Dreams

JAIME'S WEIRD DREAMS ILLUSTRATED AND EXPLAINED

During Covid, people on lockdown started to notice their dreams were getting more surreal, probably because their fear was up but they were not getting the usual stimulation of leaving the house. During that time, Jaime began keeping a dream journal. Which became fodder for illustrations. Click on the images to enlarge.

DREAM #123

I had this weird dream. I'm wanted by the authorities. I know I need to get out of NYC to hide, but every time I go to Penn Station to buy a train ticket, they are waiting for me. I wonder if there are other ways out of the city that don't involve buying a train ticket. Just then, a man is touting his invention, a clear sphere you can sit in and it can fly you around. He's selling tickets to try it. No one bites. I ask him if it can fly me to Boston. I get in. Inside, it is all circle magnets I couldn't see from the outside. The magnetic field holds me suspended in the air. I am vaguely aware this might be bad for my health.

I take the trip and land somewhere exotic where there are elephant rides. Knowing we should try to blend in, the inventor and I sign up for the rides. The elephants walk through the mud. There is a tourist couple behind us. The man is complaining about something obvious, maybe that the elephants are dirty. We have to climb some tall, outdoor, wooden stairs to make our reservation and pay. They give us a bunch of vegetable scraps -- to feed to the elephants, presumably. We get on our elephants, side by side, and wait. I wake up.

DREAM #267

I had this weird dream. An Audrey Hepburn character is in China and does some illegal gambling. Her winnings are given in pieces of paper that she can trade in for cash. If she is seen by the police as having these papers, they’ll know she was illegally gambling. She goes somewhere to get the money, but it’s not going to plan. It’s slow and people are suspicious. Then Ricky Grover shows up and starts beating people up.

DREAM #27

I had this weird dream. A man hears a tire explode. He thinks it's terrorists and he runs away. When he believes he's escaped certain death, he has such joy. He brings this joy home to his kids and lives a better life. There had been a trumpet player on the scene. He says there is said to have been a trumpet player spotted wandering the rubble after the towers fell on 9/11, so it is believed that wherever this trumpet player is spotted, there is an act of terror not far away.

DREAM #213

I had this weird dream. I was in some kind of tall, glass hotel or prison, possibly a guest or maybe I worked there. It was my first day and I was excited, until I saw how much it was malfunctioning. One cell couldn't get water. There were problems with the elevator. I was in my room when, in the room next to me, the window smashed open and out fell a long creature, like an ice dragon. I believed that the room malfunctioned to expel the dragon, the guest, as opposed to the dragon breaking the glass on purpose. I escaped the hotel and we were suddenly at war, with tanks and military people. I now understood what it was like to have your home unexpectedly under attack.

DREAM #14

I had this weird dream. I'm taking a walking tour of Jurassic Park. I don't see any dinosaurs but I do see a polar bear trying to dig up an upside down Brita water filter pitcher that had been buried. I remember thinking if we get stranded out here, we'll be able to drink purified water.

DREAM #204

I had this weird dream. I am on a skinny island or isthmus like Rockaway with family members and workmates, as well as a wicked character played by Jennifer Jason Leigh. A patch of sky near the horizon turns red like sunrise, but it's actually a wall of water or a thick tornado. We realize it's a tsunami and try to run the other way, but that side is already flooded. I tell everyone to climb on the roofs. Water is smashing all around us. When the water finally calms and recedes, I look down the chimney at the bad lady who lies there saying "spoon" over and over. I toss down a spork to confuse her. She is beaten.

DREAM #271

I had this weird dream. I’m in a field watching helicopters carry sharks to the cliff edge and feed them to huge water monsters. Young office underlings arrive and must run across the field, but they seem to know that they’ll probably die doing this job. Afterwards, the boss is explaining her business to her fancy guests, who are sitting in the grass. A tear forms in my eye. She sees it and says it’s inappropriate. I pretend I don’t know she is talking to me. I don’t let the tear fall. I feel like I have power over her in this way

DREAM #38

I had this weird dream. I was staying in a house. I had a crappy room on the first floor, but after staying there a while I remembered there is a huge attic no one is using. I had to climb up a narrow shoot to get up there. There were several rooms and lots of nice places to read. There was a dog tied up. My roommate came up to remind me that the bathroom was filled with 8 alligators, as well as pigeons. He was planning to show the house to sell it and needed to downplay the alligators, as they come with the house.

DREAM #340

I had this weird dream. Leland Stottlelmeyer from Monk is a journalist or undercover cop spying on an Amish girl who works with her family in the mines. They don’t know anyone else is around for miles. But then a tornado comes, and Leland seeks refuge in the only he place can, the mines, with the Amish family. They don’t understand where he could have come from. To distract them from their questioning, he digs into his bag and offers the girl some fancy cheeses. After a while, he senses she is tiring of the cheeses, but he doesn’t know what else to do, so he keeps taking out more cheeses.

DREAM #200

I had this weird dream that I was in the afterlife with lots of dead people and I would go to a cafe to hang with other regulars there. The tree in the cafe was growing too much, and there was an argument about which fruit it was that grew on it. Maybe strawberries.

DREAM #26

I had this weird dream. I voted in the election, but after you vote, you "get to" be put in a room for a minute with your choice of celebrity from a particular Christian rock band, which consists of a pretty blonde girl who hates Christians and a giant talking tortoise. I picked the tortoise because I was scared of the people. I got to vote multiple times and always chose the tortoise.

DREAM #40

I had this weird dream. Mom and Dad are vacationing in India so I am staying with a family with two boys and two awful parents. The younger boy is a secret agent who is actively trying to kill me. I keep calling my parents' cell, but I only get recordings of them doing church ceremonies. When my mom finally picks up, she asks if they should end their India vacation early and come home. I say no but that I plan to run away from this awful family. I have a car full of my colored yarn. In the end, part of the house turns into a car, so I drive away in that and shoot the younger brother into outer space.

DREAM #377

I had this weird dream. I was at a fancy party. There was an indoor inground pool with a walrus-sized parasite swimming in it. The ground around the pool was white carpet. I accidentally spilled my soda on the white carpet. I started yelling “Vacuum!” over and over until someone got a handheld vac with a hose. I did a neat trick where I put a Kleenex on the end of the hose and quickly sucked up the soda with no stains.

DREAM #398

I had this weird dream. David and I are at UW-La Crosse. Behind our lockers, there is an open door that leads to the back of the zoo where animals are stored in cages, like backstage at a circus. The door to the chimp cage is open and they leave. I try to call 911, but I just get hold music. I run back to David and shout “Call 911!” He gets through, and I tell the cops on the phone that two chimps escaped the zoo. There is a big hunt with helicopters and SWAT.

DREAM #1

I had this weird dream. Two brothers are driving a truck that has records instead of wheels. It grinds them down fast. Once it gets to the label, they can't drive it anymore. They are halfway home and have no wheels, so they have to sleep in the truck, or possibly a bathtub.

DREAM #180

I had this weird dream. There was a BOOM, and the world shook. Then suddenly there were these 12-inch moths on the surface of everything. My parents said their roofer had warned them this would happen.

DREAM #202

I had this weird dream. I was studying abroad in a war-torn country like Yemen or Afghanistan, except they had hippos. Things were getting less and less safe. I heard that there were 500 European tourists yesterday, and when they got to their hotel today, there were only 300. To get to school, I’d walk. The area near me was dangerous. It was night, and a young American guy was walking ahead of me. He turned left into a steep driveway that led to some bins. For some reason, I followed right behind. I saw it was a dead end and that a man was hiding there. I feared he’d jump out and mug us, but it was the white guy who pulled a knife on the hiding man. I ran away before he saw me. I met up with classmates, also on their way to school, and told them what I saw. They agreed it was a dangerous neighborhood. Then we turned down one street and it was a beautiful autumn day, the path lined with turning oak trees. My friends from back home wanted to visit me here, but I didn’t think it was a good idea. I thought about leaving this country but didn’t know where to go. This was just he world now, a violent, unsafe space where you had to be scared all the time from now on.

DREAM #392

I had this weird dream. I had a parasite in my eye. IT was a full-size praying mantis, and when I grabbed it, the leg pulled off. I kept trying to pull it off my eyeball without blinking, but whatever part I grabbed (head, leg, arm) just came off because its feet were sticking really hard to my eye.

DREAM #347

I had this weird dream. I’m in a Halloween-themed underground shopping center. I have to battle an electronic brontosaurus who keeps biting me. Then some shaman hands me a small plate of ceramic soldiers and a tiny axe and says I must smash them up. I maim each one once. I take the leader’s leg off as well as the front leg of his camel. My opponent says I’ve ruined his next move but is impressed I’ve made Jesus symbolism by giving the leader 2 arms and one leg, like the cross; however I should have cut the back leg of the camel, not the font, to keep with the symbolism.

DREAM #196

I had this weird dream. A bunch of us are being chased around a little room by two dumpling monsters. When they catch one of us, they torture him by putting donuts and pizza on a heater and make him smell how good it is but not allowed to eat.

DREAM #0

I had this weird dream. I'm at a someone's house for a little dinner party. The meeting around the table feels a little like a seance. Then suddenly a cup of tea starts floating in the air and everyone freaks out.

DREAM #232

I had this weird dream. I'm working in an office building and Bill Nighy is one of the bosses. Every once in a while, he turns into a zombie and I have to lock myself in the boiler room for days. One time, when I get to the boiler room, a wolf is there. I am holding a jar of bees, so I throw it at the wolf, who is charging at me, and the bees carry the yelping wolf up and out the window.

DREAM #146

I had this weird dream. Everyone is running in panic from our burning city. I find a boy and we go on an adventure together to escape. I have some red-purple juice in my fridge and give it to him in moderation, which he drinks happily. We find his mother. She says to me, “Rosencranz and Guildenstern are terrible names,” to which I reply, “Yes, I’ve always thought so.” I find this incongruous because she’s not from Western culture. Then one night, I’m looking up at the nearest planet. It’s close enough to see the surface. I hear cheering and I notice that there are lights turning on on the planet’s surface. They are in a grid pattern like manmade lights. They spread quickly and fill the shape of continents. We have found alien life! But then I realize the shape of the continent are our continents. The cheers hush. Suddenly, we are there, hovering above the planet’s surface like we’re on a roller coaster, dipping down to get a better look and then going up again. I read the word DINER on the outside of the diners. I instantly understand that he aliens have modeled it all after our world because I don’t believe for a second that they naturally evolved to English just as we had. Then I notice everything repeats, just as it does when you drive across country. A diner here, then another diner in the next town over. I am disappointed by this. Then we are taken in low and see that he only creatures in the towns are foxes and chimps. Someone on my roller coaster says, “Of course! Foxes call and chimps gift – that’s all a society needs.” I see a chimp gift a handful of flowers to a fox. I realize that the aliens are not living here and don’t intend to. They have made a copy of our world for us. Then I think of powerplants and wonder whether all the infrastructure that destroyed our world was included in this copy. Why not give us a pristine green Earth, not another one where we’ll keep mining oil and start it on fire again. I am a little disappointed. Then I am on the ground of the new world in a copy of my home. The little boy and his mother are here. I open my fridge to find the half jug of red-purple juice just as I’d left it on Earth! The boy grabs the jug and chugs half of it. His mother says to me, “Rosencranz and Guildenstern are terrible names,” which I find incongruous on an alien world. I say, “Yes, I always thought so.” And I understand the tour is over. We live here now.