Null Terminator

I have to preface this entry by explaining who Null Terminator is. Null Terminator is a composer, a sort of kindred spirit to myself, whom I have been working with on and off for some time now on a forthcoming album of electronic music. But there is another Null Terminator. He is the protagonist of the story set forth in the album. He is a sort of space age superhero, granted authority in the late twenty-second century by the Catholic Federation to use lethal force against any of a select group of evildoers, one of whom is called Sentinel, another of whom is called The Void Star.

A week or two ago I dreamed that I was Null Terminator, and I was fighting against both Sentinel and The Void Star simultaneously using advanced martial arts techniques. For some reason, I was also fighting against Batman and Robin and Jackie Chan. They had all ganged up on me in the hopes that through sheer force they might be able to take me down.

Nevertheless, I summarily trounced them, every last one.

~   ~   ~

I should point out that although this entry is very short, the dream was in fact quite long, and the battle was basically just one long sequence of them trying to punch and kick me, me blocking every last attack, and then at the end me incapacitating them with a single blow. Thus, I have tagged it as Important (Long).

The Hand that 30 Rocks the Cradle

Several nights ago, I dreamed that the final season of 30 Rock found the show reinvented as a "Political Intrigue/Science Fiction Thriller Serial Drama." The secret behind Jack Donaghy's success was revealed to be the fact that he is actually a set of identical triplets posing as a single person. Each Jack's personality, of course, was fashioned according to the treatment he received from his dear old mother, who for some reason deemed it appropriate to pick favorites. At the beginning of the final sequence of episodes, Liz Lemon and Good Jack were on the run from Evil Jack, who presumably intended to take over the world or destroy it or something along those lines. I cannot recall whether I knew the whereabouts of the third Jack or whether he was good or evil, but I have an inkling that Evil Jack killed him. Of course, this means he's probably going to do the old deus ex machina thing and turn up alive and well in the final episode so he can help Liz and Good Jack save the day.

I can't decide if I actually want this version of the show to exist or not.

A Dead Stag

A stag fell dead, for the ebb of ethereal grief tis quicksilvered blood.

The sea rolled back upon its rearward edge
and pressed against a hidden one as you
eftsoon cut to the quick a quickthorn hedge
to form the stormcloud's silver lining true

Ghost Tag

I was trapped inside some kind of haunted mansion or castle or something. Trapped there with me were a small number of others with whom I had not been acquainted prior to my present predicament.

One of these others was some kind of military soldier. I can't remember his name now, so we'll just call him Smith. In any case, he seemed a very well seasoned soldier, potentially a valuable ally to me, and so I tried to remain on his good side.

There was also a young lady named Miss Laverne, who turned out to be an experienced lawyer. For some reason that I can no longer remember, she was helping me with some important paperwork that I needed to finish. I was very happy for the help, and she wasn't unpleasant company by any means.

As she was a lawyer, I can't help but compare her appearance to that of Ellen Parsons from the TV series Damages. But she wore glasses, maybe kind of like Gemma Taylor from The Rage in Placid Lake.

Miss Laverne looked kind of like this...

...but with these glasses. Ignore the guy on the right. He wasn't in this scene.

There were a number of others, but their details are all shrouded by the ether now.

The layout of the mansion itself was vaguely like that of my grandmother's house, but its actual features were more like the interior of Hogwarts. That is, there were portraits on the wall that moved and talked, just like regular people. The people depicted in these portraits were, in fact, spirits of some import.

For instance, one of them was a blonde-haired young lady in a dress. The label on this portrait read, "Satan."

The others and I systematically approached these portraits one by one and spoke with the spirits contained within them. Each time we did so, an apparition of some kind appeared and chased us around for a little while before vanishing without having done any real harm.

Well, after one such little chase, we noticed that one of our companions had disappeared. Soon thereafter, we received an anonymous letter informing us that he had been kidnapped and that the kidnapper was demanding four million dollars.

After we approached the Satan portrait, a ghost of a tall, old, balding man in a white shirt and jeans chased us around. After a while, I realized that one of those old-timey telephones that you see in cartoons was sitting on the dining room table, and it was ringing.

It's for you.

I ignored the ghost as it chased the others. I answered the phone. It was Miss Laverne.

"Hello?" I said.

"This is Miss Laverne," she said.

I looked around and noticed that both Laverne and Smith were gone.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"I have kidnapped Smith," she said.

"Why?"

"I will return him in exchange for four hundred thousand dollars."

"What?"

She hung up.

The ghost had disappeared by this time, and so I informed the others that the kidnapper had turned out to be Miss Laverne.

But then I started thinking about this little development.

Why would she kidnap somebody and ask for four million, only to turn around and kidnap another somebody and ask for four hundred thousand?

Also, why would she tell us who she was, especially considering that the first note was anonymous? It seemed the sort of stupid move that might be made by some thick-headed high school gym coach, not a sexy lawyerbrarian. Something strange was afoot, and I was going to get to the bottom of it.

~  ~  ~

Actually, I never got to the bottom of it. Sadly, I woke up from the dream. I like to think that Miss Laverne was actually being framed by the ghosts of the mansion. Actually, now that I think about it, it might have been one of those Scooby-Doo villains masquerading as a ghost who had tried to frame her. But I guess I'll never know unless I dream up a sequel.

As for whether or not Rose Byrne actually played the role of Miss Laverne in this dream, I don't believe she did. I believe it was just someone who looked kind of like her. A Rose Byrne lookalike, sort of in the same sense that Carly Foulkes might be considered an Anne Hathaway lookalike.

I mention this only because on occasion some of the characters in my dreams actually are portrayed by particular movie stars. For instance, once when I was in high school, I had a dream about the lost empire of Atlantis, and as it happened, the top ranking Atlantean general was played by Sam Neill. He had golden armor and wings and could fly.

A Portrait of the Clarinet as a Political Weapon

Last night I dreamed that I was working on a computer program of some kind, and upon achieving some measure of success with it, I was accused of being a hacker. Insisting that I was not seemed futile. My accusers persisted with their lies.

I found a clarinet somewhere and started to play it. I don't play the clarinet, really. I took a woodwind class years ago in which I was required to play one a little, but I don't actually know how to play it properly. Nevertheless, I discovered that I was not entirely terrible. Although I was only messing around with it, a crowd soon gathered around me to listen to my playing.

I stopped to explain to the kids in the crowd what the instrument was and its basic functionality. Knowing, however, that the kids would soon grow bored if I talked for too long, I jumped right into another piece of music.

Miraculously, this time I had a band accompanying me. I also realized suddenly that I was the greatest clarinetist who ever lived. We jumped right into it: at about 160 beats per minute, I played an extended lead part consisting of constant sixteenths with occasional triplets to mix it up. We ramped up the intensity and increased the tempo very gradually, until at last the band dropped out, and I finished off with two full measures of a relentless barrage of notes: sixteenth triplets first, finishing off with a flurry of thirty-secondths.

The band joined in again, and I tossed the clarinet to a nearby roadie. I started to sing. The lyrics are gone now, but they had something to do with finding a place where I could be at peace.

The melody was something like this:

After a single verse, the song was over, and everyone cheered until my accusers had no choice but to leave me alone lest the mob tar and feather them.

~  ~  ~

Ordinarily I reserve the label "Important (Long) Dreams" for those dreams that I flesh out into a sort of short short story. I didn't do that here, because I am busy. In any case, this dream felt important, and thus it should have been so fleshed out. I might have written some notes down for later blogging purposes, but usually what happens when I do that is that the dream never really gets translated into blog form at all. So I opted to write it more simply as I have done above.

I do sometimes dream about writing or playing music or both. What is interesting to me is that the music is usually not bad at all. I'm not sure what exactly this suggests about the human mind and how creativity is related to the subconscious, but it seems to suggest something. I don't know a lot about psychology or neurological anatomy, but as far as I can tell, the subconscious parts of the human brain are not altogether separate or distinct from the parts involved in creating artwork. Or the parts that create artwork are not turned off whilst in a dreamspace.

I also don't know why I played the clarinet in this dream. I play the guitar quite well, so why didn't I play that?

If one of my hundreds of thousands of readers who have extensive experience in the relevant fields would kindly give me some insight, I would be much obliged.

Destiny

In the near future, after our precariously balanced civilization of comfort and individualism has succumbed to the ravages of nuclear war, we will find ourselves desperately trying to survive and rebuild within a tribal society of raiders and looters. There will be no iPhones or iPads or wi-fi networks or anything at all that allows you instantly to get step by step directions from Fallbrook to Brawley.

It will not be complete anarchy. There will still be rulers of sorts. They'll call themselves whatever they want--chieftains, sheiks, kings--but no one will have any greater rightful claim to power than any other. Muscle will matter a great deal more than it does now. Intellect will not appear to matter any longer, although this will be an illusion. The real leaders will still be those with brains, but it will be all the more necessary to cultivate more immediate forms of personal protection.

At least, this is the way it will be where I end up.

When I arrive in the community where I eventually flourish, the local ruler will call himself a King. His Queen will already be dead by the time I come onto the scene. How she has died, I will not at first know, though I expect that sooner or later that detail, presumably an important one, will become clear.

In this community, like every other, all of the men and boys will care only about practicing their fisticuffs and wrestling and occasionally their trash talking. I will be the single solitary exception. Some of the other men will attempt to take advantage of me.

They will wish they hadn't.

I will belong to the brainy minority. I'll spend my time observing the others to find their vulnerabilities. I'll search for ways to circumvent the immediate need for muscle. I'll make them understand that though my frame is slender and my demeanor makes robbery tempting, I am not to be trifled with.

I will also understand on some rudimentary level that the extreme winds are produced as a direct or indirect side effect of the radiation from the war. I will not understand the details of why this is, but I'll understand enough to know that it can be reversed.

I will find a long red blanket in the wilderness. The strong winds will seem to think that it is a sail. I'll let the wind take the blanket from me, and miraculously it will return directly to me with another blanket in tow. This one will be at least four times my own body length. Why the men of the future will determine to make blankets so much longer than they are at present, I do not understand now, nor will I understand it later.

I will go inside the campsite with my blankets, and a lady of the King's court will try to take the longer one from me, but I'll wave her off, saying, "No, I've got it."

I will make my way around the group of boys practicing their fighting, rhythmically circling each other with fists clenched and chanting on their tongues like a song and dance from an age long gone but now returned, a dodo rising from the ashes of an eagle. I'll turn a blind eye to their absurdity. I'll understand the necessity of their foolishness. Every machine needs cogs and wheels.

I will stop at the entrance to the central keep. I'll listen at the door, for I'll suspect that the lady just inside is talking about me with one of my brothers. Satisfied that no foul play is afoot, I'll enter.

The King--he'll remind me of the King from the Wizard of Id--will ask for wood. The brawny men, obedient as they are, will bring him a heap of scrap lumber that they'll find scattered all over the wilderness. One man in particular, a large, bald, shirtless, hairy man, in fact a craftsman of some sort, will push the heap onto the central fire.

A cloud of smoke will explode from the fire. A chessboard will emerge. Another miracle.

One of the rooks on the board will have a red tag that reads, "Private." The men will try to touch it, but it will evade their grasp, darting footlessly about the board, between pawns, along the lines dividing rank and file, outside the boundaries. No one will be able to seize it.

I will approach and perform another miracle of my own. I will take the rook in my hand.

I will not be surprised or caught off my guard. The King will be angry. I'll see it coming.

"I will give it to you," I'll say, offering the rook to him. He won't hear me in his fury.

"I will give it to you," I'll say again. But again he won't hear.

It won't matter. The final miracle is still to come.

The departed Queen will coalesce from wisps of smoke and hover over the chessboard.

"No," she'll say, "it belongs to me." She'll challenge the King to a game of chess. He'll approach the chessboard to defend himself, but his time will soon come to an end.

Why will the rook be subject to me? I won't understand it at first. All I'll understand is that I am something special, that there is something extraordinary and terrible about me. The others will fear me, and I'll even come to fear myself. They'll begin to call me King. This, I'll understand, is and always was my destiny.

Aliens and Robots and Pianos

So last night my dreams were pretty unremarkable, mostly just involving gunfights with aliens and robots. I mean, don't get me wrong. I enjoy that kind of dream action as much as the next guy, but it makes for pretty uninteresting reading in a blog, wouldn't you say?

It's pretty straightforward the way these dreams go.

Run, shoot, shoot, run, dodge, shoot, run, dive around corner, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, run, shoot, shoot, and so on...

I was battling aliens. And I mean the aliens from the movie Aliens. One of my teammates was a Predator. You know, like from Predator. So one could say that it was like an Aliens vs. Predator dream. But I never saw that movie. I never wanted to see it. Why am dreaming about this stuff?

There was, however, one pretty nice moment where I was standing on top of a door frame and shooting straight down into the head of the alien mother queen. She didn't like it very much.

An angry alien

"Walter was right about you," she said. I don't know who Walter is, but I think that he must have been another alien that I'd fought in another dream on an earlier night. They're conspiring against me.

Anyway, I awoke early this morning with only this to go on, so I went back to sleep hoping for something a bit more bloggable. What I got was more shooting, except this time with the Big Daddy robots from Bioshock.

A big daddy. Is this better or worse than aliens?

Run, shoot, shoot, run...

Back to sleep again, and this time I got something about helping the secretaries at a temp agency move their stuff from their old office into a new one. In particular, they had a baby grand piano that needed transporting. I could tell they were waiting for me to volunteer to move the piano myself, but I didn't want to do it unless they were going to pay me for the work. My services aren't free, darn it.

Come on, subconscious. I need some good dreams here. You know... good ones.