10/29/06 - Nightmare.

I just had the most terrible nightmare.

I dont remember much how it began but the whole thing had a bad feeling to it. At first I was in some sort of bus and there was strangeness going on all around me, I remember we were watching some sort of cartoon and it was a little anime girl with shortish orangish hair running around, and it was the last episode of the series and she was carrying a doll of herself around, brushing its hair and putting hats on it and things. there were kids in the bus watching the show with me and this group of twenty-something year olds, in cluding crystalia, this girl i met in maui and later hitched a ride to SF with from burning man.

I told the kids, I used to watch this show when I was 13. Honestly come to tink of it, I don't think the show actually exists. But it was some variation of Lain. the kids weren't good kids though, they were evil. and the people, they were doing terrible things in front of them, things that would be okay I guess if there weren't kids there, nudity but not innocent nudity, and lots of raunchy noise making and fucking. One couple, wearing shoes and socks while still nude, was trying to block the sight of the other couple that was fucking furiously on the couch in a way that's probably only okay if no one's watching. The whole thing was weird. The kids kind of had this curious look on their face like they knew that they shouldn't be seeing what they were seeing and I felt a little bad for them, even thought they were evil

One of the girls kind of grabbed crystalia who had been on my computer and said to me, 'they took something', meaning some kind of drug and dragged her into another room. The others followed suit and suddenly I was left alone. I went to my computer and this really garbled, bizarre music started playing on it, i kept looking for the mute button so i wouldn't wake up the crazy naked drug addicts and the evil children, but I couldn't recognize any of the keys on my keyboard, and the music was blaring and I felt quite panicked.

Finally I realized Crystalia had been on my computer nad placed some larger, 'other' layboard on top of my keyboard, and I finally moved it over and turned the music off. God, that music was so terrible.

Suddenly I am in some sort of store trying on hats.. I think an antique store or something like that. I try on some hats and they all look quite silly and old-fashioned, but then I see this beautiful sort of feather headress hat, it's simple with brown and purple and green feathers, a macaw feather, and a pointed front like the kind you're supposed to just pin to your hair for accent. I like it... it's like a small, elegant version of the hat I tried on at that hat party in downtown L.A. last time I was there.

I don't have a hatpin. I think about the word hatpin and think about how I am happy to use it, since it is not an often-used word. Even though I don't have one though, I want to see what it looks like on me so I look for a mirror, and I find one, a full-length one with a wooden frame, the old antique kind that swivels a little.

I place the hat on my head and hold it in place with my hand and turn the mirror toward me, and I look into the mirror... and it's not my face.

It's this other face. It looks old, and bitter, and wrinkly. It could be a white woman's face, her skin is sunken in and her eyes are small and lifeless. her mouth is pulled permanently into a frown from scowling. Her hair is a reddish brown, wiry and long and it hangs like a limp frizz on either side of the hat.

I am terrified because I know I'm looking at my reflection, and yet it's not me, with my chubby cheeks and my asian eyes, and my generally pleasant face. It's this woman, and she looks so old and like she's lived a very unhappy life. I touch my face... to my fingers it feels smooth but in the mirror her fingers are old and sort of sink into the doughy wrinkles of the woman's flesh. I look at the jagged curves of her nose, into her eyes, and at her mouth to try to figure out if she really is me. I look at her skin, it's the worst, all grey and leathery and ashen and full of unhappiness.

I know she is not me. I see how she could be, but I know she is not me and so I think to myself, she must be haunting the mirror. It is so terrifying to look into the mirror and not see yourself. I look into another mirror, a smaller wodden oval one. I want so badly to see my own, familiar, unintimidating face.

It's still her, though. I start to worry. Like my inside image of myself doesn't match my outside. It wasn't the mirror, because it was every mirror. And then I think: it's the hat.

I take it off my head and look at it, and I'm filled with this fear, because now I can feel it in the hat, I feel this woman's bitterness and hatefulness in it and it feels so terrible in my hands.

I put it down and walk away, filled with fear that that negative energy might transfer to me.

As I put it down though, my sweet mom picks it up and says, 'Oh, look at this!' and shows it to me. I tell her mom, please, put that down... it used to belong to a bitter, hateful woman and there's nothing but hurtfulness in it.

She's holding it and looking at it and then suddenly the feather hat pulls itself out of my mom's hands and bludgeons intself into me. It doesn't hurt, because it's made of feathers of course.... but it tries with all its might. It's flying, swooping through the air and just trying as hard as it can to beat the crap out of me.

I am not hurt by the hat, but disturbed by its intentions. My mom, brother and stepdad are all sitting together looking mildly amused by its antics. They think it's a little weird, I think it's outright terrifying- I mean c'mon, there's a possessed hat, and it has it out for me.

My mom says 'Look at that, what is it doing?' and I say 'Mom, it's trying to kill me any way it can'.

I finally grab a hold of it, and I figure, I should do something about this. So I hold it up in the air, and it's tugging at my hands, trying to get away so it can swoop at me and try and kill me with its feathers. It's pulling really hard but I have a firm grip on it, but there is a lot of tension in those feathers.

I don't know how to free a thing from its negativity. I don't know how to exorcise a thing... but then again, there are a lot of things I don't know, so I do what I always do, I get down on my knees, hold it as high up in the air, and I make something up.

"Oh god," I say really loud, because I don't know what else to say, "Please, free this spirit from all negativity, release it from its chains, and fill it with joy for this world and others." The tuggings subside slightly but then increase in intensity and I repeat myself,

"OH GOD!" I say, and loud; "Please, release this spirit from the shackles of this world, and fill it with the peace that it is longing for!" And here, I closed my eyes and sent it every ounce of positive feeling I had in me. I imagined it being peaceful, and the tugging really started to become less strong, and pretty soon it was just a feather hat. It became light, and then it became lighter, and soon it was glowing.

It was really quite beautiful. I smiled. "Oh god," I said, "Please, let this light flower and radiate through this spirit. Let it be happy."

And this luminescent thing, it starts to sprout this rich green thing, with a yellow and white flower coming out of it, it's a real beautiful thing.

But then it really starts to grow, and it starts to get heavy, and while at first it was kind of cool that the plant was growing so fast, now it's just creepy and it's really growing, I mean, and fast.

I'm holding it in my hands, but soon I have to place it down, and it tangles around my arms like a vine, soft, slightly grippy rope-like vine, and soon flowers are budding all over it. It's still quite beautiful, but it's lost its shine.

And then the thorns.

Real fast out of no where... the vines are wrapped tight around my arms and the thorns grow in so fast they grow right into my arms and I can see that it's happening and I can feel it, so I'm tearing away my arms and it's the tearing away that hurts the most, the skin tears and my arms bleed but I've got to do it, I can't have an evil plant growing through my body...

And then I realize this fucking spirit is really out to get me. I mean, fuck her. What did I ever do to her. My family is getting really fascinated with this plant. My mom is very sweet and loving, she reaches out to it saying 'awww, it's so pretty...'

And I'm trying to warn her as she lets it wrap around her arms, full of white and yellow buds and caressing my mom's soft arms and she looks at me and says 'What's the problem?'

And I'm looking at her arms and the damn plant is literally growing through her flesh, I see it going right through her arms and it's growing so quick but so gently that it doesn't even cause bleeding, it's just suddenly grown all throughout my sweet mom's arms. It's terrible. I don't know what to do.

My brother, he reaches for it but I warn him as best as I can, and he listens to me and hesitates and I say "Please Emil, don't touch that, it's so terribly hurtful" And he pulls away. I'm so relieved.

My stepdad sort of half listens and touches it with one hand. You know what happens to the hand.

So here I am and this fucking plant is just fucking shit up. I'm so frustrated... I tried to help it as best as it could, and all it wanted to do was hurt me... it was so bitter, maybe because I tried the hat on, maybe it was her favorite hat and I shouldn't have, but all of it was very unfair, and now my family was getting eaten by this thorny plant. I am terribly frustrated and perplexed as to how anything could be so unjustifiably hateful. And then I wake up....

....and it's only 8pm. Because I went to town yesterday and came home today around 3pm, cleaned my room, and laid down for a moment under the sheets because I felt cold and fell asleep without realizing it.

And it's 8pm and have this weird ass feeling, like I think I have weird nightmares every time I fall asleep in the afternoon and I always rememebr then rather vividly. And it's always clear to me what they mean. The brain is a funny thing.