i had this terribly realistic dream. i hate dreams. it made me wake up at 4:54 and be wide awake for a few moments, with that post-nightmare feeling, the kind that used to make me paranoid that there was someone in the house, in the closet, anywhere. whenever i had that feeling at home i used to lie in bed perfectly still, too afraid too move, and my heart would pound... the feeling is different here in college, because my dorm room is so small.
the dream itself i barely remember. bridget and I -- bridget's my best friend from home whom i haven't seen in a while -- were somewhere strange: a big library? but it was kind of like an office building, too... at any rate, it was the middle of the night, and the building was very quiet and dark. but the main office of the building was still open, bright flourescent lights on, for all the people like bridget and me who wanted to buy their tickets (tickets for what?) at night. there was a vending machine in the office, or something, to buy the tickets from. i don't really remember.
all right... now, for some reason having to do with an earlier part of the dream which i totally don't remember, i decided to leave my clothes in the upstairs part of the building and walk around with an american flag wrapped around me like a dress, like a towel. earlier in the dream i think i was walking around naked completely, in the empty office/library building, before bridget was part of the dream.
so i was walking with bridget down to the main office where the tickets were, thinking about the thrill of wearing an american flag instead of clothes -- thrilling because i could get caught any moment. dangerous.
we go to the office. get our tickets. are just leaving when a security guard comes in! he is a little old man, kind of like the janitor at my old highschool (which bridget still goes to)... bridget just runs out of the room into the hallway -- but she has clothes on. i'm the one who's in trouble. i think as quickly as i can and dive underneath these big cardboard boxes in the office. so i'm lying flat on my stomach and a box is on top of me and a box is beside me -- so the guard can't see that i'm wearing an american flag instead of clothes. "What are you doing?" he asks.
i think as quickly as i can again and say, "I lost my contact lens!" and then proceed to pretend i'm searching frantically on the ground in front of me. he has a good view of my cleavage, i think, and it makes me uncomfortable so i put my arms on the floor in front of me (so they're blocking my cleavage), put my head down, and then start pretending to cry frantically, crying, "i don't know where it is! my dad's going to be so mad at me for losing it! it's expensive!," sob sob sob. i'm trying as hard as i can, as if my life depends on it -- because a naked girl in just an american flag walking around the library-thing at night would get in a lot of trouble. the security guard believes me and my contact lens story. he's very nice. he tells me not to cry, etc, feels bad... he even gets down and starts helping me look for my contact lens.
then he falls asleep or something, i don't remember, and i push the big cardboard box off me and walk past him, where bridget is waiting. "you know, you can be a very convincing actress if you try," she says. (i know bridget mostly from school plays). for part of my sobbing performance for the old guard, it was like i was so into i was sobbing for real. but for other parts i was just crying ridiculously, like a horrible melodramatic actor.
bridget is kind of disapproving about what i did, fooling the old man like that. i feel immediately guilty for doing it, too, as if it were a terrible thing to do. in fact, i become so distressed for fooling the nice old guard that i contemplate rushing home and confessing to my mom the horrible thing i did. i decide not to tell my mom, but i immediately go upstairs and put my real clothes back on.
that's all i remember. but it was such a strong, vivid dream. it was like a nightmare -- especially the intense distress and guilt at the end. terrifying. i hate dreams. i really hate them. i mean, what a weird dream! why have it at all? drives me crazy. it doesn't make ANY sense. at all. and i barely remember it. what's the point of having these elaborate things going on in my subconscious if i don't even remember them, or if i only half remember them?
