Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

I think I've been watching too much Buffy, as evidenced by a dream I had this morning after The Gryphon left for work. I don't know how much I can remember; it was a deeply textured dream, despite the fact that it could have only lasted less than an hour. I awoke, as planned, a few minutes before 9:30.

In the dream, I was with a group of friends, none of whom I know in either the waking world or the dreamworld.

(Incidentally, do you have dreamworld friends, people that you know in the dreamworld whom you don't know in the waking world? I do.)

But at any rate, I was with a group of strangers but in the dream they were my friends. We were at the mercy of some sort of evil forces who wanted us to battle for our lives against these creatures. I guess they were sort of like zombies, because they were supposed to come to life from these bones that had been left behind in a long wooden box.

Also left behind was an evil female henchman, who was taking a nap. Of course, the first thing I did was take the bones and scatter them, though I had a feeling it couldn't be that easy. I even threw some out of the room, hoping it would help. The bones, by the way, had transformed into silverware and staples. We kept the staples because we had a staple gun and it was pretty much our only weapon.

The henchman came around, and strangely enough, she looked like a friend of mine from the waking world, a friend who's taller and bigger than me. This is why I was surprised when she threw a spin kick and hit me in the face. Of course, she didn't hit me very hard, and I thought that perhaps she'd meant to pull the blow but had failed due to lack of control.

So I threw a sidekick to her face, stopping within a fraction of an inch. After a fight sequence, she left the room. We followed her like we were taking some sort of bathroom break. At this point it became clear that what was going on in the room was make believe, as if we were shooting a movie or something.

The guy who was playing the Giles type character — by now, you must know I was Buffy — was saying that a lot of my kicks were too low. He demonstrated by showing me in Bugs Bunny fashion, hitting the henchman while telling me where not to hit her. "Don't hit her like this. Don't kick her in the knees."

At one point, she slumped over, unconscious, as cuckoo clock sounds came out of nowhere, just like in a cartoon. Strangely enough, she no longer resembled my friend but just some anonymous henchman.

This is when the really weird part happened. I mean, weirder than the other stuff. I saw an overall view of the scene, an omniscient perspective. The person playing the henchman smiled to herself and muttered under her breath, "You don't know." Then she faded and in her place was a dragon like creature. The Giles character and I did not see this and were oblivious to it.

There are, of course, clear parallels to the seventh season of Buffy, which we've been watching lately, so I won't examine this one too closely.

At some point in the night, earlier I think, I dreamt about the Museum again. This time it was like I had been working for them all along, but out of my home. I went in and clocked in to do some sort of out of the office work.

At first I was nervous, because I thought no one would recognize me. I've lost about 70 pounds since I worked there. But one of the other people in marketing, who had always been friendly to me, recognized me right away and started talking to me like nothing had ever happened.

Then the Executive Director of the Museum came over and shook my hand and was really pleasant to me. The Chairman even came up. They were getting ready for some sort of Halloween party, and he was wearing fake teeth. He was in a great mood, and he shook my hand. Strange.

It was as if all the fear and the bad feelings that had always been associated with the Museum — hands down, the worst place I ever worked and the only one to ever lay me off — were suddenly gone. They were treating me civilly, the way every other employer I've had has done.

So it was a short dream, but a positive one. Come to think of it, I think these two dreams are related. They're both about conquering fear. In one, the highly symbolic one, I'm put in a room to face certain death and manage to conquer it through belief in my own abilities, the support of my friends, and humor. In the Museum dream, there's also an element of humor (the Chairman's fake teeth). And I'm greeted right inside the door by a friendly face. What's more, I marched right in there and faced my fears.

I think I'm on to something.

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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