Gangster Dreams

This has been one busy weekend full of random stuff, both in real life and in my dreams. I went out, and even though someone dropped a glass from the upper floor and hit my head, I had a blast. And now I have an enormous bump. Aw, just like when I was a three year old kid. New bumps in my head every week! I spent sunday taking care of my cat and looking at Nicolas Cage funny pictures. Found out that I'm not the only one who likes to mock him. Anyway, I think this has turned into an addiction since I've started saving them on my computer for a purpose I'm not even sure yet. 

Advice: if you ever plan on making a film, hire him. He's known for not turning down any role, and you can find some examples of his best interpretations here, here or here. 

Talking about my dreams, I have noticed a pattern lately. Most of my dreams now consist on something being stolen. I did talk about the Stolen Wallet dream very briefly, as there wasn't much else to say. On friday, I dreamed with a lady who wanted to steal food from my house (is this a warning about what will happen in Spain?) and a guy that went into my mom's bedroom to steal her jewellery while I was taking care of the lady who wanted some food. He didn't succeed though, because I locked him up in the bedroom after threatening his life by pointing him with a fork. (If I get a thief into my house one day, I probably won't try to scare him away with a fork, though, it might not work).

But the dream that I chose for this post was special. Not the funniest, weirdest, scariest, or most interesting...but it was in black and white. How awesome is that?!?

It looked like it was a movie David Lynch would've produced if he had been working in the 50's decade. It's about a prostitute who lived at the end of a street, and wasn't allowed by the local gang to move out from there to be together with the other people. She just sat on the sidewalk waiting for her customers. One day, there is something that drives the attention of everyone away from the prostitute, and she escapes, stealing a valuable package from the others that will make her have enough money to travel far enough. Everyone gets really mad when they figure out what happened, but she is already gone. In fact, she's in a little town really close to the sky. (Yes, the sky). There is cotton-like clouds on the pavement or on top of the trees, and everything looks so pretty. She meets someone else, and is happy until the people from who she stole the package find her. They try to chase her, but she enters a labyrinth full of toilets, and that's where I wake up.

But You Promised Me, Daddy!

A month from now it will be almost Christmas, and I'm sure many bloggers like me will be doing some sort of Christmas Specials. Christmas lights have started to show up in many cities, and CHRISTMAS TV MOVIES ARE BACK! That is some really bad news.

Those movies designed to bring christmas spirit make me want to slap their actors in the face. And in case you haven't noticed, 99% of them always follow the same pattern:

Super busy mom/dad/random jerk doesn't pay attention to his kid/to anyone because he/she is so focused on evil things like money, or work, even though they're a good person on the inside. They hate Christmas because they didn't have a good Christmas in their childhood. Their kid -usually only one kid, since the mom/dad/random jerk has to be divorced a long time ago so that we don't think they're being slutty when they meet Someone New- asks for a super cool gift that is soooo important for them to have. The mom/dad meets Someone New that teaches them how bad and miserable they've been, and that Christmas is nice and magical. The mom/dad/random jerk realizes this at the end of the movie, just in time to buy the super cool gift. And in the end, the mom/dad are not single any more, and they just turn into a creepy perfect family. Sometimes there's elves and magic involved, too.

Basically, these movies tell us that unless we buy that specific toy, we're not going to be happy or enjoy Christmas, and that our kids will hate us as parents, if you already are a parent, or when you become one.

I once was a stupid kid too. And still am, sometimes, so when I decide I want something, there's no way you can get it out of my mind. In this occasion I'm talking about how much I want a dog. And I even dreamed with it:

My dad, my mom and me went to the zoo, and there was this long-haired huge dog with a red bow on it, just like a gift; locked up in a cage. My dad goes and puts some explosives to make the cage open, and cuts the dog's chain. The zoo alarms went off and three guards that looked like they were taken out of a Tintin comic come in and have this conversation with my dad:

- Guards: Good Morning Sir. It is not allowed to steal this dog.

- Dad: Yes it is, I booked it the other day.

- Guards: Okay then. No problem. Only thing is, you have to pay 5€ to replace the chain.

- Dad: There you go. Have a nice day!

- Guards: You too, Sir!

So this is how I got a dog in my dreams, and how I woke up totally disappointed for not having a long-haired huge dog licking my face in the morning, just like an american kid would have felt if his dad hadn't attended his baseball match: "You promised me, Daddy!!" {runs away}

Sausage Pack Dream Update. Can I see the future?

I have been blogging about my dreams for about two weeks, and since then I have gathered a little nice audience, and first of all I wanted to thank you for such a warm welcome, especially since this blog is kind of weird –why lie to myself- and your response has been way better than expected.

Now, enough of cheesiness, if that word even exists. I came here to talk about sausages. If you have been good followers, you might have read the entry about the Slovenian Handball Team. I mentioned some disappointing dream where I found an empty pack of sausages, and I got mad at it.

Well. {Drums, please!} The other day I was too busy drawing Nicolas Cage and forgot to tell you that something happened. My mom normally makes some delicious sausages (the ones in the picture look almost the same as my mom’s, you can find the recipe &original picture –in Spanish- in this awesome website I sometimes use). She makes them in the oven with white wine, always on Saturdays (oh god, how I like them!). This time I came back home at dinner time –spanish dinner time, 22:30- , really tired and not really in the mood for anything else than going to bed. The only thing that had kept me awake was the thought of coming back home to those wonderful sausages. And yes, I’m aware that this sounds childish, but it’s those small details that are able to make my day. To my surprise, there weren’t any sausages. We didn’t buy them that week –I didn’t know this, that’s why I was counting on them-. And yes, I got a bit mad. In the dream there was an empty pack of sausages, which means no sausages. I didn't have any way to know that, since I didn't check the fridge, so was my dream a warning that there weren't sausages left? 

Now…I’m not saying I have superpowers or magic, and even if I had any of them I wouldn’t have been able to develop my potential, since Spain doesn’t have enough money to build a public School of Magic like Hogwarts. But you have to admit it’s a pretty funny coincidence!

So, do you think we can predict future? Have we lived already everything that’s yet to come? Is that where déjà-vus come from? I sometimes like to think that our lifetime is like a video we left loading on Youtube before watching it, and even though we don’t know what’s to come, it’s already determined. Sometimes we accidentally put the mouse on the video’s timeline and get a small preview of the future images. Other times I wonder if we’re just streaming our lives online, and there’s no way we can’t know what will happen.

What do YOU think? Are we streaming or just loading? Or there isn’t any timeline and everything is just a bunch of circumstances brought together randomly as time goes by?

Nicolas Cage stole my Cheerios!

As some of you might know, I work in a charity bookstore, and there is also a Movie section where we both rent and sell dvds. I love cinema, and so I became somehow in charge of the movie stuff. But every time I see a film by Nicolas Cage or Kevin Costner in the shelves, I shudder.

I don't care if they're good or bad people. I don't hate them as a person because I don't know them, or search for mean gossip about them, but I simply can't stand them, in any of the movies they've made. I even have a childhood trauma with Kevin Costner. 

It was one of my fellow classmates's birthday, and her parents decided to invite us all to the cinema. To see The Postman. What kind of parents take a group of 8 year old kids to see such a horrible, boring movie?!?! Look what you did to me. The fact that they didn't buy us popcorn was even worse, because I couldn't do anything to distract myself. I realized I had a plastic frog in my pocket, and started chewing on it out of desperation. I ended up eating the whole frog, which was one of my favorites! (Yes, I collected plastic frogs when I was little, still have them somewhere). Since then, whenever I see Kevin Costner I feel a shakey stomach, sudden boredom, cold sweat, stress, and an overwhelming fear of loosing any more frogs. 

Same thing goes for Nicolas Cage. His face is creepy and boring at the same time. (How did he learn to do that?) And so, I have never managed to finish any of his movies -I stopped trying long time ago-. The thing with him is not as serious as it is with Kevin Costner, but he slightly creeps me out with those big blue eyes and scary facial proportions. It's disquieting.

It's not surprising that if my subconscience has to create a villain in any of my dreams, that would either be Mr. Cage or Mr. Costner. This time, my mind decided to be benevolent and chose Nicolas Cage over Kevin Costner to be the evil person that stole my Cheerios and ran away with them while laughing like crazy (please, click, it's worth it!). And since it's not that easy to find Cheerios in Spain (or it wasn't until some months ago), I cherish them like small golden crispy treasures and really make an effort to ration them efficiently. I woke up being really, really upset. And yes, I'm aware that in the drawing it doesn't look that much like Nicolas Cage, but luckily I don't make a living out of this!

The Evil Slovenian Handball Team Dream

My old boss said I had really good time management skills, I'm proud of that and I will mention it whenever I have a chance, literally. 

- Random guy: What day is it today?

- Me: Oh, that is indeed a good question my friend. You know, my old boss told me I have really good time management skills, so you chose the right person to ask.

- Random guy: Uhh...okay {Slowly walking away}

BUT, not this week. I normally schedule myself so that I have stuff to do everyday, but not too much. That didn't happen this week. And I guess this general lazyness has had an effect in my dreams, because they have been SO boring. Two examples:

- The Lost Wallet Dream: who hasn't dreamed this?! And I never got to find it.

- The Empty Sausage Pack Dream: that was it. There was an empty three-sausage pack in my fridge. In the dream I get mad because no one bothered to put it in the trash. I put it in the trash, and then I get mad at the sausage factories because making packs with three units is nonsense. (Even though it's not, hot dog bread comes in six-packs so they should make an agreement with sausage factories so that they only sell multiples of three sausages in a pack)

ANYWAY.

I had this dream from last week, which I didn't want to post yet. It is somehow scary, since I see myself being a bit mean. Only a bit, you'll see. It's also interesting because I know where some things in the dream come from.

So, I was playing with an old friend from school on the street, we didn't have a ball though, so we were rolling up socks to make it. We called it "sockball". Genius!

Soon after, the sockball went too far, and we shouted but no one wanted to throw it back. I run to pick it, but suddenly a huge group of people come my way, and they drag me far from where I was. It turns out I'm now in a gym, and there is the National Handball Female Team From Slovenia. I think this is my best chance to borrow a ball, so I ask them, but they start punching and bullying me. I get really mad, and grab the captain by the arm, make her open her mouth and start scratching her inside the mouth, in the internal side of the cheek, until it bleeds. Then, I run, and wake up.

First of all, I would never do that. Probably. BUT I know where it came from, as I said. Specifically, it came from a movie I had watched a few days ago, The Seasoning House. You can see the trailer here, in case you're interested. It's a story about the revenge of a girl, and in one of the scenes, she grabs a knife and mutilates one of the bad guys's mouth from the inside, and it's pretty impressive. 

This is it for today, not really proud of the drawing, by the way. The girl in the middle looks like she has a nosebleed, but I do like the face of the tall one, there is always someone not too intelligent in the badass group at school, and that's her.

The Purring Zombie Dream

After I graduated, not having to wake up early in the morning has led me to a really bad habit: stay up late watching horror movies and shows. And with The Walking Dead and American Horror Story with their shockingly disturbing new seasons, it's no surprise my dreams have been influenced. I guess my parents weren't really good at teaching me the dangers of watching scary things just before going to bed. Not that I really care, of course.

I don't remember much of this dream. I do know I was sitting on a wooden chair, and I think it was too small for me, but I was sitting there staring at nothing in particular, when suddenly a crawling zombie ( I hate crawling things, even crawling babies scare the hell out of me, watch Trainspotting for more info on this) entered the room. Surprisingly, I wasn't scared...or maybe I was too scared to go anywhere. I remember looking at the zombie shirt, and thinking: "what a shame, that is exactly the pattern I've been looking for everywhere!"

While I was planning how to see the shirt tag without getting bitten, the zombie was on his knees right in front of me, and somehow I suddenly understood what he wanted. He wanted the same I want 24/7! I call it gentle-scratching (this sounds way better in spanish). Sliding the fingertips down my arms and/or back makes me want to die like Marion Cotillard, play dead like this donkey or fall into the catatonic state chickens fall into when hypnotized. It's just pure pleasure.

This zombie wanted that! So I started sliding my fingers down his -rotten- back; aware that I would maybe have to clean my nails after that. The zombie started purring like a kitten -and possibly drooling too- but I felt like we were really bonding. Then, I woke up.

The Lottery Dream

I had this dream some weeks ago, but "lottery dreams" are a big classic, so I HAD to write it down.

I had been working all day and I was really hungry, so I went to McDonald's. This is something I don't normally do in real life, but seems like my subconscience is asking me for more junk food. The floor was covered in banana peels, but apparently I wasn't impressed by that. When I was thinking what I should order, I became aware that I didn't have that much cash, and that I should try not to use the card. In real life, I normally don't carry that much cash with me to keep myself from spending money, so the dream was quite realistic about this. Just before I ordered, I had an internal dialogue with myself, that I also have everytime I go to McDonald's:

- Evil Me: Hey, Andrea! You've worked a lot! Why don't you get the big fries instead of small?

- Healthy Me: Oh, shut up, you! You're just trying to make me fat!

- Evil Me: Come on...there isn't that much difference between sizes, you're going to get fat anyway! But it's just one day; give yourself a little treat!

- Healthy Me: You're right, Evil Me! Big fries it is!

By this time you'll be wondering what the hell does this have to do with lottery, but we're getting closer. When I got to pay, the price that was shown on the screen was way much higher than I expected. I was also dreaming in danish kroner, instead of Euros, so that made the number even scarier. I didn't have enough cash, but Evil Me had been so persuasive that I chose to use the card. At the same moment I handled my card to Special Agent Dale Cooper, (if you're not familiar with Twin Peaks, what the hell have you been doing with your life?!?!); I had some vision that told me the total price would be the awarded number in the Christmas Lottery (which is the most popular in Spain). Then, I woke up.

Call it superstition, but my dad is already looking for that number. I'll tell you if I get lucky next month!

The Dinosaur Dream

So this is the dream that gives the name to my blog...I'm sorry about the lack of coherence but if I had any interest in being coherent I wouldn't have chosen to keep a dream journal. Here it goes!

I open the main door. The fat guy from Jurassic Park is there, next to the stairs and wearing a blue hawaiian shirt. He mumbles something, and I can see he's nervous but I don't pay much attention because I hated him in the movie. The fact that he is in my house, and that he somehow managed to enter doesn't seem to bother me either. 

Suddenly, a Tyranossaurus Rex appears, and I start running up the stairs, with the dinosaur trying to chase me. Obviously, my house is not big enough to handle a dinosaur trying to chase me up the stairs but this is a dream, so after a long chase, I reach the guest room. I hide in the wall (apparently there is a secret hole there) and wait for the dinosaur to enter the room, while hoping not to be seen. Surprisingly, the dinosaur is a smart ass, and he opens the "hole" in the wall, and gives me the biggest, most friendly smile a dinosaur could give. 

It always ends there, with the adorable dinosaur opening the hole. I have done some research and some say that dreaming with a dinosaur that is chasing you means there is some trouble you're running away from, or that there is something you fear. Could be, but everytime I dream with that dinosaur I wake up with a smile as big as his.