Dream 7 - the Beast

My nightmares are notoriously vivid. All my dreams are, but nightmares, since I wake up from them with my heart pounding, are tad bit more so.

I woke up this morning around 6am, and it took me a while to register where I am and what reality is.

Of course, this lazy butt is not going to leave the bed that early in the morning, so when I calmed down, I had to recite the dream to myself before I fell asleep again so I wouldn't forget it. You may think it's a silly thing to do, but it is crucial for me to remember. I know that being able to remember your dreams, and actually the habit of writing them down stimulates your creativity. I think it enables you to get in touch with the normally more dormant parts of your brain.

Just the other day I was an FBI agent in my dream. And again, I woke up early morning, and as of that moment I could remember every detail. My dreams are almost always like movies - they start with setting the tone, a plot is weaved, a climax, and a resolution and ending. Perfect plots. And this FBI dream was no different. But, alas, sleep deprivation got the best of me, and before I could make a mental note of my dream, I went back to sleep, and when I woke up several hours later, I could only remember a couple of moments from my awesome dream. Come on now, who gets to be an FBI agent, going through all that action in their dreams. It was totally awesome. I wish I could remember.

Anyhow, so that's why I had to recite this dream to myself. Luckily, I was so scared that it took me a while to fall back to sleep, and I used all that time to go over the details of an intricate nightmare.

So in my dream, a few people and I are at the bottom of some stairs. I believe who I am with is my family, because that's who they are later in the dream. We stand in front of an entrance to a facility, which is below ground level. It's almost like Resident Evil in that, there are people who were left there without help, with some sort of creature. They have been left there to deal with it, and they are left with no food or water. We are there to help.

As the door of the facility opens, I see a tall Asian woman in a whitish work shirt and a dark pencil skirt, standing in front of a large glass cubicle of sorts, holding a stick that has some kind of raw sausage at the tip of it. All the other "hostages" are inside that glass cubicle, in despair. I understand it is one of the rare safe places. The tall Asian woman, with a curt bob, and a lot of fear, is trying to lure the creature to show it to us. So we will know what to deal with. She sees the beast is coming, and she races to the door that we are standing in front of, and we close the door. Somehow I am responsible of locking the door, and I panic as my hands tremble while trying to turn the locks to secure the door. I can feel the fear growing inside me. Because somehow I know that, the beast can come through an unlocked door. Securing the locks feels like it's taking forever, and the beast can just run over the door any second. I manage though, and I also fasten the chain on the door.

The beast is right on the outside of the door now. Everybody takes a turn looking through the peephole to see what it is. We can almost hear it breathing heavily. The Asian lady, after a while, thinks it may be gone, and tries to open the door without removing the door chain. The beast happens to be still there, and all of us feel like we're about to die for a second until we can close and lock the door again. She says, "Did you see the teeth??" I imagine some sort of sabertooth in my mind, but when I look through the peephole, for the first time, I see that it's nothing like that. The creature is a giant dog-like beast, it has no fur and no skin. It's all flesh. And its teeth are like those of a crocodile.

Awesome. I get so scared that I totally quit at that point. I tell everyone that I am sorry but I am just too scared to fight this beast. I'll go. They say OK, they understand. I climb up the stairs. At the top, I see my father and an uncle of mine saying goodbye to me and my mother. My dad says it is not a good place for us to be in. We give in, sadly though because he is staying behind, and we are too damn scared.

Somehow we still end up within the facility though. The facility goes many stores below the ground level. At the top are offices, where two rows are connected with bridges. At the bottom of the facility is a parking structure. And in some level in between, there is a strip of small shops. Of course, after the beast has taken up the facility as its home, all these places are deserted now except the few of us. Everything is in ruins. Suddenly, my mother and I end up in one of these destructed stores, and the beast finds us. We put some obstacles in the open front of the store, and hide behind them, but he can still find us. We try escaping from the back door of the store, to a backyard, where we leap over a parked truck and over some high fences, hoping that the beast cannot follow us. Because, if he does, he can actually escape into the real world. Even if we fear for our life, we don't want to creature to escape from the facility, where at least it can be contained. Luckily, we make it out and the beast decides not to pursue us any more, maybe deciding not to leave his home.

Then somehow we end up at the bottom levels of the building, in the parking structure. Right where it descends into another level down. We see the beast running towards us, but in fear. In a second, we have to find a place to hide. It's a deserted parking structure, there is almost nothing to hide behind. We see the rails on one side, and we clench the bottom bar of the fence and hang ourselves down to the floor below, only our fists visible, hoping that the beast cannot see or sense us. Funny, 'coz I remember thinking, can't he smell us? But the beast runs down the parking structure in a hurry and does not notice us. A few seconds later we see what is chasing him down - my brother and a friend of his are in full gear on their motorcycles, and apparently the beast is frightened from the sound of the bikes. They are so powerful and strong on their bikes. My brother is all in orange, both the gear and the bike, and his friend is all in black. As they come to where we are, we hear them asking each other where the beast went off to. So we yell, from where we hang, that he went down the the floor beneath us. They follow the beast.

Only problem is, all this time, we feel that there is a second beast on the grounds. This darker beast follows after the bikes, all scared, but relieved that the bikes are not chasing him. He is maybe older, definitely more tired, and he decides to rest with his talons resting on the very bars we are hanging from. I pray that he won't notice us, since he doesn't seem to smell our presence. But soon he does see us, and he calls his fleshy buddy to feast on us. With great agility we spring back on our feet, and start running. For some lucky reason, they don't catch us, but they don't quit chasing either. It's a tiring and stressful pursuit. We jump over deserted parked cars and some equipment, trying to find a safe hiding place, or else a way to loose them. But they are right after us all the time.

At this point, I have a black out during the pursuit, because the next thing I remember is me running into a glass office space upstairs. There is nothing to use for hiding there either, but that's my only hope. So I hide next to some furniture, making myself as compactly folded as possible, and hope that they won't come in.

Again the dark haired beast finds its way in. It first does not recognize me, and by this time I am sure they cannot smell. I hope that if I stay completely still, he will not recognize me there, he will think I am just another furniture. For a while it works. The beast comes in, and even sits right on top of me as if I were a chair. But after a while I think he knows what I am, and starts to tease me. I pretend that I'm dead, not moving a limb, not even breathing, as the beast nudges me and unfolds me, showing to me that he knows I'm alive. I know it is not going to work for long, and I consider running for my life. By this time, the fleshy original beast has also arrived to devour my deliciousness. As I sprint for a run, I see help coming on my way through the glass walls, and I run as fast as I can from the glass office. They manage to close the doors after me without the beasts getting out, and I run until I hit the stairway, which has a heavy iron or steel door - a safe zone. As I run I see the beasts trying to trick the people into opening the doors (funny enough, here, the beasts start acting like guests in a hotel room and start asking for this and that as if those people were hotel staff - but I should be pretty close to waking up at this moment as all the remaining bits of logic is gone from my dream). They handle it though, but they don't lock the doors of the glass office room initially, and I can't believe it. I yell and ask why they don't lock the frikking doors and let the beasts starve to death in there. They say they will, and they do lock its doors as I go into the staircase to get out of there. I see more help coming on our way. I see this one guy in particular, all in perfect gear for any sort of fight, and I ask him what's going on. He says there are many small fires within the facility (that were caused by the beasts destroying this and that) and that they were trying to put them off as well as trying to avoid new ones from firing.

Seconds before I wake up, as I enter through the thick metal doors into the safe staircase, I tell him to be careful and say "Please don't die."

And that's it.

What a horrible dream! Who says "Please don't die." in their dreams? Seriously!!

It was so damn vivid, I had to write it down.

On the bright side, I might make a good scriptwriter for cheap ass SciFi movies.

Today, for the first time in an unfortunately long time, I woke up to a lot of things to do, but it didn't bring me down.

For the first time, without a reason, I woke up embracing responsibilities, and they didn't bother me.

I woke up without needing more sleep. I didn't linger in the bed to savor the last minutes of the support my bed gives to my restless back.

Instead, I woke up with energy and a plan on how I will get through the day.

It is a very welcome change.

Panic attacks

This is a recurring feeling I have been having since when I was very young. Whenever I felt anxious, and a bit guilty, scared of what's to come because of my actions... a feeling of getting caught, facing the bad outcome.

Some sort of panic attack. It comes in the form of uncontrollable, body trembling, heavy and incredibly slow heart beats. It feels so slow and so strong that each pulse, originating from right there in the midst of your chest, moves all your upper body, including your arms, and nauseates you. Fills in your brain so you can't just count back from 10 to relax. Takes you hours to feel normal. I remember counting till high hundreds without noticing, nothing changing. It is notorious to happen just after you wake up and just before you go to bed. Sometimes it is so nauseating that you have to buckle down. Your brain races from thought to thought, restless, in fear, dreading whatever it is that makes you pinned down to the bed, your chest jumping up and down.

Times like these, a vision appears before my eyes. It is the hopeful vision of a big nail, or a pin, so big that it can cover your fist. I see it going through my chest, moving through my back, with its head squishing my heart into the back of my ribcage. This vision is a vision of hope, because it is the only way I feel will end this torture and leave me to rest in peace.

One more for the wish list

Adulthood means now I have to be more responsible about everything. I am in love with this beauty. However, I am going to act like a logical person and not buy it. Instead, I am going to act like a boring adult and think of my credit card balances and my tuition.

2009 Honda CRF 230M

Being an adult sucks in many levels and this is one of them.

On relationships - part II

Yeah so once again I am fooled.
I am 27. I have had many serious and not-so-serious relationships. I have lived with a boyfriend, I have done long-distance. I have been on both sides of the bridge of love, interest and power. I have been cheated on. Never cheated. I have compromised, I forgave. I trusted, I got jealous, and I doubted. Needless to say, I have had my fair share of the side affects of the affairs of the heart.

I have been pretty content with my life in the past year. I have my down sides but I like who I am. I am stubborn at times, and maybe a bit too straight forward. But I am also warm, welcoming, kind, strong, educated, intelligent, social and good-natured. I love the place I work at, and I am very very lucky to have a great boss. I love the city I live in. After having moved from place to place in my youth, I finally feel I belong somewhere, by myself, not because of "someone".

Many of my friends have ongoing relationships. I can't say most are healthy, but I am not sure how realistic it is to expect otherwise in real life anyway. A growing percentage of them are married. Very happily. I got used to going out with married couples a long time ago. A bit too early maybe. I spent my twenties trapped in a relationship that did not move an inch in 3 years, with a guy 7 years older than me, who  loved bragging about him being older. I regret a lot of things from that relationship but one big regret is that I feel I wasted my mid twenties with this "older" attitude instead of mingling with other young people in their twenties. You know, do all the things they do, get immature every once in a while, be out day and night, and enjoy the awesomeness of being in twenties. Regardless... I have had my own experiences, and learnt a lot, and matured a bit too soon than I would have liked. My friends started having kids, and at 27, I am getting used to be an aunt. Going out with married couples is nothing different, but when people expect or have babies, your social life changes dramatically. No more meet ups spontaneously, no more drinks outside, no more late nights, no more girl nights.

People leave your life one by one. There can be no one to count on. Friends are friends. In my culture, friends do a lot for each other. In US, they are VERY hard to find. And this is not necessarily from my own experience, I have observed this in lives of many young people. The weird thing is, no one seems to mind it. It is default here, you being by yourself.

So anyhow, the point I am trying to make, among all this nonsense, is that I have been through stuff and I am not a newbie. I have lived and observed many levels of relationships.

But at 27, having accomplished so much, my education, my job, moving to a city much like NYC, then to a whole another country all by myself, I still get fooled when it comes to the affairs of the heart.

I have embraced my singlehood a bit too much recently. I have not dated for a long time, was not even interested. My attention was on having fun, discovering new hobbies, and working hard. After some point I started dating, enjoying every bit of it. After considering marriage for 3 years to a guy that I would "settle for", I found out I was claustrophobic to the idea of a well-woven relationship. You know, the kind that in the second week you can't do anything without the other one's knowledge or indirect permission. Which has been a strange but wonderful self-discovery.

Then, at one point, you get fooled again.
Someone you know, who was totally not in your radar, asks you out for drinks, which, you know, nonverbally, ends up becoming a date. You have an awesome time. For a short while it looks like you guys are at the initial phase of dating, trying to keep an adult distance. You are kind of relieved yourself, since you don't want to rush into a relationship yourself. You just want to keep seeing each other, you know, get together,  sometimes very spontaneously,  do things together but totally spare each other the lives of each other. You don't want to mingle in each other's circle, you just want to have a good time now and then, and share sometimes shy, sometimes romantic, sometimes not-so-romantic texts and phone calls in between.

Isn't that what happens, normally? Isn't that a common thing to expect?

Apparently not. When I realized that things were moving a bit too slow even for my new found fear of relationships, I had to call it quits before I was emotionally involved. Ok I take that back I was emotionally involved a bit already. I liked him. If it was left to me, I would have moved forward a bit more, learnt more about each other a bit before I had to make a decision about a relationship. But, when someone says they don't want a relationship, it's never a "maybe". I've learnt that. I have used that excuse myself. It is never the complete explanation either. For every "I don't want a relationship", there is a "with you", hidden, unsaid, right after.

I guess all these years' of experience didn't go wasted totally. I can actually now realize a bad date on the second date, and confront it on the third. Old Jada would have stayed in, pretending not to notice anything, and tried to play along hoping that it would somehow work out at the end.

'Coz even if he was hurt by a previous relationship, even if his lines of trust receded, even if he feared.. When you like a person, when you like being with a person, every interaction makes you smile, every text/message/email rushes the blood in your veins.. You may act more cautious than normal, but those butterflies.. they will be there. And it will show. And lack of it will show too.

It is amazing how you start questioning yourself with such a small defeat of heart. Not that it hurt you deeply. It barely scratched the surface. But like a paper cut, it hurt unexpectedly.

Another issue I still have problems dealing with is the fact that men of our age almost always have baggages, and frankly, I am sick of it. I had to deal with prior girlfriends, unnamed friendships, ex-wives, the women that screwed them, whoever it is. You always want to be mature and give people space and respect to prior relationships. Interestingly, I have never seen this mature attitude pay off. In fact I believe it backfires since this is the third time I had to hear how much they liked their previous lady. I mean, come on. Serious or not, this is the last thing a girl wants to hear from you. To sum it all, I learnt very well, when you start anything with baggage, it never moves an inch.

It is funny how guys tend to obsess about the prick of a woman who screws them over. I suppose we women do that too. It is a fault of humanity. It gives a bad name for the rest of us, regardless of gender. Maybe it does really scare some people from any form of commitment when they get screwed over, but I highly doubt that. We humans are not built like that. We are built to hope (unfortunately), remember what was good and forget what was bad, and we are built to look for better things in every step we take next. I honestly believe, such affects of previous relationships only hold because those people have not moved on emotionally from those relationships.

I am done with people with baggages. Of all people, I, the rare person who never wanted to change anybody, know it very well that you cannot take a person and make him/her the lover of your dreams. I am very much in support of accepting and enjoying the differences. But baggages, man... I still don't know how to deal with. So far my verdict is something along the lines of "Do not ever date a guy with emotional baggage."

I also hate dealing with people who don't know what they want. 

This may sound very girly or needy, but it absolutely is not. I do not mean what you want in future. I mean, what you want NOW. Do you even know why you do what you are doing and why you are enjoying it? Are you self-aware when you are with me? You have to know what makes you feel good. You have to know what you want.

So. Got fooled once again. I don't think it was ill-intended, but it did hurt. And I know it was not ill-intended, at least that much I can tell, because I know that it would be easier to blame the other person than accepting the truth that he just did not feel for me. There is nothing you can do about that, you know, when someone just doesn't like you the way you'd like. Didn't you ever experience the same thing? How many times a truly nice person liked you and you just felt - nothing? So there. It happens. Both ways. It will not change anything to blame the other person, although it would have been more convenient.

This all makes me appreciate this other guy that I liked in the past. He had told me, as frank as he could be, that he was not interested in me. It was not easy to accept either, but that way I never got invested in it to begin with.

No matter how mature, strong, sensible we aim to be, sometimes rejection scars. Feeling of not being wanted is never easy to take. All we can do is to move on.

I don't know how these things work anymore. Either I am really old, or I am very young to understand all this. Maybe I should go back home, where at least I understand the culture. I might not agree, but at least I understand. I know where people are coming from, I understand how they act. Here, I don't understand anything. Everything is foreign to me. And as free and myself as I am, as strong as I am, people still take advantage of me. Not necessarily with bad intentions, but the culture is so individualistic... I don't know what to expect. I never do. It is hard to go on with no clues as to what's happening. I once said expectations are the worst. They make you delusional. It is very true. And even if you fight not to have expectations, if it is in you, there's not much you can do about it, they build up without letting you know. And when I say this it sounds scary. It's not high expectations. But even when your lowest, bottom most expectations are not met... Then you take a step back and think again. What went wrong? Why am I doing this to myself again? In fact, I did nothing wrong. I lived it the way I wanted to and the way many others enjoyed me doing so, while joining me in the joy as well as expectations. Most people want more of me in their lives. If that's not what you want... I don't think there's much I can do about it. I am done with people with baggages. People who are uncertain of anything. I am not cut out for this. I so am not. Maybe, after all,  being away from my own culture was not the best thing, maybe, the american way of friendship and affairs of the heart, does not work here the way I am used to and am able to accept.

Maybe it is time to go.