Dream Syntax Drafts

2008

2008/0001 DREAM ABOUT A RICH CHILD MURDERER MAKING A COLONY

I'm out shopping at a huge ikea type mall with my mom when i bump into an old school friend of mine, presumably a bit distant, reminiscent of friends of raist who were at outram institute - the kind who are quite different but whenever you meet them you still have a good chat with them. what comes to mind is that one incident when i met raist's friends at a playground and they were smoking by the slide but i had the impression we had a pleasant conversation about very childish concerns which seemed at odds with them smoking at the playground to the consternation of the old folks and small children playing around us. anyway, the guy i meet at the mall asks me to come to an event and i agree.

fastforward and i'm suddenly we're sort of at where i live. it resembles nick's backyard, and there are animals around outside. the place is full of brown cardboard boxes and someone's come to pick me up because i'm moving somewhere else, but the boxes are all terribly full and heavy and the room is scattered with many papers - my precious old essays which i really wanted to reread when i had the time. i dont know what to keep to throw out, and yet i can't carry it all with me... but we really have to leave right now!

suddenly we're in a car, four of us, on the way to the new place i'm moving to, which is apparently a youth hostel type place. in the car i am struck by a persistent but vision of the front car passenger having their hair replaced by grass which grows out slowly. the person in front looks a little like rich. what i comprehend from this vision is that it must mean that the place that we are going to is of sinister portend - and that they murder children there. how i come to this conclusion from imagining my friend's hair growing out as grass, i do not know, but i'm pretty sure of the evils of the place i'm headed to.

in the car the passenger next to me gives me a colouring sheet with the outline of a building, and asks me to guess where we are going. i colour it in, and when i'm done, it transforms into the real life image of the place and we are there. the entire building is made up with doorways.

at this point i have the distinct impression that we are simply extras on a film set. lots of children like us are running around and unable to leave. (but then no one is really trying very hard to escape) i privately think to myself about how the director of this film is pretty lucky to own the building so that he can just use it to shoot his film in.

in the next scene, a young girl is jerking off with a sausage and like always the kids are all running wild around her. the rich child murderer/ film director / building owner who runs the panopticon colony of kids is repulsed at her show of sexuality. he leaves the room. the rest of the kids take turns to put a finger up her pussy. everyone licks their fingers as a pact to escape.

2008/0002 DREAM IN WHICH PRECOCIOUS KIDS DEFACE SELF-PORTRAITS

in this dream a small malay girl and a young strappy english lad are sitting in a van in a dark alley that is flanked by low buildings on both sides, which are on fire. the two of them have some magical powers and so they are being persecuted for it. they decide to "character assasinate" themselves so that they wont be pursued anymore - in this dream it turns out it can only be accomplished by shooting a picture of yourself in the face.

the malay girl smudges blood on her portrait and the boy shoots randomly into the air to test the gun before he shoots his portrait in the face. the sound of gunshots drives a toddler out of hiding, and a grown adult who resembles their psychic skills mentor runs out to get the toddler back to safety. the two investigate the identity of the toddler and the adult - who turns out to be their mentor's long lost brother. at this point there is a sound problem with the dream movie so i am unable to hear their conversation. it frustrates me because there is no pause button, no sound, and no rewind button. i just cannot seem to find the interface so i can get the sound working again!

fast forward and i'm suddenly in a car which is passing a large, verdant field full of what appears to be greek statues. someone in the car tells me that they were actually people once, who had been frozen in place by god. i dont believe it because the statues are all of different (far too different) sizes even when i take perspective into account.

i mean look at their heads. look at their heads!

2008/0003 DREAM IN WHICH SIGNS ASSURE US THAT GOD IS NOT A LUNATIC

in this dream there is a big black box in which god only allows people to copulate within this big black box. but no one can see who they're having sex with cause its all dark. so outside there is a sign, a sort of disclaimer, that states that God is not a lunatic. who put the sign up there? it is unclear, but the sign is poorly made. the shoddy workmanship suggests to me that it was made by some cruel, mad scientist.

2008/0004 DREAM ABOUT FREAKS PLAYING AT A GIG CALLED "FOOT JAM"

i was sitting at home, picking out a notebook for size, this mundane operation is taking me ages, but meanswhile i'm aware there's another music night going on elsewhere, but because i'm convinced it will be wank i am really slow to get up and go to the gig with simon, until its much later.

i finally arrive at the venue of "Foot Jam". it consists of a long corridor like alleybar with a stage concealed from the front entrance at the very back of the venue. the music sounds very mundane but i am surprised to see that the musicians are all FREAKS - and i mean deformed and physically malformed people. dwarfs and deformed folk with growths from their bodies. i arrive only in time to see the last act. there is a woman with a mushroom-like growth over her head and she is singing with a strange noise that doesn't come out of her mouth but from the hollow space of the fleshy mushroom cap on her head. she never opens her mouth but makes this unearthly humming tone, a bit like a singing bowl. besides the mushroom cap, she has asian features and an otherwise normal looking face.

after the night, we go outside the venue for a smoke. lots of malay punks are hanging around, and the blue dawn sky looms above me, which tells me that it must be quite an advanced hour in the night. out of the corner of my eye i notice saito sitting in a corner somewhere behind where i have sat on the ground. sitting on the gravel pavement and really bored, i attempt to roll a bottlecap in the direction of the bar again. it rolls to the front of the building next to the bar.

2008/0005 DREAM IN WHICH WE GO TO A PARTY BUT REALISE THEY ARE ONLY SELLING SHAMPOO

me and juhee are at a performance screening. it is ending and we are thinking of places to go to after. juhee gets heads up that there's something being organised by some "really underground" japanese. and so we go to this so called party.

its underground alright, quite literally in a basement, but as for the party, the japanese people are standing around and the shelves are full of a shampoo from a brand called HUMPDIFF. i recognise the brand name, and realise that they are trying to sell it to me, by emphasising how underground and obscure and thus trendy this shampoo is. i pretend to agree with them, but then immediately regret even making any positive remarks to them when i realise its just another form of MLM, which i abhor in all forms.

i feel really tired, and decline their invitation to go downstairs to see more. ("WHAT? MORE SHAMPOO?") i collapse in the sofa instead for a rest because i dont feel like socialising anymore. a black guy who's a lot like jude joins me and tries to chat with me but the conversation feels really forced, like that time when i was trying to talk to the taiwanese kids but i was in a bad mood. cultural differences multiplying our awkwardness and disparity in moods tenfold...

2008/0006 DREAM IN WHICH PARALEGALS BREAK A VOID DECK PARTY AND I ALMOST MAKE "HANGING TOFU FLAVOUR NOODLES"

there's a party at a void deck. tall ceiling, pink light (like our room used to be), smoke swirling, details now all fuzzy (as with all parties). but people i knew from my junior college were all there (including all those more chinese-inclined folks).

we're in the midst of hanging a disco strobe light up when the police come to break up the party. actually i'm not even sure if its the police; i have a sneaky feeling they're paralegal and nothing more, but anyway with the disruption its clear that the party has to end and i suppose its time for some instant noodles instead! a sort of mundane MSG-laden come-down, i reckon. so i run around asking everyone what instant noodle flavour they fancy, but everyone has a totally different answer? how very troublesome for the host of a party! i realise that it would have been better and more ordely if i had simply made the noodles without giving people a choice of flavours. who cares about what people wants! if i make food they better all damn well eat it because i'm tired of this!

notably, one of the instant noodle flavours in this dream, was "hanging tofu" flavour noodle. this was depicted on the pack of singaporean-brand instant noodles with two tofu pieces being hung up on pieces of string and the big happy words: "Hanging Tofu Flavour"

2008/0017 FRAGMENT IN WHICH I'M AT A SINGAPORE IDOL REHEARSAL

i am attending a singapore idol rehearsal and i'm shocked to see that all the contestants are actually bald eyeless baby heads mounted on a shelf and singing, endlessly, like some freakshow. when its their turn to perform, someone pops the baby heads into a human suit and the bald babyheads take control of their surrogate bodies like a puppetmaster controls its dancing puppet.

2008/0019 DREAM IN WHICH MY INCREDIBLY SENTIENT PET HORSES SURVIVE DESPITE MY FAILURE TO FEED THEM

in this dream, i suddenly recall that i have 3 horses locked away in a stable and 2 weeks have passed since i last tended to them (having clean forgotten my duties)

2009

2009/0004 DREAM IN WHICH I'M ON A BUS AND I REALISE SOMETHING ABOUT LOVE

on a double decker bus. alex is in the backrow, simon and me and sitting in a weird corner seat on the 2nd floor near the stair.

2009/0909 DREAM IN WHICH I EAT A STEAMBOAT WITH AN OLD FRIEND BUT IN THE PAST

this is a dream where i have gone to a friend's birthday party but this entire dream happens in the past. i am aware its all from the past and not happening right now or in a future time but in some past, as i relive it. my old friend has a hard face, olive skin, she is thin and is wearing a black frumpy skirt. she does design too and all her other friends are PRCs, and we're at her house eating a seafood steamboat.

she reminds me of lingling, hanging her arm around my neck tightly. she tells me that she went to KL to meet her client recently. "in that same dress?" i ask her, incredulously. "yeah! who cares" she laughs.

2009/0910 DREAM IN WHICH I GO TO A LANGUAGE SCHOOL AND DO A STUDY ON CUTLERY RACKS

in this dream, i'm attending a language school, which has a big sign outside its premises saying "LEARN CHINESE, MALAY, BAHASA, ALADDINISMS, ETC." however, after the language lesson (of which i remember nothing of), i attend another talk in the school about shopping malls and consumerism, and for this class i decide to embark on a comparative study of placement of cheap cutlery racks and how location of these cutlery racks affects the amount of food purchased at a foodcourt. one approach to this study, i am thinking to myself, is how we should hide these cutlery racks to see at to what degree will people search for the free takeaway cutlery which they take for granted for. will people give up and stop buying food there if they have no cutlery? or will they simply find other cheap cutlery to do the job? we will only find out after i conduct my study...

2009/1009 DREAM IN WHICH I ASK A STRANGER TO TAKE ME HOME AND LAUNDRY SOAP LEAKS ONTO WINE GLASSES

i'm on some public transport when i realise that i'm being followed and can't go home. i tell this to some random guy i meet on the train and ask if he can take me in for the night. he agrees, puzzledly, and we continue to take the train towards his house instead. we switch to a connecting bus after that. on the bus ride he puts his arm around my waist, unexpectedly. i think about how easy it seems to make an initial connection until you have to find out more about the person and then people invent all sorts of complications in their heads. baggage.

when we get to his house the washing machine is going insane and there's a leaky packet of laundry soap dripping into a rack of wine glasses which are supposed to be clean and the centre isle in the kitchen is strewn with bits of rocket and breadcrumbs.

2009/1011 DREAM IN WHICH I AM TRAVELLING THROUGH KOREA AT NIGHT AND GO TO IKEA

i'm on a school trip to what i vaguely perceive to be korea. it is night time and i'm outdoors trying to locate some small street which i remember through memory. the scene is impressive and the buildings are tall and well-lit - like some HDB land, but there is much more open space between buildings, and there are large carparks. i walk around a number of these blocks until i see some lights in a clearing in the corner. it is the row of shophouses i was looking for and i walk up and inside - it is a gambling den and the lights are green and smokey.

i look at my watch and its time to get back to the hostel. i get a ride home with simon and some parental/guardian figures (who are asian but distinctly not my parents). me and simon kiss and fool around in the back of the car; its almost like we've met for the first time all over again.

when we get to the hostel though, simon is living in another hostel room and has to do something else, so i sit at my computer practicing my chinese or some other foreign double-byte language with a keyword program like anki (the same way i've been practicing russian), but im really just thinking of him instead. but i am patient. aaron (colleague who sits directly behind me in real life) and alain (colleague who always comes to talk to aaron in the office) are also sitting in the same room, directly behind me, and they are chatting about something in chinese.

fast forward suddenly, and i'm sitting on the floor/front lobby of ikea korea. and i've found sets of alphabet blocks. i've only got letters to spell the words "BUY STUFF". which is pretty limited. i rearrange the alphabets to form the words "NO FEE" (inexplicably and illogically) but the point of this is that the letters are limited and the words which i can form from it are all pretty boring ("No Fee" being the tag line for a banking advert i've been working on for the last two weeks). a small caucasian child runs up next to me with another set of alphabet blocks. she appears to be german and she's got the german set, which instead of having the letters "NOFEE", has the letters "ARRAM". at this point the parental/guardian figures appear again, to tell me that the transport is leaving soon and i have to go with them. the german mother has also appeared to retrieve the german child, and she notes that my set of alphabet blocks are english rather than korean - despite the fact that ikea hands out alphabet blocks according to mother tongue. i laugh and say out loud, "did you really mistake me for being korean?"...

2009/1012 DREAM ABOUT F1 GUNMAN AND CO-OPTING MISDIRECTED MAIL PARCELS FROM THE SCOTTISH ARCHIPELAGO

we live in big carpark. but the attack of an f1 car racing gunman rouses us early that morning. we are all evacuating the carpark. delayed breakfast time will be eating into classess, so we are going for brekfasts si nthe morning with friends (abby, peow, jamie, etc - friends on the periphery) most of them only have time to go for coffee but i got free period before class and so does simon. on the way out i find a cheap electronic game called tour de france on a table.

you were intially lost from the main group so i ring you up and so i find you standing outside discount shoppe. your hair is 2x as big as usual. its so big you actually hold it up with one pin. when you take out the pin the curls expands even bigger and its pink hued at the ends. it looks perfectly normal to me. you had gone to the postoffice discount shoppe and bought some misdirected mail parcels

orkney islands mail plate from debbie wheeler to cheryl linn li you were going to give that that to your parents

outer and inner hebrides mail we lived in area called hebrides in london the item inside was two homemade turkey evil eye teardrops got lost and ended up here

we go to the cafe and order a pink beer to start the morning.

2009/1013 DREAM ABOUT LITTLE ALAN'S HOUSE AND SOME PERANAKAN ACTORS

for some odd reason i find myself in small alan's house. it is actually his mother's house where he has gone to visit for a couple of months, but since it was in the area i popped by. the conversation is rather intense and his gaze is particularly piercing. something odd shifts in the atmosphere. i go to the washroom at the back where there is a coal stove and some children running around in a sepia toned building. when i return inside he is gone. on his sofa is a bespectacled actress (with a headdress like the prince in Katamari Damacy), the actress pamela oei, and mark's cycling classmate. they are all peranakan and apparently waiting for small alan's mother (in the dream, i recall being told by small alan that his mother is peranakan - altho this is patently not the case in real life)