h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How useless of him!

Last night I had an epic, scenic dream. I was flying over the Caucasus mountains (and I didn't even have a plane). At first the mountains were low, rolling hills ... I had expected they'd be bigger. They were sparsely covered in pine trees, grass and shrubs. But then as I flew further they became bigger, much bigger! They were covered in snow, and then I found myself falling or skiing down the slopes.

Been having difficulty remembering my dreams. But last night I dreamt a bunch of stuff. My father was alive again. [Another dream theme: my father miraculously lives again; in the dreams he clearly did die, but then somehow came to life again.] I remember I was swimming with him in a bathtub; it started out the size of an ordinary bath but then became very much bigger. But then my dad got sick again. He became like a little boy; at a point he was riding on the security gate while I opened and closed the gate ... I did not know what to do, I had to keep the gate moving in between the open and closed position because if the gate either moved to the fully closed or the fully opened positions, my dad's fingers would get squashed because of the way he was holding on to the gate. So I had to keep the gate in motion until he got off but he enjoyed the ride so much he wouldn't get off!

He must have got off some time. Later I saw him working on the machinery of the gate; then he was certainly a lot more 'adult'. I was hoping he was getting better.

Then he (or maybe someone else?) was singing like the rock star Sting. Maybe it was a video. He then realized he had telekinetic powers with which he could blast opponents away. (I think this was influenced by the movie Dune in which Sting acted and in which there was a powerful sound-activated weapon.)

Then I dreamt of Dumbo as an adult elephant; he had a long trunk but also a funny 'nose' higher up on his trunk, in front of his forehead.

Last night I was at university again. Oh, at first I was in school and managed to get 98% average in my last year, and then on to university! Edmund Hillary was my math professor, but never turned up. I had a shelter in a hole in the floor on one of the floors. I stayed at uni over the holiday along with one girl. My mom made me a map showing the useful places to visit and the most convenient routes to them. It was an interactive map; I remember a convoluted red line actually changing to show a change in the viability of a route.

The biology exam was coming up, and strangely for my dreams, I actually had a textbook and could study for it, and felt good about my chances. But in the other subjects things were not like this; the profs never showed up to teach class and nothing happened. Typical for my school and uni dreams ... and sad to say this had a basis in reality. In high school my music teacher often did not show up for my one-on-one classes. In university second year the physics prof sometimes didn't show up if I remember right.

Last night's dreams were incredibly epic but I can remember so little about them! Only ... at one part I was on Mars. Not the real Mars, but dream Mars of course, and it was full of life. There were two different kinds of giant flyers. The first had bat-like wings but broader and they flew in great flocks. They swooped and made wonderful aerobatic moves. At one point they were 'intermeshing', two different flocks flying 'through' each other though of course the individual flyers flew past each other, but it for a moment would look as if they would collide with each other. It was a bit like that huge flock of starlings in the video Elektra posted here. The maneuvering of these giant creatures was spectacular. They were reddish and somewhat reptilian in appearance, but not like pterodactyls, they had short, squat bodies and huge heads, a bit like frogs or toads.

The other kind of giant flyer was a bit like my flying, feathered snakes that featured in the Uzinogg painting. In fact I was a bit disappointed in my dream because I thought that my flying snake idea wasn't original, since here there were others! But they were not very snake like, they were shorter and broader in body, sort of like the giant invertebrate Arthropleura:

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/15/largest_landdwelling_bug_of_al/

They flew by undulating their bodies and flapping the feathers/wings/scales at ther sides. They were bluish in colour and ridiculously huge.

Maybe I should try a drawing of these ...

Aha. Life on Mars.

I only wish there was such spectacular life somewhere out there ...

Last night: I was visiting a friend (also deceased now). He was helping me; he left something for me under the pillow in my bedroom. While I was there I got a cheque for about R176 000 (a good deal of money even in our currency) for my story! I didn't even remember submitting it to a publisher, I was very excited and happy. My mom and dad arrived then, and I was crying.

My uncle Willie was also in this dream. He had problems with his blood, and asked that I should help, maybe by looking up medical information.

Can't remember much of my dreams of last night and that before.

There was a dream in which we moved to a new place; my prime concern was whether there was a place for me to exercise; there turned out to be a gym right inside the complex we moved to, and the facilities were great (a contrast to most of my dreams about exercise, where I can't find the things I need ...) so I did a bunch of one-armed chinups (I can't do them in real life ... yet!).

In last night's dream I dreamt of a garden, and wonderful interesting plants. There were a bunch of different plants that grew together and all sent up shoots that intertwined, some of which were flowering.

I also dreamt about climbing trees with my nephew Christiaan.

Those sound like pleasant dreams.

Hi Willem

Still really enjoying your dreams and

Just a snippet of mine from last night, Mick Jagger was in my bathroom with two ladies, with the door open, I averted my eyes as soon as I realised but still got an eyefull

(although to be fair my bathroom is so small with three people in it you may have to keep the door open )

and that sounded worse than I meant now I have thought about it how it might read, it wasn't an very explicit scene or anything, just some nudity involved

I think what amuses me more than anything is that I have celebs just tipping up in my dreams for reasons that are unfathomable to me, Jamie Oliver in Afghanistan, Mick in my bathroom, once I spent a weekend in Monaco with Laurence Llewelyn Bowen, (perfectly innocent I may add)

Hi folks! Well Peanut I sometimes dream things I censor out of the reports here. I do also dream of celebs ... if you check some of my earlier dreams here you'll see me name-dropping.

Can't remember last night but had a nap this afternoon during which I dreamt the internet recognized me as being crazy and took down lots of my art and postings in various sites.

Gee, y'all have exciting dreams.

I ate too much blue cheese, so I had really weird dreams last night. One involved a Hispanic priest named Emiliano, and my attempt to keep Buffy-style vampires out of a public building.

One young woman in a t-shirt was giving me a hard time. I knew she wanted to let the vampires in. I yelled at her, 'You think you can pull this stuff on me, but I'm not Catholic! I was raised Baptist, so there!'

Ha ha, great blue-cheese-inspired dreaming there Dmitri!

Last night I can't remember so much of. There were people who wanted to hold a party here at my house. Someone commented on two guarri trees in my garden; I said they were the biggest and best-looking guarris I knew of.

Real-life subtext: I do have a large and handsome guarri tree in my back garden and it is indeed one of the most impressive specimens I've seen, perhaps the best one in all of Polokwane. There were never two ... next to it there used to be a Spike-thorn tree, also quite handsome, but it died many years ago; now we have a lot of baby spike thorns, perhaps its progeny.

Maybe they were trying to promise you they'd grow up.

Maybe Dmitri! I wish my real trees would grow like my dream trees do.

Last night: it was a Dark City like scenario... time was being frozen, Clint Eastwood starred in it, and there were baobabs planted at my old high school. Can't remember more. Then I did a dream workout, but had great trouble getting the dumbbells up, just couldn't balance them! Some dream workouts go great, others not.

I missed a couple of nights but last night made up for them.

I was walking up and down the streets of my suburb. I was checking out the plants in people's gardens. I came across a person who was in his home and we spoke about the problems of this country. He produced a Bible and a piece of text, I think it was one of the psalms, and he asked me to interpret it and say what I thought God's message was for our country (or perhaps our entire global society).

Then a drunk girl interrupted. She and some more drunk friends were loitering at the side of the house. She seemed very interested in me.

Then I went to dream gym again. Bob Paris (successful bodybuilder of the eighties and early nineties) was there and asked me about something he'd left behind in the gym.

My parents phoned at some point because I'd been away from home for so long. I explained that there was a great amount of stuff I had to do.

There was also a dream of chameleons in the garden! Mostly in a spike-thorn tree (the large one doesn't exist in real life any more). They were small and numerous. I tried to take a photo of one. There was a particularluy intriguing one that had a long horn on the tip of its nose. No such chameleons occur in South Africa so I thought it might be a new species.

Done better last night. The last dream I remember best. There were living stone plants (Lithops) growing on the back porch. As in ... the porch had a thick layer of dirt on it in which the plants were growing. Also because of the roof that part had not received any water from the rains for years, and yet I found lots of lithops thriving there! I dug into the dirt and found lots of buried specimens which I removed and planted 'properly'. That these plants were thriving without receiving rain in the dream proved that my dad was right and I should water them less ... in the dream I decided to water them just once or twice a year.


Other plants of mine were not doing so well, but rotting in their bags.

But there were also branches of a Carrot Tree (this is a real thing) that I had pruned and they were looking healthy, so I planted them in the ground. This would probably be a valid way of propagating this species. Later in the dream they were growing well.

My dream garden was again bigger than my real one. There was a large pond at a low level of the garden. This was a dream analogue of either the swimming pool or a frog pool I used to have. The swimming pool is a shallow pond IRL now. Beside the pool (real life) a Monkey Orange tree grows; in the dream I was dismayed to find the lower section of the trunk stripped of its bark, probably by some dream animal. But I hoped the tree would still make it. It has very thick, corky bark.

In another dream my mother went to a show with a friend of mine. I was supposed to sing at the show. There was a girl who helpfully marked out my parts on the programme so I would know what to do when.

Last night's dreaming was epic. So, I was at a show where I was to sing, my parents were in the audience. And then before I got on the Apocalypse happened. And not just any old apocalypse ... it was an Islamic/Elf/Alien apocalypse! So anyways the Muslims/Elves/Aliens completely conquered the world ... I never saw my parents again ... they had everyone working in giant factories and then the Earth totally ran out of resources. The End.

Wow. Whatever you ate before bed, DO NOT eat it again.

I would hate to be faced with an Islamic/Elf/Alien apocalypse.

Now, mind you, I was grateful for no weird dreams last night. We made the mistake of trying to watch a 'Christian' movie. Nasty thing. I'm glad no apocalypse materialised.

Heh heh it's going to be hard not to eat that again since I pretty much eat the same dinner every day, with only minor variations! Anyways to make clear I have nothing against Muslims, or Elves, or Aliens ... they were just in the dream the agents that helped bring the present cosmic dispensation to an end.

Anyways last night's dreams were epic again. Can only remember one detail: it was sort of a Roman-ish Empire and at some point some people messed up so there was a Tribunal sent to investigate and judge them.

This was what 'Tribunal' meant in that dream: a gigantic worm like the ones in Dune, but worse, and it had three horrible spiky, probing spears coming from its mouth. Imagine the kind of judgement if would visit on whomever it is sicced on! In the dream I didn't stay around to find out.