Dream Journal Entry #6: Ancient Creatures and Piles of Alligators

After feeding the cats, feeding my sourdough starter, doing some yoga, and writing some emails, I've decided to attempt to remember the dream I had last night. There are only a couple of parts that I remember because, well, I waited too long to get to this piece.

Ordinarily, if I've spent a whole hour awake and haven't written a word on a dream, I wouldn't bother with it. This dream, however, had some really interesting, if not entirely absurd things in it.

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I was at a zoo. It wasn't entirely a zoo. It was also a theme park. Also, a venue for traveling choirs. This was a gigantic meeting ground.

I was in a small cabin, more like four walls of plywood. It was a small room: bigger than an outhouse, smaller than a typical bedroom. There were ropes hanging, sort of like at movie theaters but the ropes were thinner. I was standing with a whole bunch of people. Suddenly, a creature crawled through a hole on the west side of the building.

This creature wasn't anything that exists in reality. It might have been an extinct species. It looked like a cynodont, a strange mammalian creature that first appeared in the Late Permian. Its body was like that of a cynodont, expcept slightly more reptilian. It was a gray-beige color, the one often used for cynodont illustrations in children's books.

The creature's head was very flat and rectangular. Its body was very wide, like the size of an alligator. The creature ambled into the cabin, and I was pretty frightened of it. I stood on the rope to get some height away from the creature. Somehow the rope could support my weight, not necessarily well, but enough to give me some height. I was very worried this creature was going to attack me.

No one else was afraid. The other people took pictures of it. They were in awe. I had this horrible sinking suspicion that it wanted to attack and devour me. The other people chatted about it; they weren't really sure what it was. They thought it was amazing.

At some point, I left the cabin. I don't remember how. I walked around and there were alligators everywhere. They weren't threatening, they just existed. There were piles of them, all alive, just on top of each other. It wasn't gross. The place wasn't a swamp. This was like a meadow or paradise. I had no problem walking around the alligators. They had no problem with me. They waddled around in the grass. They were a dark green color.

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I was in the cabin again. I don't know how I got there. A high school crush of mine entered through the western side. He was wearing tourist clothes, a typical white t-shirt and khaki pants. He had something on his head, maybe a coconut. I took a picture of him; it was very forward of me, but I didn't think he would notice... even though he was a couple of feet away.

Then I had these strange dream memories. We were talking together by a waterfall. He was wearing a long black wig and a gray t-shirt. Then this all shifted.

I was at my brother's house. It was late at night. I wanted to go to sleep. He was working on piecing a family video together. I went to go sleep in the living room. I couldn't fall asleep. Other people went to go sleep in the living room. The snoring kept me awake. I was getting frustrated. I felt so tired; my body ached. I kept my frustrations to myelf, the best I could.

It felt like all our minds belonged together. Do family members communicate to each other in dreams?

I kept thinking about alligators. I wanted to go back to the zoo to explore it. I wanted to go to the four wall cabin. I felt like I was missing something.

My family was planning to go somewhere special the next day. Somewhere fun. I couldn't sleep. There were many rooms where people were sleeping. Family was together.

I tried to make a sleeping potion. It was red. I started counting all the people I could remember who deleted me off Facebook. There were a lot. I think knowing people want to delete me gives me anxiety. I never know where it is coming from. It could be anyone who suddenly dislikes you. You could be charismatic, kind, and people you've known for a long time, poof, abandon you. People you have shared memories with, real memories. They don't care. They don't care about the memories they shared with you. Wild.

The virtual life is real. The digital life isn't a fantasy. I think people forget that, and so they do whatever they want. They don't think there are consequences to their online actions.

My dreams are more of a fantasy. I get people deleting me who didn't know me very well, but what about the people I went to Kenya with? What about the people I went to orphanages, impoverished schools, people who went with me to hold children with HIV? I'm very lost on the people who claim they're philantrophic who delete me like I'm trash. It was a big deal to travel to the other side of the planet to be with people. It's not the Kenyans who delete me; they've stayed in touch. It's the team I went with.

I'd rather face mythicial cynodonts in dreams than deal with the social media bane day after day on repeat.