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

Hello Cactuscafé and Amy! I wish I could actually make that book of all the kinds of chameleon in the world. I actually *want* to illustrate every living species! I'll have to live many thousands of years ... but I'm trying to figure out how to do that!

Amy, I see paulh around but don't know him well. At any rate I've checked out some of his dreams in his journal! I actually think I'm not doing too badly with the remembering ... practice might bring improvement.

Last night I dreamt of getting myself some food in a supermarket. I actually dream that kind of thing a lot. In this dream something strange happened though. Down an isle people unrolled something like a long red carpet but it was also a kind of food. Nobody was supposed to damage it, but I managed to slice off a piece and hide it until I got it to my room where I used it as a rug.

The other dream I can remember was of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, and I was in it. Of course the movie was not being filmed, it *happened*, dream-style. The part I remember was where we were in a tall scyscraper. Inside there were no floors, just beams and girders and a vast sheer drop ... I was high up. I remember locking my shoes onto the vertical glass surface and then letting my body drop backward, which induced vertigo which I soon overcame,though. In a later 'scene' I remember folks coming running down from higher up ... this time there were stairways, they were very scared and many were bleeding. Then there was a single guy slowly coming down, in contrast to the others who were running. He was carrying a dead man in his arms, and as he passed me he just said one word, 'Grieve'.

That's all I can remember about the 'movie'. Buffy never even appeared.

I can only remember the barest rudiments of last night's dreams.

The first was my gardener having cut off all the shoots emerging from my Adenia spinosa plants. This didn't bother me because they will make new shoots. So far I haven't done this ... I haven't pruned back living shoots ... but I've always wondered what would happen if I did? Maybe the plant will sprout *more* shoots than it normally does. At any rate this year I'll see about some plants that have been pruned back like that ... I had to prune some other Adenias rather vigorously to be able to move them from where they were growing, and my neighbours pruned an Ipomoea albivenia plant that is growing outside the gates.

The second dream was about a black cat with LOTS of black kittens. It was strange because they were different sizes and ages, and all black, and there were way too many of them.

I also dreamt of LEGO sets. I do this a lot. I can't remember the details of the dream, but my LEGO set dreams usually go like this:

First I find a shop where 'old style' Lego sets are still sold. The kind where you got lots of basic pieces, with which you could build many different objects. The modern-style sets usually have many specialized pieces rather than basic ones, and are made for building just one or a few very specific objects.

Anyways ... the next bit of the dream then features me finding some of the actual old sets I would have wanted to have when I was eight, nine or ten years old. Those were in the shops back then but too expensive, and I still remember them and still would love to have them.

So then in the dream I have these wonderful old sets I'd missed out on back in the day. And they would turn out to be very affordable!

And then I'd find out (in the dream) that they are not the real sets after all ... typically they would be incomplete, having only a few pieces, so the wonderful things I dreamt I might build, would not be possible after all.

I gotta make more detailed notes immediately after waking up! Only dream I can make sense of is one where I visited a 'kitten museum'. Actually the cats and kittens were alive but stayed in place in their displays of their own apparently free will. There were lots and lots of beautiful kitties. There were also other objects on display but the only thing I can remember now is a photo of vineyards ... the grape vines were so huge they surprised my sister who was with me, and I explained that grape vines could grow as big and thick as trees.

There was another dream about a friend visiting me, someone I hadn'd seen since our last high school reunion. I can't remember anything that happened at the meeting, though. And I'm sure there were at least two other dreams as well.

Dreamt lots last night.

There was one in which a girl insisted that the right name for those fun monkeys I wrote about recently is 'babbo's' rather than 'baboons'.

Then I was in a library. I was looking for a dictionary (perhaps to refute the above) and found a very thick one that unfortunately had a damaged, weak spine. But I got another book called 'Amphibolia' which was filled with imprecise terms. 'Amphibole' is actually a kind of mineral so the name was indeed imprecise.

Then I was preparing a salad ... and then spillt it on the ground while walking down a hall (I was back in University) and was embarassed because right then a bunch of girls were walking by.

Then an elderly lady that I know stopped to drive anywhere, including to church; she'd apparently hit a Korean boy with her car.

Then there was a flowerbed with large lovely flowers but also on the soil between them there were lots of large lovely coins! The people were using the flowerbed as they do those lucky fountains folks throw coins into.

Then I remember reading some very personal and specific written pieces about myself in my sister's diary. I wondered why she hadn't ever discussed that stuff with *me* since we're corresponding daily?

Then there was a computer game that was like a colouring book ... characters and other elements in the game had to be coloured in. I remember one scene that needed lots of orange. In the same game there was also a scene where a car ate my toes!

Then I dreamt I was at home and had to shower behind the curtain in the dining room, and was afraid people would come in and see me.

I also dreamt of training with weights again ... usually in this kind of dreams I can never find the right equipment. I either don't have the right benches, or the right racks, or the right weights, and often have to improvise such as loading the bar with books and magazines. This time the equipment was there, and I did some bench presses, using just 55 or 60 kg, which for me is quite light. But hey, I at least got in a bit of exercise in spite of being asleep!

Heck, last night's dreams are again a blur. I remember a scene with an old friend from University. He returned from a field trip with crooked teeth. Apparently it had been hailing (your guess is as good as mine ...) I asked him to help me install a new operating system in my computer.

There was also a dream where I was exploring some hills. Another common dream theme. This time it was 'indirectly' though ... don't know quite how to put it. I wasn't actually there but saw low-detail images of the hills. Not nearly as satisfactory as exploring them for real ... which I do get to do in dreams and occasionally in real life as well.

I'm still reading this dream journal, Willem. Thankyou! I am gaining inspiration from the mind and the dreams of you, Mr.GeniusDreamerJnr11X. That's my name for you, which I thought of just this minute. Don't worry, it will pass. I will go away soon. .

I had to add the Jnr11X, because every time I come up with what I think is an original title or name, it turns out to be the name of a computer game, or a band, or a science fiction book or something.

Perhaps I will just call you Willem. Or WillemGeniusDreamerJnr11X.

OK OK I go. .

Thanks, anyway, for the continuing good read. I appreciate it!

cc

Hello Cactuscafé, thanks for still reading and please be patient with me! I am dreaming some truly epic stuff but *remembering* it afterward is the big trick I'm still trying to master. It is especially difficult if I'm woken by my cat insistently mewing and I have to figure out what she wants, or if I have to get up and open the gate for my employees. But I'm trying and I hope to get better.

Last night I again dreamt many dreams I can't remember. Wat I managed to note down: I went shopping with a friend. We did not use a trolley but stuffed everything into big bags. I remember I kept going through the contents of the bags over and over trying to make sure we'd paid for everything.

Then there was a dream where I was in a bookshop. I found a beautifully illustrated story book, written and illustrated by a young kid. I had the impression that it had been extremely recently created - perhaps the previous night, and it wasn't printed, it was personally written and illustrated by the author's own hand.

Another illustrated book! That's amazing! It's like the chameleons book.

If I didn't know you, I would say that .. that .. you are an incredible artist, and that you might one day write and illustrate your own books. haha. As if you haven't already.

My brother used to compose the scores for musicals in his dreams, . If he could have only remembered them, and written them down when he woke ...

...but perhaps sometimes the spirits of the things we dream about prefer the sanctuary of dream shadows. Hmm, that's an interesting thought which just came to me. Perhaps the light of the everyday world is somtimes too dazzling for them. They would get caught in the glare. Perhaps we aren't supposed to remember everything?

I wonder ...

You do make me think, Mister.

Hello Cactuscafe! Interesting things you're thinking there. Why *do* we forget our dreams so easily? I often get the impression the dream world is a different universe only very tenuously connected with ours ...

I neglected this journal a bit over the past days because of the hassle of trying to get my computer monitor fixed. But I have been keeping notes ... just don't know *when* the specific dreams happened. So for the past few days ...

I dreamt the authors of The Bible had given some old Babylonian/Assyrian rulers forgettable names on purpose.

I again dreamt I was exercising. This time I was easily doing planches (a very hard gymnastic move - for non-gymnasts at any rate). My father was there and was impressed. Then I did some handstand push-ups ... having difficulty with them. But I said to my father they're great because one can't cheat on them. That's what I said but it wasn't true ... I actually was cheating because I leaned with my feet against a closet instead of doing them 'free'.

I dreamt of a computer named the 'Acorn' that ran at a 4.5 MHz speed ... what's remarkable about this is that it was advertised in a newspaper that was published in the Boer Republics (i.e. the 19th Century). I felt sad about the technology having regressed so much due to the Boer Wars.

I dreamt I got caught eating sweets in a shop. I was so hungry I ate the wrappers as well. The cashier caught me and said 'God did not promise that sweet to you!' I was willing to pay but had no money ... I looked for my preacher friend to see if he would lend me some, but he was in a different store.

I dreamt I was in a store, and found an old book with beautiful illustrations of birds' skulls. It cost R205 (about $20). I really wanted to buy it but didn't have enough money.

A girl working in the store saw me and approached me. She was very enigmatic. She wanted to recruit me for some kind of secret spy job!

I dreamt of a friend of mine; we saw a girl with a motor bike. We tried speaking with her but she ignored us. My friend jumped on her bike, she roughly pulled him off, jumped onto the bike herself and rode away. I thought I might be able to achieve something with her.

I dreamt my cat Poplap was snow white below! She's striped black and grey above and does have white on her throat and belly, but in the dream, if she lifted her head she appeared all-white.

I once again dreamt of 'non-canon' Tintin books. This one was a very exciting adventure - of course I can remember nothing of it.

I dreamt of Dmitri and a warrior cats website ... don't have a clue what that was about really.

Dreamt I visited the USA. The visit was much too short! I did drive around in nature reserves a bit but there were many people I wanted to visit which I never did.

I *think* I did see a beautiful girl I know from my school days there ... she had her birthday just a couple of days ago (in real life) actually so maybe that's why I was thinking of her.

I dreamt I was trying to photograph a lovely flowering plant. I just couldn't properly focus on it!

What a collection.

I apologise for the warrior cats. I always feel vaguely guilty about appearing in other peoples' dreams.

Heh heh I do dream of people I know from the 'net from time to time. A bit strange ... if I don't know what they look like IRL, I usually don't ever see their faces in the dream.

The two past nights' dreams:

All I can remember of the night before last is again trying to exercise. Again I was trying to do bench presses and had to contend with bars that were much too short, and weight plates that didn't match. There were very thin plastic weights that looked like transparent CD's that must have weighed very little, but I put even those on just to get something on the bar. I eventually managed to do a few reps, and there were kids who were mocking my efforts. But they were not able to do what I did, even though they'd been training for 17 years! They must have started soon after being born ...

Last night I dreamt a lot. I was at University again! This time the experience was positive. I was taking ... I think ... three subjects: physics, mathematics, and English. In this dream I expected to easily pass all of them, and was really excited about the idea of finally getting my degree. Again a theme cropped up in this dream: completely absent lecturers. Some of the courses ... I'm sure the English ones, at least ... had no classes at all, no study materials, no idea what would be in the exams. Typically this would be a nightmare, but this time in spite of the total lack of preparation both on the part of the University and the lecturers, and on my own part, I was feeling positive about my prospects. But still there's something about under-preparedness that scares the daylights out of me. This is based in real life where I had teachers who often did not show up to teach the classes. In the dreams this gets exaggerated to the point where not a single actual class happens in an entire year of school or University 'studies'. I dream a lot of science classes where nothing ever happens. It's a rather horrible thing about those responsible for teaching shirk their work. And I also feel awful about not studying, even if I have no clue what I am supposed to study.

Oh, that's what IRL means .. . I am always seeing IRL. I thought it was a complicated computer technical term. I only just figured it .. doh... in real life!!! .

I get nervous too when I feature in peoples' dreams, especially if they haven't ever seen me. In my case, (because I am internet shy and don't know very many people online),it will tend to be if they haven't seen me for years and years, or maybe they have just heard about me from a distant relative.

Will I be portrayed with antlers? , or will I represented as that kid they shared a flat with, who ate spaghetti-in-tomato-sauce, out of the can, in the middle of the night, but in the dream it might be macaroni cheese. What?? I think I will shut up now. .

I'm with CC on this one. Another h2g2er once claimed she had a dream about me, and I was 'like an uncle'.

I think I had a dream about Willem once - a very friendly person. I remember a huge smile...people in my dreams are more like presences. Maybe our unconscious is merely giving familiar names to ideas it associates with significant people?

Hi Cactuscafe and Dmitri. In my dreams people are often also more like presences. Visually they needn't even appear human. They often morph into animals or other things during the course of a dream without losing their identity. They can even have more than one physical incarnation at the same time.

I am a friendly person in real life and I do smile a lot.

OK, now for the last two night's dreams. Night before last I can't remember much. I do remember there was Hugh Grant playing Oscar Wilde. He was either in jail or at some kind of school, commenting on ... I don't know what. He was of course making lots of witty comments ...

Then I again dreamt of exercising, doing deadlifts this time. Typical of dream deadlifts, I had difficulty straightening my head at the top. This is actually the easy part of real deadlifts. But I think my IRL proprioception is influencing the dream because in bed I'm usually lying on my side with bent legs. So because of the 'dream paralysis' factor, I cannot actually straighten my legs, and this makes dream exercise very hard and awkward (sometimes ... not always).

Last night:

I dreamt of a girl I know, a preacher's daughter. She was giving a speech to a crowd. She was telling a long and complicated story and towards the end lost the thread, the moral, the punchline or whatever and the story petered out. Then she apologised and said that she was not prepared because actually she wanted her dietician to speak to us, but she didn't show up.

Next there was a show ... a theatre drama or a movie ... I sat in the audience beside a guy, he remarked that I always end up sitting next to him in church. This wasn't church though, and the guy was smoking and his smoke bothered me so much I got up and left before the play/movie was over.

In the parking lot I met some friends, wonderful RL friends, a German lady and her husband. Then I remembered I had left something ... in the theatre lobby or something. It was something very small and delicate ... a Lego set maybe? It was hard to see on the carpet but I did manage to pick it up. Then back to the parking lot, and there I heard hooting! I was sure it was a Giant Eagle Owl! And for sure I saw it perched in a tree. But then we went closer and I saw it was just a small finch of a kind that's very common here. My friend said that he was really disappointed, he couldn't imagine me making a mistake like that.

Then there was a dream of a 'claymation' adventure with farm animals. There was a tame Meerkat as well, but I think it was the real thing, not clay.

There was a dream of me climbing a mountain ... it was a single immense stone slope with handholds only here and there. Before I could get all the way it got dark, and I slid down the entire slope which suddenly was very smooth and I had difficulty braking myself.

There was somewhere a dream in which I again was teaching some kids in a school in a very poor region of this country. I get that kind of dream a lot. This time I remember there was a helicopter that was missing the tail propellor and therefore couldn't fly straight. I had taken the propellor off and given it to one of the poor families. I think it was very valuable to them and they ended up hanging it up as a trophy in their house.

I love the propeller story. That's awesome.

Hi Dmitri, I'm glad you found it awesome! I'm hoping some of my dreams could give me ideas for story writing.

Last night's dreams were epic. There was one where I was in some kind of class ... school or university, I can't remember. There was a couple of 'tough' brothers, identical twins maybe. I got their respect with a ventriloquism act. I was actually able to control some of the students in the class as if they were ventriloquist dummies, making them move their lips while I spoke! Nobody in the class realised that I was speaking ... I was able to do it perfectly, even doing 'b' 'm' 'p' and 'v' sounds without moving my lips. But the one brother noticed the way I was breathing, and figured I was the one doing it!

Later, still at school. We were trained ... actually we were made to perform unpaid work for the school. But I had lost lots of classes and so didn't have the competence required. What did we have to do? Feed some kind of documents into a laminator. But it was a ridiculously difficult setup. The gap into which the paper and plastic covers needed to be fed, was about a hair's width. And if you missed it, the plastic and paper got crumpled. It was dastardly difficult ... the rest of the class had been practising it for years. I felt useless for failing at it. The teacher said I could quit and do something else ... I think it involved dangerous chemicals. But I declined the offer and retired to my room in a bit of a funk. I overheard a guy then ... can't remember what that was about. There was a scene later that I'd rather not report here.

Then I had a dream where I was getting shooting practice with the husband of one of my art class friends. We were shooting with rifles and revolvers, at targets. At a point it became impossible for me to pull the trigger. My friend managed it easily, though.

Another dream: I emigrated to Botswana with a bunch of friends, cannot even remember why we did that. It was a sort of 'trek' using cars and wagons, into the desert. I got worried when we were already well under way, for not even having told my sister what I was doing. We had no phones so I wasn't able to call her.

At some point Owen Wilson showed up. He was supposedly a charismatic leader of sorts but at the same time also quite pathetic. He had a bloody mouth with almost all his teeth gone ... one was hanging on by a thread and one of the people pulled it out, while he seemed to be experiencing great pain.

Can't remember more than that.

This gets curioser and curioser.

Hello Willem

It never ceases to amaze me how vivid and varied your dreams are, your sleeping mind has such imagination it makes truly fascinating reading.

I think your ability to recall is in fact very good. Do you think that your journal has helped in this respect?



Peanut

Hi Dmitri and Peanut! I do think this journal is helping me remember ... the mere discipline of keeping paper and pencil by my bedside table, and jotting down whatever I can remember whenever I wake up. And sometimes something happening later during the day can suddenly trigger a memory that I had completely forgotten until then. See below ...

There was a 'frame story' for last night's dreams: a Jumanji-like game that transported the players to strange places and scenes.

One I remember vividly: a slow and lazy savannah river with an extensive muddy bank, lined with trees. There were birds on the riverbank ... first I saw white-throated swallows ... beautiful little birds I've only seen a few times IWL. But then there were strange ones ... they looked like redbreasted swallows but had long, thin, red bills ... they looked like the swallows had been crossed with Ruddy Kingfishers!

And there were other strange creatures on the bank. Ibexes ... what's strange about this is that ibexes typically live on steep rocky mountains.

But even stranger were the Protoceras-es. They're extinct deer-like creatures that had eight low horns on their heads and faces! They haven't been around for over twenty million years.

There were people too and these were quite alien-looking. There was an entrance to a tunnel or a cave where the people entered and exited. The scene (as far as I can remember) ended there.

The Jumanji-game tended to think the players were cheating, upon which it would do something awful. One of the less awful things it actually did was to create a huge spiderweb in the back yard. It was quite beautiful actually.

There was somewhere a scene where I was simultaneously watering a plant and digging mud from the bed in which it was growing.

There was a scene, unconnected with the Jumanji-style game this time, in which I was growing plants with tubers. They were simultaneously the little gourds that I have in the plant house, and potatoes.

There was a scene ... and here I remembered it only much later ... where I was taking my socks off. But beneath them were more socks! I kept removing socks layer after layer ... it seemed there would be no end to the layers of socks! But after perhapts the twentieth or thirtieth layer I finally saw my feet again.

Last night's dreams:

I was at a board meeting ... there were investors, and also a friend of mine who's now in the insurance business. I then explained the concept of 'soul' to one of the people present ... can't remember any more why that was necessary. But I think it was about not compromising one's principles, and about the soul being the source of love, passion and appreciation.

I dreamt of my nephew Christiaan making an actual robot from old computer parts. I thought it was amazing and was very proud of him.

I dreamt I was at University. I ate some ancient meat ... it had been left open in a bowl on the floor for many days or even weeks, while I was elsewhere. I came back and saw it there on the floor in my room, and was hungry so I ate it. I feared it might make me sick but it didn't ... after all it was only dream meat, which can keep indefinitely.

In the University hostel, I happened to have a room right next to Michael Stipe, the lead singer of the band REM. He was a bit sickly so I asked him how he was doing, and he said OK. He stuck some sticks and leaves into his hair to sharpen his wits (in the dream he had hair). I thought it was a travesty that so few people knew who he was ... no-one at all to whom I said he was my neighbour seemed to regard it as interesting.

There was a dream of an absurdly tall guy. There was a dream where I played some old-school fighting computer games, and pulling off some nice combo moves.

There was a dream of a girl ... I think there was something Oprah Winfrey-ish about her ... who spoke of her mother's illness, it was a motor-neuron illness but she mispronounced it.