An intense thunderstorm, and two dreams.
Jul. 25th, 2011 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaI wrote this just after 5a, but LJ was down.
I just woke onto—well, because of—the most intense thunderstorm I've ever experienced. I'd been dreaming about touring a Wonderland (of the Alice variety) exhibit, and criticizing it and comparing it to other Wonderland interpretations and the source material; in my dream I was a semi-famous figure, known largely for eccentric behavior in the de Lint/Helena Bonham Carter/magical bohemian pixie girl sort—at the time I was being photographed as I walked through heavy rains with a broomstick skirt hiked to my knees and no socks or shoes to protect me, but I'd become legendary for a habit of running ... okay, so, running pantless through the freezing winter nights, and I promise that sounded much more magical at the time than it does now. I was ignoring the photographers, and telling my companion that it was almost a pity that I'd grown inured to cold, after all that running—but the rain was quite nice.
And then I woke to a deafening crash. I imagine this will be hard to explain—if I'd heard it explained before experiencing it, I doubt any explanation would have meant much to me. There were about four cracks of lighting, with another I missed; the first I saw lit my entire room through half-open shades, and the first I saw directly burned an afterimage in my eyes that's just now faded. There was heavy rain, lasting no longer than the rest of the storm, that forced me to close one window to a slit. But it was the sound, the back of the teeth, thick in the head sound of the thunder which was most impressive. It was like thinking thunder, like being filled with it—it was gigantic and pervasive and consumed you from ears to bones. As far as I know, the storm lasted those half dozen strikes and then passed into a minute or two of light rain, and then was gone.
Yesterday I woke suddenly—and completely terrified—after dreaming of a riverbed. I was more or less in a video game, and when I found my way blocked I began exploring the edges of the "level" for an alternate route ... and just out of curiosity. I ran into all the forced limits to exploration, the artificial ends of the world in video games: impassable jungle, uncrossable water, hills too steep to climb. The vegetation was jungle green, the ground was iron red, it was a subtly alien environment, almost prehistoric, overgrown, overlarge. I came to an edge with a waterfall, but the waterfall was glitched, or improperly rendered: rather than a stream of falling water, it was solid and still—a chunk of standing water just out of my reach. A fish swam from the vertical water and into the open air, went past me, and disappeared into the stream near my feet. Right before moving it had made eye contact with me. It was threatening. I felt threatened by the whole game, at that point. A redgreen vine reached out from the jungle wall and began to twine around me, around my neck. And then back in the real world, some thing—which was probably my ponytail, moving as I turned over—brushed the back of my neck and I did the classic, cliché sudden wake up with everything but a scream: pulse racing, wide-eyed, shaking, the works. That too was pretty remarkable.
There's some light rain, now. My wrist is bothering me and LiveJournal is down anyway; I should try to go back to bed. But ah, these nights. I have a long and tortured history with dreams, and in the past would have hated this sort of thing. But these have been fascinating.
I just woke onto—well, because of—the most intense thunderstorm I've ever experienced. I'd been dreaming about touring a Wonderland (of the Alice variety) exhibit, and criticizing it and comparing it to other Wonderland interpretations and the source material; in my dream I was a semi-famous figure, known largely for eccentric behavior in the de Lint/Helena Bonham Carter/magical bohemian pixie girl sort—at the time I was being photographed as I walked through heavy rains with a broomstick skirt hiked to my knees and no socks or shoes to protect me, but I'd become legendary for a habit of running ... okay, so, running pantless through the freezing winter nights, and I promise that sounded much more magical at the time than it does now. I was ignoring the photographers, and telling my companion that it was almost a pity that I'd grown inured to cold, after all that running—but the rain was quite nice.
And then I woke to a deafening crash. I imagine this will be hard to explain—if I'd heard it explained before experiencing it, I doubt any explanation would have meant much to me. There were about four cracks of lighting, with another I missed; the first I saw lit my entire room through half-open shades, and the first I saw directly burned an afterimage in my eyes that's just now faded. There was heavy rain, lasting no longer than the rest of the storm, that forced me to close one window to a slit. But it was the sound, the back of the teeth, thick in the head sound of the thunder which was most impressive. It was like thinking thunder, like being filled with it—it was gigantic and pervasive and consumed you from ears to bones. As far as I know, the storm lasted those half dozen strikes and then passed into a minute or two of light rain, and then was gone.
Yesterday I woke suddenly—and completely terrified—after dreaming of a riverbed. I was more or less in a video game, and when I found my way blocked I began exploring the edges of the "level" for an alternate route ... and just out of curiosity. I ran into all the forced limits to exploration, the artificial ends of the world in video games: impassable jungle, uncrossable water, hills too steep to climb. The vegetation was jungle green, the ground was iron red, it was a subtly alien environment, almost prehistoric, overgrown, overlarge. I came to an edge with a waterfall, but the waterfall was glitched, or improperly rendered: rather than a stream of falling water, it was solid and still—a chunk of standing water just out of my reach. A fish swam from the vertical water and into the open air, went past me, and disappeared into the stream near my feet. Right before moving it had made eye contact with me. It was threatening. I felt threatened by the whole game, at that point. A redgreen vine reached out from the jungle wall and began to twine around me, around my neck. And then back in the real world, some thing—which was probably my ponytail, moving as I turned over—brushed the back of my neck and I did the classic, cliché sudden wake up with everything but a scream: pulse racing, wide-eyed, shaking, the works. That too was pretty remarkable.
There's some light rain, now. My wrist is bothering me and LiveJournal is down anyway; I should try to go back to bed. But ah, these nights. I have a long and tortured history with dreams, and in the past would have hated this sort of thing. But these have been fascinating.
