was left exposed was the very top and some dark portholes which looked into the interior of the structure. My companions went  immediately to the pier & climbed up it but I was more curious about the sunken vessel. I looked in one of the portholes and perceived a dim shape moving furtively about in the dank black depths of the hull. At first I thought it must be a derelict but then it shambled towards the aperture where I stood and I could see very clearly that it was a mutant being covered in slime with bluish skin and green & red veins standing out in relief against its blue & swollen body. It cast a demented gaze upon me and began coming forward to crawl through the porthole. 

It scared the hell out of me and I ran stumbling back to the pier to warn my companions. They were on the top of the structure so I had to climb up before I could speak to them. When I reached the top, I was babbling incoherently about mutants & pointing wildly over the edge of the peer to the shapes which were moving relentlessly closer.  At first I had trouble convincing my carefree companions but as soon as they saw what I was pointing towards, they began to panic too. One of the guys tried to climb down the pier in a desperate attempt to get back to the car but a creature must’ve caught him because I heard a chilling prolonged scream.

His friend and I stayed on top of the pier figuring we’d have an advantage since we could kick the now climbing mutants off onto the beach below as they advanced upon us. But as is usual in nightmares, I had no strength in my legs as I kicked at the first slimy head which reached the top. Did I imagine a look of amusement in its dilating eyes and twisted grin as it began climbing over the top? I looked about for a loose board to swing at him. Then I realized that my last companion had been taken and that I was alone but for a half dozen shambling mutants edging towards me on the top of the pier.

The dream shifted then and I was at some sort’ve Cap’s party on a boat near the same beach. It was chaotic and everyone was having a great time while Denise and some goons waited on us and gave out presents. Cindy was there and I tried to tell her about the mutants and the misgivings I had about the party going on but she was having too much fun and wouldn’t listen to me. I began to suspect that Denise’s goons were the mutants in disguise and at one point, I was fleeing down a claustrophobic passageway between sleeping berths on a lower deck when one of the goons appeared in the doorway I was hoping to escape through. I watched, petrified, as he metamorphosed into one of the mutants before my startled eyes.

That’s all I remember except for one other tiny detail which happened during the party scene on Denise’s boat. Last night before bed I read in The Dream Game how Don Juan once recommended that Carlos Castaneda try to catch sight of his hands during dreams in order to “induce the conscious realization of being in a dream…so that he [can gain] control over his dreamworld and can act deliberately…he can choose & reject, he can select from a variety of items those which lead to power.”  Well, I tried to do this at the party but when I held my hands up before me, all I saw was a fugue of pixelated colours like a close up of an impressionist painting, all violets and blues and greens and yellows like a swirling cloud of atoms. Still, at least I made the attempt and maybe I’ll have better luck next time. This was the first scary dream I’ve had in ages, and it would be nice to have some control over the intensity of images.